Playing with Fritz 18 at GM level

by Frederic Friedel
12/26/2021 – In November we launched a new edition of our flagship program, Fritz. Version 18 has a special mode in which Fritz allows its opponent to actually win games, if he is able to find clever moves. Many amateurs and club players have sent in games that they won with brilliant ideas. But how about grandmasters? Fritz determines the playing strength of its opponent, and makes him find more difficult brilliancies. Iniyan Panneerselvam, a young GM, has written a report on his experience with Fritz 18.

ChessBase 18 - Mega package ChessBase 18 - Mega package

Winning starts with what you know
The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.

More...

“Definitely helpful”

Iniyan Panneerselvam, 19, is a second-year Arts and Science student majoring in Business administration in India. He started playing at the age of five, and now devotes a lot of time to the game. Since 2008 he has participated in more than 250 tournaments, in State, National and International events, and recorded a string of successes. Iniyan has won more than 150 medals across all competitions, including multiple medals in Youth Olympiad, World Youth Championships, Asians, Commonwealth, and many tournament victories amongst Grandmaster Open tournaments. He is currently rated at 2555.

Here are two recent reports on Iniyan:

We asked Iniyan to test our new software, Fritz 18, at a very early beta stage. We wanted to see how a strong chess player would evaluate the program as a training partner. We received a lot of encouragement from this young player – and a number of suggestions on how we could improve the user experience.

A grandmaster and Fritz

This is Iniyan's general report on his experience with our latest program, Fritz 18. It includes three game he has annotated:

I have played a bit with Fritz 18. I set the program to Grandmaster Level. Here are my honest thoughts on Fritz 18.

New feature of playing according to the player's level is good. With the computers becoming way stronger, there's no point in playing against them any more, unless at huge material odds. That isn't similar to OTB games, and hence not so useful. You learn very little from it. Because of this, we have to find a Human playing partner, but many times it's difficult to find a player to play training games with, because everyone has their own schedule to keep.

Fritz estimates its opponent's rating a few moves into the game. The first few games I played showed my rating at around 2200, but then after a few games my rating had been changed to around 2700. When it rated me at 2200 the computer would make big mistakes, and I had no trouble winning against it. I wasn't sure if the rating was that way because a) I just started to play in Fritz or b) because that's the way the rating starts each game and then changes according to how the game goes.

Clearly the computer is trying to play at my level of skill. My impression is that if I play the opening dubiously, Fritz 18 decides my rating is very low, then it's going to make huge mistakes against me, much more than it should. To clarify, I tried to play opening moves such as 1.h3, 2.g3, 3.a3, 4.b3, just to see how that affects my rating estimate by the computer. The good thing was that, once I had played a few proper games, my rating got pegged around 2700 at the start of the games, no matter how bad I played the openings. This shows that Fritz remembers the player's strength over all the games played against in the past. This makes the idea of Fritz matching its opponent's level quite successful.

We come to the brilliancy allowing part. When I had a lower rating (in the computer's opinion) I was allowed to play a lot of nice but simple tactical shots. Once my rating was up, that opportunities went way down. It became harder to find brilliancies. You had to really keep a careful watchout for them.

Overall I would say that Fritz 18 gives users a unique opportunity to train, and is definitely helpful for players of all levels. I will be using the program often, for sure.

Here are three examples of games Iniyan played against Fritz 18. He writes:

  • Game one: White was given an opportunity to gain advantage early on after Black played g5. Also, an opportunity to win the game  outright by finding the brilliancy late in the game. Fritz gives such chances  few times in a game and if you use those chances you can maximise your results  against Fritz 18.
  • Game two shows us that although Fritz  makes mistakes time to time, you have to play at your best against it, because Fritz is on the whole more consistent and accurate than the human against it. Without making any obvious mistakes, White's position deteriorated from the start of the middle game till the end of the game.
  • Game three showcases the entire idea behind Fritz 18. The program plays at a similar level to the player after initially judging the player's rating through his moves. This allows for mistakes to be made by Fritz and thus gives a chance to play against computers, which hasn't been possible for a long time, unless there is some kind of material or tempo odds. Also the move 22.Qd3 by White (read my note to this in the annotation), allows the further tactical sequence that came. It shows that Fritz goes for the opportunity for the human to come up with a spectacular idea. Note: Fritz was set at Grandmaster Level and Black's rating was judged high during this game. Fritz allows for brilliancies corressponding to the level of the player. If it is a club player, the tactics are simpler, and if it's a GM level player, the brilliancies are  correspondigly tougher.
 
