Fritz is a German chess program originally developed for Chessbase by Frans Morsch based on his Quest program, ported to DOS, and then Windows by Mathias Feist. With version 13, Morsch retired, and his engine was first replaced by Gyula Horvath's Pandix, and then with Fritz 15, Vasik Rajlich's Rybka.
In 1991, the German company ChessBase approached the Dutch chess programmer Frans Morsch about writing a chess engine to add to the database program which they sold. Morsch adapted his Quest program, and ChessBase released it for sale that year as Knightstalker in the U.S. and Fritz throughout the rest of the world. In 1995, Fritz 3 won the World Computer Chess Championship in Hong Kong, beating an early version of Deep Blue. This was the first time that a program running on a consumer-level microcomputer defeated the mainframes that had previously dominated this event.
In 1998, Fritz 5 was released including a Friend mode which would cause the engine to adjust its strength of play over the course of a game based on the level the opponent appeared to be playing. Fritz 5.32 was released soon after replacing the 16-bit architecture with a 32-bit one.
In 2004, Fritz 8 added a Handicap and Fun mode, allowing players to choose the Elo rating and style that the engine will use.[3] Chessbase native engines can use the Handicap feature: Chess Tiger, Crafty, the Fritz engine, Hiarcs, Houdini, Junior, Rybka, Shredder and Zappa. Some UCI engines can also make use of Handicap, e.g. Fruit and Stockfish.
The 2013 release of Deep Fritz 14 switched engines from the original author Frans Morsch's to Pandix, written by Gyula Horvth. A long-time participant in world computer championships since 1984, Pandix was substantially rewritten in 2009, and has been a strong contender since then.
Fritz 15 was released on November 25, 2015, with new features, including switching to Vasik Rajlich's famous Rybka engine.[8] Handicap and Fun mode was dropped, but there is now a function for pawn and piece handicaps (e.g. ceding pawn and move).
Fritz 16 was released on November 12, 2017, with a new Easy game mode which provides for assisted calculation marking good moves with a green circle and bad moves with a red one.[9] This version again uses the Rybka engine.[10]
In July 2021, the developers of the open source Stockfish chess engine filed a lawsuit against Chessbase alleging that Fat Fritz 2.0 is a derivative of Stockfish and is in violation of a "central obligation" of Stockfish's GNU General Public License.[12] In November 2022, a settlement was reached in which it was agreed that the license obligations of the GPL-3.0 for the products Fat Fritz 2 and Houdini 6 have not been complied with. In the future, Chessbase will comply with the license terms and to adequately inform the public about the use of the Stockfish software in its products.[13]
The American company Viva Media, now a division of Encore, Inc. has been licensed to sell many versions of the Fritz engine and GUI combination. British game publisher Eidos Interactive (now part of Square Enix Europe) published Fritz 6 and 7. In 1998, the German company Data Becker released the program 3D Schach Genie, containing the Shredder engine and Fritz interface. The German company Purple Hills sold Fritz 6 through 12 as Profi Schach 1 through 7. British Excalibur Publishing has published Fritz 9 through 14. American book publisher Simon & Schuster featured the Fritz engine in their Extreme Chess program, as have German game publisher TopWare Interactive in their Battle vs. Chess game.
Fritz and Chesster is a series of introductory chess programs based on the Fritz engine. Each program provides basic tutorials and games based on one aspect of chess, allowing children to learn the basic rules easily without overwhelming them with too many options at once.
Here's one of the greatest chess games ever played, between Yakov Estrin and Hans Berliner. It starts out as the Ulvestad varation but transposes in the Fritz. The game is very complicated, it will take alot of studying to completely understand the positions.
At the turn of the century, Fritz fascinated the chess world with victories over Garry Kasparov and then-reigning World Champion Vladimir Kramnik. The "most popular chess program" (according to German magazine Der Spiegel) offers you everything you will need as a dedicated chess enthusiast, with innovative training methods for amateurs and professionals alike, plus access to the full suite of ChessBase web apps, including the Playchess playing server.
New customer? Create your ChessBase shop account with your e-Mail address and password. Advantages for registered users: Fast and easy check out; Easy access to your order history and a backup service for your download products: Purchased download products can be downloaded at any time with dedicated backups on the ChessBase server!
Attacker, coward, swindler or endgame wizard: I'll show you how to win against anyone! After my World Championship victories in 2022 and 2023, I am the reigning Chess Software World Champion and am now looking forward to showing you how to become even stronger against your opponent With my innovative training method, I simulate typical player personalities you know from tournaments and online chess: brash attackers, cautious cowards, passive players. But how do you win against them? Fritz will show you how! And for beautiful attacks, combinations or sacrifices, there are the new ChessBase cards as a reward for you. Practical training that's also a lot of fun. Or let's train openings: you can try out a new repertoire ideas directly in a match against me. And how about the new calculation training for a quick Elo boost? As Fritz19 I can make you play better again.
Fritz 18 marked the beginning of a new era, and Fritz 19 drives this development onward: a game against Fritz should be more than just a game - it should be an experience. In a time when online chess dominates, a chess program has to oer something special to be a real alternative to human opponents.
Active opening training: With Fritz 19 you can load any database, any CBM opening article, or any of your opening analyses directly as an opening book and play against it immediately.
More excitement: Try out variations against different styles of opponent, e.g. test a new defence system against the aggressive Fritz 19 Bull, or a new gambit against the timid Fritz 19 Mouse!
More information: Traditional opening books are short-sighted, showing only moves from the current position. The new database books come with notation and a small control board, which is super helpful with opening articles or fritztrainer, allowing you to see comments on the variations.
The new engine in Fritz 19 is the Computer Chess World Champion for 2023. The Calculation Training has been extended, especially in the important preliminary query of candidate moves. The Buddy Engine and the annotated engine analysis from ChessBase 17 have found their way into Fritz. The notation (and the whole program interface) has been enormously enhanced in places. Tactical Analysis, the important full commentary of your games, has been improved and much more!
Fritz 18 marked the beginning of a new era, and Fritz 19 drives this development onward: a game against Fritz should be more than just a game - it should be an experience. In a time when online chess dominates, a chess program has to oer something special to be a real alternative to hu\u0002man opponents.
Download the setup installation file. Execute the installation files with a double click.
\nClick on "Next" in the following two dialogs to confirm the installation path and scope and to start the installation.
\nClick on "Install" to start the installation process. Now let the installation run through and complete the setup via the "Finish" button.
\nIn the last step, you will be prompted to enter your program key for online activation. Enter the program key (see the bottom of this text) and the four letters that are displayed on the green background. Run the online activation with "OK".