Chessmaster, Rybka or Fritz?

Originally posted by Jakal
I'm looking to buy a chess engine. Is there a difference between these three? Which one is best and why?

Since both Fritz and Chessmaster vary little from year to year, don’t waste your money buying the newest version. Buy the versions of BOTH from say 5 years ago for LESS than buying 1 of the latest editions.
If you have to choose 1, go for Chessmaster. Yes it is geared to the mass market and that might put some chess snobs off. But I would say it is suitable for any player under 1800, maybe even 2000. Fritz is more for the stronger player. Or the player who thinks he’s stronger than he really is! 😀

Originally posted by peacedog
Since both Fritz and Chessmaster vary little from year to year, don’t waste your money buying the newest version. Buy the versions of BOTH from say 5 years ago for LESS than buying 1 of the latest editions.
If you have to choose 1, go for Chessmaster. Yes it is geared to the mass market and that might put some chess snobs off. But I would say it is suitab ...[text shortened]... tz is more for the stronger player. Or the player who thinks he’s stronger than he really is! 😀

Chessmaster X (tenth edition) is completely different than CM 9000 in basic design. The features are almost the same--the much vaunted Watzkin lectures go back to 5000 or so (I'm don't remember with certainty).

I stopped using the Chessmaster database when I figured out how to import all of its games in smaller segments into ChessBase Light (the old 5.0 version). The viewing board in CM was too small, the search algorithms too cumbersome.

One of the changes in the newly designed interface beginning with CM X is that the database is harder to find, and you cannot easily go there from a game you are playing. Read this thread. Someone advocating Chgessmaster stated (incorrectly) that it doesn't have a database. That's becuase it is well hid.

Call me a snob if you like. I use chess software daily, and have done so for more than ten years. From 1998 to 2002, Chessmaster was my main software, and I'd been using it less frequently, but exclusively for ten years before that. In CM X, I find it hard to find what I was using last week.

Fritz is a bargain at $60. Chessmaster is a little overpriced at $20, but I still recommend it to young children whose parents don't want to shell out the money for Fritz and Chesster 1, 2, and 3, and then the standard Fritz when they are ready for serious study.