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Wednesday, October 2, 2024

Fritz 19 vs. Fritz 17

    
A few days ago I decided to purchase Fritz 19 to replace version 17. Because I am a Life Member of the USCF I made the purchase through them. Fritz 19 costs from $90 to $100. That’s not a bad price at all because a couple of steak dinners at a decent restaurant will cost you that; or if you prefer, $100 will get you 5 or 6 crappy Big Mac meals at McDonald’s. 
    The question is, is it worth it? The answer is, it depends. I was not surprised to find that with Fritz 19 ChessBase has emphasized playing for fun and instruction. There are multiple dumbed down personalities with different styles that are designed for players of all levels to play against. So, if you are looking for a program to play and train then it is definitely worth the price. If you want to use the program for analysis and publishing game to the web then it is also definitely worth the price, but not if you already have an earlier version because there are no improvements in that area. 
    There is one handy feature that has been added to the Full Analysis function. Fritz 17, for example, has a Weighted Error Value which basically tells you how closely the players' moves matched the engine. Fritz 19 has additional information. Here is the evaluation of a 5 minute pus 2 seconds per move game I recently played online (I was white).
 

    As you can see, the game was not especially well played and I only won because my mistakes and inaccuracies were a bit fewer than my opponent’s. Unfortunately, so far I have been unable to find an explanation of the terms used like what is a mistake as opposed to an inaccuracy? Also, although I have not made a comparison, it seems that a Full Analysis on Fritz 19 takes much longer than it does on Fritz 17. 
     So, in the final analysis, Fritz 19 is superior to Fritz 17 when it comes to playing against a program and training...no question. But, there is no advantage when it comes to analyzing and publishing games...no surprise there. Which program will I use for this Blog? Probably Fritz 19 simply because I now have it.

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