Fritz 19 Chess Playing Software Program, Plus Opening Encyclopedia 2024

Fritz 19 & Opening Encyclopedia 2024 

What's New in Fritz 19 Chess Program

• The ICGA World Champion Engine 2023 for Windows PCs. Download files sent with DVD.
• Practical training: Six fully realistic player personalities as sparring partners. Learn how to defend against the ferocious attackers, or how to open up the king position against positional players!
• New opening training: Play against your own repertoire.
• Good play is rewarded: 150 different trophies to win, including rankings.
• ChessBase cards: New digital chess collector cards rewards.
• Improved calculation training for a quick Elo boost. 
• Including 6 Months of ChessBase Premium Account.

FRITZ 19: World Chess Software Champion 2023 

Championship victories in 2022 and 2023, I am the reigning Chess Software World Champion and am now looking forward to showing you how to become even stronger against your opponent! With my innovative training method, I simulate typical player personalities you know from tournaments and online chess: brash attackers, cautious cowards, passive players, etc. But how do you win against them? Fritz will show you how! And for beautiful attacks, combinations or sacrifices, there are the new ChessBase cards as a reward for you. Practical training that's also a lot of fun. Or let's train openings: you can try out new repertoire ideas directly in a match against me. And how about the new calculation training for a quick Elo boost? As Fritz19 I can make you play better again.

Fritz 18 marked the beginning of a new era, and Fritz 19 drives this development onward: a game against Fritz should be more than just a game - it should be an experience. In a time when online chess dominates, a chess program has to offer something special to be a real alternative to human opponents.

The Fritz 19 Chess Program works like this:

• There are six different characters that mimic typical club players: All around, Aggressive, Positional, Swindler, Fearful, Endgame Expert.
• Fritz plays human moves that fit these types, but builds in tactical mistakes so that you can win with a sacrificial attack, for example. The sharper the position, the more likely the program will misstep.
• There is a wide range of tips and support that you can use to the full, or ignore, depending on your mood. With all the tips, you will practically always win against the “strong club player” level. If you ignore them completely, it becomes challenging for a player like me (ELO 2000).
• You can earn trophies for special moves that are converted into digital trading cards, such as “rook on the seventh rank”, “exchange sacrifice” or “mate threat.”
• At any time during the game, you can switch to “assisted calculation” mode. There is no clock, so you can train your calculation without stress in positions you have played yourself. This has an enormous training benefit.

The opponent zoo in Fritz 19

The character "Allrounder" is probably the strongest opponent for every level of play. It is a development of “Easy Game” from Fritz 18. Everyone knows the Aggressive Player from their club. They regularly play on the attack, with a sharp opening repertoire. They are the ideal opponent for defense training with Black. The Swindler takes aggressiveness to the extreme, and overplays the position. Material and solid position are of no interest, the main thing is to go for the king. Against this swindling fox, one usually has a material advantage, but suddenly it becomes highly dangerous. The wise owl symbolizes the Positional Player. It loves a good pawn structure, a secure king of its own and coordinated piece-play. The distorted echo of this, is the fearful mouse. It appreciates crowded, safe positions and is afraid of complications. That is why it often plays weaker. The Endgame Fan, on the other hand, plays specifically for exchange. Simplification is paramount, the opening is unambitious. When it comes to the endgame, on the other hand, things get really tough. An effective training opponent for this phase of the game!

Collectible cards as a reward: Fritz 19 celebrates your good moves.

When playing against Fritz 19, you can acquire 136 different trophies. Some are quite simple, like Closed Center or Bishop Pair. You will grab them. Others don’t just happen by themselves: the advance of a passed pawn, a knight outpost, an unsafe opponent’s king position, space advantage or a sharp position. The crowning glory are trophies such as queen sacrifice, mate with knight, and many more. There is a ranking list for each of these trophies. That should be reward enough for chess players, but we have come up with something very special, the description of which would go beyond the scope of this article: Winning trophies is rewarded with the distribution of digital trading cards in your ChessBase account. Do you recall Panini sticker albums? Then you know the score.

