Author: Bobby Ang
Date: 19:36:37 12/17/01
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On December 17, 2001 at 14:24:09, John D. Conte, Jr. wrote: >Other than all the internet capabilities this new professional program has. >Does anyone know any of the newer features. Also, the research I did on it, >which shows very little out there, it has stated it's not much stronger than >Fritz 6. The elo strength that I'm looking for is in the analysis; not >necessary the playing portion. >John Conte, Jr. >Director/North Providence Chess Club & Certified Local USCF TD >Thanks!! Since your question concerns Fritz7 analysis, maybe I am qualified to answer it. I write a chess column for BusinessWorld (Philippines) and have served a few times as coach of our national team sent to compete abroad. As such, I buy chess programs not for playing the engines against each other, but 95% of the time to load the engine into Chessbase for analysis purposes, and I have kept myself up-to-date since Fritz1/Chessbase 4 way back in the 1992 Manila Olympiad. Fritz has usually been my favorite engine, but when hardware became faster (this was when AMD 750Mhz kicked in) some of the lower-node engines really started showing their capabilities. For a very long time HiArcs7.32 became my engine of choice, even though I had Junior 6, Fritz6, Deep Fritz. It is my impression that in putting more knowledge into Fritz its tactical edge was dulled. As such, it missed a lot of sacrifices which even to a less-than-master eye like mine seemed to be overwhelming and, upon further analysis, was truly overwhelming. Very irritating. For example, take a look at this game: Paciencia,E - Liu Dede (2370) [D28] zt3.2a Vung Tau VIE (1), 21.05.2000 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 d5 3.c4 dxc4 4.e3 e6 5.Bxc4 a6 6.0-0 c5 7.Qe2 cxd4 8.exd4 b5 9.Bb3 Be7 10.a4 b4 11.Nbd2 Bb7 12.Ne5 Bd5 13.Bxd5 Qxd5 14.Ndc4 Nbd7 15.Bg5 Rd8 16.Rac1 Nb8 17.Nb6 Qb7 18.a5 Rxd4 19.Rc8+ Rd8 20.Rfc1 h6 21.R8c7 Qxc7 22.Rxc7 hxg5 23.g3 g4 24.Qc4 Rh5 25.Rxe7+ Kxe7 26.Qc7+ Nfd7 27.Nbxd7 Rxd7 28.Qxb8 Rd1+ 29.Kg2 f5 30.Qc7+ Kf6 31.Qf7+ Kxe5 32.Qxh5 Rd5 33.Qf7 1-0 Enrique Paciencia at that time was an unrated player (soon to become rated - he made an outright IM title here in his first attempt!) and he was facing IM Liu, who played top board for Indonesia in the Shenyang Asian Team Championship 1999. Paciencia had a very conservative style, so I was surprised when he played 12.Ne5, offering up his d-pawn. Of course to a "crazy attacker" like GM Antonio it immediately strikes you that if the pawn is taken, e.g. 12...Qxd4 there is a strong possibility of 13.Nxf7! But coming from a rock-solid player it is not characteristic. Anyway, after the game I DID ask Paciencia what he intended to do, and he said "of course 13.Nxf7, why do you ask?" I said "I didn't think you were the type of player to do something like that." He looked at me in a strange way and said "but it is SO obvious". Hmmmm ... remind me to slap this guy later :) just kidding. he is a close friend. I digress. It is true too. Loading up HiArcs7.32 immediately spots the sacrifice and going a bit deeper it appears that Black's King is stuck in the center and he can only watch in horrid fashion as White brings out his artillery to shell the monarch. But, using the same hardware, Fritz6/Deep Fritz CANNOT see it, even after 10 minutes of thinking. You have to manually play 13.Nxf7 Kxf7 14.Qxe6+ Ke8 15.Qf7+ Kd8 before it starts seeing the light. This is precisely the kind of sacrifice which Fritz6 cannot see, and spotting these possibilities are absolutely compulsory for an analyst such as myself who has to prepare opening lines for players to use in competition. I can cite many more examples but this one will do. This is my point. Fritz7 IMMEDIATELY spots 13.Nxf7 too. So does Junior7 but then Junior7 is manytimes not so reliable as it picks speculative sacrifices even though the position is a hefty plus ahead and no "speculation" is needed. I like Junior 7 better than Gambit Tiger 2, But I like Fritz7 best. Take it from me - on fast hardware (I haven't tested them on slow), Fritz 7 is the best as of the moment. bobby ang www.philchess.com.ph RobertoPeAng on ICC Faster on Chessbase
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