Fritz 8 champion edition (new Dec 2004) $99

The Fritz 8 is identical to the one that fascinated the world in the man vs Machine duel against the human world champion. Millions of chess fans watched the games live on the Internet – the match ended in a 4:4 tie. “Deep Fritz is stronger than Deep Blue,” said world champion Vladimir Kramnik, who had carefully studied the program. But don’t be afraid, Fritz is not just a chess playing monster. It is a friendly chess partner for beginners and amateurs. It will teach you to play chess from scratch, and can automatically adjust its playing strength to suit your needs. It will warn you when you go wrong in a game, giving you hints on how to play better. In any position it will explain all possible continuations to you in plain language, and it will display all pieces that are attacked, defended or “hanging”. Afterwards it will analyse your games and point out mistakes and blunders. It has many handicap and friendly levels. In the sparring level the program will actually set up tactics for you to discover, teaching you to keep a lookout for opportunities throughout the game. Fritz has a photo-realistic 3D chessboard and will chatter humorously during the game. It has a giant openings book with a very wide repertoire and full statistics on every move. It has a built-in database with half a million top-quality games and is the companion and analytical partner of top players all over the world. Even Garry Kasparov admits: “I use Fritz regularly for my analysis.” Fritz is also the only chess program that has been in space.

 

The Dutch Defence Lenningrad System A86-A89 (Schipkov 2005) $54.95

People who play the Dutch Defence are usually aiming for more than a draw. This is particularly true of the Leningrad System (involving the moves f5 and g6 against 1.d4). The author is even of the opinion that this system is better than the King’s Indian, because you have already achieved the pawn thrust f5. Under A86 there are also variations, in which Black plays 3...d6 and does not necessarily follow up later with g6; these are also treated on the CD. In the chapter “Strategic principles underlying the Leningrad System” the author tackles various themes, such as, e.g., the e2-e4 breakout, which is quite often preceded by b3 and Bb2 (or else Black has no difficulty playing e5). Another theme is the “Queenside pawn attack”, frequently played in conjunction with an early b2-b4. But, in general, the author is more concerned with the possibilities for Black.

The ABC of the Ruy Lopez - Martin $54.95

The venerable Ruy Lopez is one of the most interesting of chess openings. In this diverse and instructive DVD, International Master Andrew Martin explains how the opening works, with the help of mostly recent, complete master games, although there are some classics too! The most important ideas are highlighted and there are some repertoire suggestions too, all presented in the light, easy, relaxed style for which this author is noted.

The ABC of the King's Indian - Martin $49.95

n this original and entertaining DVD, International Master Andrew Martin takes you on a guided tour of this fascinating and creative opening. Through the use of complete games, both classic and modern and some repertoire suggestions, Martin paints a comprehensive picture of the current state of play and looks towards the future. This DVD will inspire all players and demonstrate that the King‘s Indian is very much alive on the modern master scene.

 

Right Decisions (Aagaard) $49.85

Improve your decision making in chess The pair of authors Aagaard/Lund have an important piece of advice for the up and coming player. That is to improve one’s ability to calculate and the power of one’s imagination by solving demanding exercises. They offer the material needed for such a task in their CD in the classic ChessBase format, which is appearing in parallel to their book (“Excelling at chess calculation”), but with a greater number of exercises. Five databases provide the keen learner with an enormous amount of material. The number of training questions alone comes to approx. 4000! These are accompanied by valuable remarks and commentaries and also 30 positions taken from games, positions which are marvellously suited to being played out against a chess program such as Fritz8. The individual databases are:

The Nimzo Indian Defence (DVD) - Aagaard $49.95

On this DVD Danish IM Jacob Aagaard introduces you to the secrets of the Nimzoindian Defence (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4). In 15 lessons that last 4 hours and 4 minutes Aagaard shows you how you can successfully play this opening by understanding key ideas instead of memorizing long tedious variations. This need-to-know approach has served the Danish IM, who needs only a few more rating points to become GM, well over the years. His wins against GM Jonathan Tisdall and GM Alexander Shabalov are only two of the many inspiring games he presents on the DVD.

Upgrade Chessbase 9.0 (from Chessbase 7 or Chessbase 8, registration number required) $189.00

Powerbook 2005 (DVD) $99.00

The Fritz Powerbook 2005 is an openings book and database that will run with Fritz or any Fritz compatible engine (Shredder, Junior, Tiger, Nimzo, etc.). You can also use it in ChessBase 7, 8 or 9 to conduct openings training and hone your repertoire.

The Fritz Powerbook 2005 contains 20 million openings positions, which were derived from 1 Million high-class tournament games. Together with each position all relevant information is stored: all moves that were played in the position, by players of what average rating, with what success and performance results. The games from which the Fritz Powerbook 2005 was derived are also included on the CD. This means that in any position of the opening tree, you can load and replay the games in which the position occurred.

The Fritz Powerbook 2005 represents the state of the art of current opening theory. It can be used to discover exciting new lines (e.g. never before played transpositions) and practice them against Fritz.

Fritz 8, Fritz 7, Fritz 6 and all other ChessBase engines under the Fritz interface can use the PowerBook 2005 as opening book, making the opening play of the programs more topical, versatile and entertaining.