New opening training

We all manage our opening repertoire in variation trees, stored in databases. If you want to play against it, it gets technical: opening books have to be converted. On today’s powerful computers, this has become obsolete. In Fritz 19, you play directly against databases, your own repertoire, or an opening article from the ChessBase Magazine!

If the White player, the Black player, the tournament title, or the source begins with “White” or “Black”, then all the moves in this game belong to this color. Fritz will then only play these moves. A repertoire is always rather narrow from the point of view of one’s own color and broad for the opponent’s moves. Try it out: Your Najdorf repertoire with Black against the “aggressive” player! Tip for ChessBase users: Save a generated opening survey from ChessBase and play against it immediately

What else is available in Fritz 19?

The new engine in Fritz 19 is the Computer Chess World Champion for 2023. The Calculation Training has been extended, especially in the important preliminary query of candidate moves. The Buddy Engine and the annotated engine analysis from ChessBase 17 have found their way into Fritz. The notation (and the whole program interface) has been enormously enhanced in places. Tactical Analysis, the important full commentary of your games, has been improved and much more!

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

Minimum: Desktop PC or Notebook, 4 Threads, 8 GB RAM, Windows 10, DirectX 10 graphics card with 1 GB RAM, (DVD ROM drive), Internet access to activate the program, ChessBase Cloud and update. Recommended: PC Intel i7, i9 or Ryzen 7/9 , 8 GB RAM, Windows 11 or 10 with 64-Bit, Windows Media Player, graphic card with 1 GB RAM, RTX graphic card for real time Raytrace board and Internet access. For ChessBase ACCOUNT: Internet access and up-to-date browser, e.g. Chrome, Safari. Runs on Windows, OS X, iOS, Android and Linux.

ChessBase Opening Encyclopedia 2024 

 YOUR EASY ACCESS TO OPENING THEORY 

Opening Encyclopedia 2024 at a glance: 

• 1,463 special theoretical databases – analyses with annotated games & ideas by Grandmasters
• Over 40,000 illustrative games
• 7,679 opening surveys, 350 new or updated
• 75 opening videos (DVD+Download). Total duration: over 27 hours
• Grandmaster Lectures: Dorian Rogozenco, The latest trends (9 Videos)
• Opening overviews/ Surveys, e.g. pictured the Catalan Opening. 

Be very prepared with the new Opening Encyclopedia 2024! Whether you want to build up a reliable and powerful opening repertoire or find new opening ideas for your existing repertoire, the Opening Encyclopedia covers the entire opening theory and is the ideal start for your opening training. Many new articles enrich the current theory with new or revisited ideas. The Encyclopedia can help you learn openings quickly and give you a head start on your next opponent. Each article contains explanations and annotated games illustrating typical plans to deepen your understanding.  

The Opening Encyclopedia offers quick access to all openings. The openings are sorted by name and ECO code via the menu for quick and easy access to your favorite openings. Opening Tutorials give a quick yet comprehensive overview of all established openings to help every chess player find the most suitable opening according to their personal preferences. 75 high-class opening videos are included in the Encyclopedia 2023, from our popular ChessBase Authors. Among others Daniel King, Dorian Rogozenco, Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Mihail Marin, Ivan Sokolov, Adrian Mikhalchishin, Leon Mendonca, Jan Werle, Luis Engel, Rainer Knaak and many more Grandmasters present new opening ideas clearly and vividly. The number of articles in the Opening Encyclopedia is growing – it now contains 1,463 and the included database contains all games from all opening articles. One more highlight: Grandmaster Dorian Rogozenco presents opening trends in world-class chess. You can look forward to a total of 9 videos on the French, Sicilian, Najdorf, Ragozin, Nimzo-Indian, English, Reti, 1.d4 and 1.e4 e5 based on selected key variations and games, from the entire year 2023 to spring 2024. This makes the new Opening Encyclopedia 2024 an indispensable reference work for every tournament player.  

System Requirements: Desktop PC or Notebook, 2 GB RAM, Windows 11, 10 or 8.1, DVD-ROM drive (if ordered with Postal Delivery), ChessBase 16 or 15, Internet access (downloads).