New ...
Open...
Share...
Layout...
Flip Board
Settings
MoveNResultEloPlayers
Replay and check the LiveBook here
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 e6 7.0-0 Be7 8.f4 Qc7 9.a4 Nc6 10.Be3 0-0 11.Kh1 Bd7 12.Nb3 b6 13.Bf3 Rab8 14.g4 Bc8 15.g5 Nd7 16.Qe2 Bb7 17.Rad1 Rfe8 18.h4 Bf8 19.h5 g6 20.hxg6 hxg6
21.Kh2?! This is the small ways that Fritz plays dubiously to give chances to the human player. 21.Kg2 Is natural and much stronger. 21...Bg7 22.Qd3       This is a prime example of how the brilliancy feature works in Fritz. On the surface this looks good. White attacks the pawn that has been weakened by black's last move. Defending with Bf8 is obviously bad. There isn't another way to defend the pawn other than by counterattacking and Nb4 as played in the game is the obvious choice. But lets think deeper, white will take on d6 by force. The Queens get exchanged and white takes on d6 with the Rook. Black takes on c2 hitting the Bishop, White moves back. Till this we see all captures, but now black's Knight on d7 is under attack, the b6 pawn is falling and there seems to be a general lack of harmony in blacks position. Except black has a good defence as played in the game. Nb4 23.Qxd6 Qxd6 24.Rxd6 Nxc2 25.Bf2 Nc5! Fritz: This is the way. (When brilliancies, as judged by Fritz, are played, message such as this comes up in the notation) 25...Red8 26.Rfd1+- 25...Bc8 26.Rd2 Nb4 27.Rfd1+- All black's pieces are passive and without scope. 26.Rxb6 26.Nxc5 bxc5 27.Bxc5 Bf8 26...Nxb3 27.Rxb3 Ba8 28.Rxb8 Rxb8 29.Rd1 Rxb2 30.Rd8+ Kh7 31.Rxa8 Bxc3 Finally the dust has settled and the position is objectively equal. What follows is Fritz giving chances time to time (that is the entire point of this Fritz, to give the human players a chance to play against computer and hope to win) and black seizing them. 32.Kg3 Be1 33.Ra7 Kg8 33...Kg7 34.Bg4 34.Bxe1 Nxe1 35.Bh1 Rb3+ 36.Kg4 Nd3 37.Bg2 Nc5 37...e5 38.a5 38.f5= 38...Rb5 39.Rc7 Rxa5 40.e5?! Opening the way for the Bishop to c6 and possibly e8 getting counterplay but the pawns are fixed now and easy targets for black's pieces. Nd3 41.Rc3 Nc5 42.Rc2 Kg7 43.Rc4 Nb3 44.Ba8 Rc5 45.Rb4 Nc1 46.Bg2 a5 47.Ra4 Ne2 48.Bb7 Nc3 49.Ra1 a4 50.Ra3 Kf8 51.Kf3 Ke7 52.Ke3 Rb5 53.Rxc3 Rxb7 54.Kd3 Ra7 55.Kc2 a3 56.Kb1 a2+ 57.Ka1 Ra4 58.Rc7+ Kf8 59.Rc2 Rxf4 60.Rg2 Rf5 61.Kxa2 Rxe5 62.Kb3 Rd5 63.Rg4 Ke7 64.Kc4 Kd6 65.Rf4 Rf5 66.Rg4 Ke5 67.Kd3 Rf4 68.Rg1 Kf5 69.Ke3 e5 70.Rg2 e4 71.Ke2 Rf3 72.Kd1 Kf4 73.Ke1 e3 74.Ra2 Kxg5 75.Ra3 Kf4 76.Ra4+ Kg3 77.Ke2 f5 78.Ra6 g5 79.Rg6 g4 80.Ra6 f4 81.Ra4 Rf2+ 82.Kd3 e2 83.Kd2 f3 84.Re4 Rf1 Fritz resigns. 0-1 (84) Grandmaster (Fritz)-Iniyan,P. This game showcases the entire idea behind the Fritz 18. Fritz plays on a similar level to the player after initially judging the players rating through their moves. This allows for mistakes to be made by Fritz and thus gives a chance to play against computers which hasn't been possible for a long time unless there is some kind of material or tempo odds. Also the move Qd3 by white which allows the further tactical sequence that came shows that Fritz goes for the option where the human has a chance to come up with a spectacular idea. (Note: Fritz was set at Grandmaster Level and black's rating was judged high during this game. Fritz allows for brilliancies corressponding to the level of the player. For ex, if it's a club player, the tactics are simpler and if it's a GM level player, the brilliancies are correspondigly tougher.)
0–1
  • Start an analysis engine:
  • Try maximizing the board:
  • Use the four cursor keys to replay the game. Make moves to analyse yourself.
  • Press Ctrl-B to rotate the board.
  • Drag the split bars between window panes.
  • Download&Clip PGN/GIF/FEN/QR Codes. Share the game.
  • Games viewed here will automatically be stored in your cloud clipboard (if you are logged in). Use the cloud clipboard also in ChessBase.
  • Create an account to access the games cloud.
WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Grandmaster (Fritz)-Iniyan,P-0–1 B85Fritz 18 Game
Iniyan,P-Grandmaster (Fritz)-½–½ D31Fritz 18 Game
Iniyan,P-Grandmaster (Fritz)-0–1 D53Fritz 18 Game

Super-talents in India

I [FF] have spent time with more than a dozen super-talents – I get the impression that early-teen grandmaster in India are grown in paddy fields. Sixteen of them took part in two training camps with Vladimir Kramnik and Boris Gelfand. The first was in Chens-Sur-Leman, France, the second in Chennai, India. It was great fun interacting with these kids. During the time I started an experiment to figure out if they were also unusually talented in other areas, such as general logical tasks. I have written about it in this report: Are chess super-talents generally smarter than regular kids?

The general result was no, they probably are not. Just average. But there was one exception: Iniyan. I have a standard problem which I give my test candidates. You can watch three of them solve it in our session in France:

This is live video of me giving the problem to Prithu Gupta, 15 years old, P. Iniyan, 16, and R. Praggnanandhaa, 13. All three were already full GMs. Watch their faces, especially Pragg's, towards the end, while they are solving the logical puzzles. And it is clear who is the most talented in solving logical problems.

Links


Editor-in-Chief emeritus of the ChessBase News page. Studied Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of Hamburg and Oxford, graduating with a thesis on speech act theory and moral language. He started a university career but switched to science journalism, producing documentaries for German TV. In 1986 he co-founded ChessBase.

Discuss

Rules for reader comments

 
 

Not registered yet? Register

We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, analysis cookies and marketing cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies. Here you can make detailed settings or revoke your consent (if necessary partially) with effect for the future. Further information can be found in our data protection declaration.