Fritz (chess)
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[edit] History
Fritz is a German chess program developed by Frans Morsch and Mathias Feist.
Morsch and his friend Ed Schröder produced a chess program in the early 1980s. In the early '90s, the German company ChessBase asked Morsch to write the Fritz chess programs (called Knightstalker in the USA). In 1995, Fritz 3 won the World Computer Chess Championship in Hong Kong, surprisingly beating a prototype version of Deep Blue.
In 2002, Deep Fritz, a version of Fritz specifically designed for multi-processing, drew the Brains in Bahrain match against the classical World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik 4 - 4.
In November 2003, X3D Fritz, a version of Deep Fritz with a 3D interface, drew a four-game match against Garry Kasparov.
On June 23, 2005, in the ABC Times Square studios, the AI Accoona Toolbar, driven by a Fritz 9 prototype, drew against the then FIDE World Champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov.
On the September 10, 2006 SSDF rating list, Fritz 9.0 placed sixth with a rating of 2811, six points below Shredder 9.0, and 113 points below #1 ranked Rybka 1.2.
On October 4, 2006, in the course of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2006 between Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov, Topalov's manager Silvio Danailov issued a press release including what it labeled "coincidence statistics" between the play of Kramnik and moves recommended by the Fritz 9 software.[1] Given Danailov's previous characterization of Kramnik's frequent bathroom visits as "strange, if not suspicious", this was widely interpreted as a tacit accusation of Kramnik cheating through the use of the Fritz software. However, the Danailov press release did not offer Topalov's own percentages for comparison. Moreover, subsequent analysis showed that, using similar statistics, one might imply that the Cuban chess legend José Raúl Capablanca cheated using Chessmaster 9000 software back in 1918 [2] - decades before the first computers were built.
From 25 November-5 December 2006 Deep Fritz played a six game match against Kramnik in Bonn. Fritz was able to win 4-2[3][4][5][6], although this included one incredible blunder by Kramnik.[7]
[edit] Current development
The latest versions of the consumer products are Fritz 10 and Deep Fritz 10. They were released in November 2006.
Fritz is also used in the Fritz and Chesster series of introductory chess software.
A Pocket PC program called Pocket Fritz is actually based upon Shredder, an engine written by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Silvio Danailov accuses Kramnik of using Fritz 9"
- ^ Capa cheated with CM9k in 1918!
- ^ bbc.co.uk, "Chess champion loses to computer", BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6212076.stm (accessed 2006-12-06)
- ^ "New chess duel Man vs Machine", Chessbase, 3 January 2006
- ^ "The Duel: man vs. machine: Kramnik vs. Deep Fritz", Official site
- ^ "Kramnik vs Deep Fritz: Computer wins match by 4:2", Chessbase, 5 December 2006
- ^ Susan Polgar: Blunder of the century? Biggest blunder ever?
