Fritz 15 engine - questions and answers

The Fritz engine, since the very first iterations, was the brainchild and authored by only one programmer (in spite of rather humorous online rumors of a secret team): Franz Morsch. His engine deservedly became a legend, especially when it single-handedly defeated the super computer Deep Blue (still in prototype) at the World Computer Chess Championships in Hong Kong in 1995. As far as versions were concerned it was Fritz 3 running on a modest Pentium 90MHz.

Over the years Fritz has always been a top engine, providing players with top analysis, but after Fritz 13, the mighty Morsch hung up his hat, and the engine’s code along with him. In keeping with the tradition of a new and stronger engine than its predecessor, as well as new features in the interface, the Fritz 14 engine was signed by Gyula Horváth, and now the baton has been taken up by Vasik Rajlich.

After dominating the ratings lists and world championships for years and years with his engine Rybka, Vasik Rajlich eventually went off to greener pastures as he started a family with Polish IM Iweta Rajlich, and the throne was left vacant. After years of inactivity in the highly competitive computer chess field, he has returned, lending his skills to the next generations of Fritz, starting with Fritz 15.

ChessBase CEO Matthias Wüllenweber in Hamburg with Vas and Iweta Rajlich

The first question for the engine geeks or experienced players is: “Is this simply a rebadged Rybka 4?”

The programmer explains, “Fritz 15 is massively different from Rybka 4.1. The search is very different. I've spent the last six months mostly cleaning up certain aspects of the engine and setting up my infrastructure for testing, tuning, and various automation. It took me a long time (as well as insight from another project) to understand how this should all be structured. This isn't quite done yet but the core is in place. Although, there is very little Elo gain so far from that work. I see it as a foundation for the future.”

Vasik Rajlich - author of Fritz 15

For the record, current testing by specialized computer lists such as CEGT and CCRL, among others, have evaluated Fritz 15 as being somewhere between 30-40 Elo stronger than Rybka 4, however Rajlich comments that he is currently working on Fritz 15.1, which will bring further improvements to its play.

In spite of their incredible ability, the engines have fairly distinct styles of play, much like humans, and whie you may find a brilliant attacking game by Petrosian, to quote an extreme, it is not the usual fare. How does Fritz 15 play relative to Rybka 4?

Vasik replied, “Fritz 15 will have a rather different 'search personality' than Rybka 4, but this won't be anything which is easy to summarize for users.”

Here are a few games from the tests, to illustrate the range of its skills and ability to handle a wide variety of situations.

Wild Tactics and attacking

The boa constrictor

Spectacular blow and counter blow

A bolt from the blue

What does the modern chess player need? A sparring partner, a trainer, an up-to-date database and access to an online chess server! Fritz, probably the world’s most popular chess program offers just that for beginners and tournament players alike: it plays at the highest level, offers training features for every stage of the game and comes with 6 months Premium access to playchess.com and ChessBase Account. It includes management and analysis options for your own games, as well as a database with 2 million games. €69.90  €58.74 without VAT (for Customers outside the EU) ($58.74) (without VAT) You can order Fritz 15 in the ChessBase Shop