Fritz 12
Truly Great Chess Playing Software

Fritz remains the most popular chess program worldwide, a super-strong chess playing opponent developed by ChessBase, "the world's leading chess software company" as noted in the Washington Post.

Whether you're a beginner, club player or professional - Fritz 12 has everything that chess players could want: automatically adjusting playing strength, handicap and coaching functions, explanation of positions, colored danger warnings, openings statistics, automatic game analysis, trainings modules for openings, tactics, endgames, and a database of 1.5 million chess games. Read that list again!

And Fritz 12 continues to fascinate the chess world - this chess engine has beaten a reigning World Champion in the battle of man vs. machine, and it has worked with World Champions as a clever training partner (Garry Kasparov: "I regularly analyze with Fritz"). Fritz 12 can even entertain you with fresh and humorous verbal comments.

Watch more Fritz 12 Videos

Fritz 12 New Interface

Now Fritz 12 is even faster, as its completely redesigned ergonomic interface gives you instant access to all the most important functions. This means more comfort and clearer controls. Never before has it been so quick and easy to play chess with Fritz.

Fritz 12 as your Chess Trainer

Should you need to prepare for serious encounters over the chessboard, Fritz 12 can help you train with a human Grandmaster! Fritz provides you with twelve hours of video lessons for every level of play, in which you'll enjoy the instructive analysis of master games, and the discussion of clever openings traps, or deadly combinations to solve. The video material introduces you to world class Grandmasters like Alexei Shirov, Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Vladimir Kramnik, Vishy Anand, even chess legend Garry Kasparov. Even if you cannot play chess at the moment, Fritz 12 will teach you the rules of the games - within an hour you will be playing your first game of chess.

Fritz 12 at Playchess.com

Fritz 12 is able to help you find friends. The chess software program includes a full year's subscription to Playchess.com, the world's biggest chess server. Every day you'll see thousands of players logged into this virtual chess club, and you can always find an opponent that matches your playing strength. Or you can simply watch top tournaments and the games of world-class Grandmasters playing live on the server.

This new Fritz 12 chess program also gives you Premium Membership to Playchess. Without further costs or obligation you will be able to listen to the audio commentary during major events, receive live training, play in simultaneous exhibitions against top GMs, watch the TV ChessBase shows and play in league tournaments.

Fritz 12 Preview
by Steve Lopez

Fritz 12 Screenshots

Fritz 12 FAQ

ChessCentral's FREE Exclusive Fritz 12 Bonus:

Insider's Guide to
Revving up Your Fritz 12

If you're considering the purchase of any ChessBase playing program (Fritz, Junior, Shredder, Hiarcs, etc.), then here's another good reason to shop at ChessCentral. With your new chess playing program you get our exclusive Revving Up your Fritz12 guide by noted ChessBase guru Steve Lopez - one link in a long chain of customer support available at ChessCentral.

No new owner of a Fritz "family" program should be without this important guide, for here you'll learn the basics of customizing the ChessBase software and optimizing your hardware so that Fritz runs at its best. The topics covered include:

* A discussion of chess engines and how to use them

* Hardware tips, including questions about RAM and resource allocation

* The effect of time control on the performance of Fritz

* Fritz opening books, and how to load them

* A discussion of hash tables, and setting their size for a particular game

* Fritz add-on products, like Endgame Turbo II & Fritz Powerbook

* Miscellaneous topics and much more!

This fact-filled guide will save you countless hours of trying to figure out what to do, and let you begin having fun with Fritz after only a few minutes. Revving Up your Fritz12 will put you on the fast track to a better understanding of chess playing software.

Fritz 12 Chess Software: What's New

Fritz 12 now features a completely redesigned ergonomic interface, compliant with Microsoft’s “Fluent UI” standard, giving you instant access to all the most important functions of the chess playing program. For example, board selection or challenges and formula on Playchess.com are streamlined. Plus the arrangement of windows has been improved and made more intuitive; new chess clock and arrows appear in the board display; better and faster 3D graphics include a new playing room and opponents. Never before has it been so easy and fast to play chess with Fritz.

The Fritz 12 Chess Program

• Rated chess games with a more precise, real-world rating system.
• Dial display for how sharp a position is ("hotness") plus a special "Mate-O-Meter".
• Improved "spy" function shows clear refutations and only direct threats.
• Analysis + openings classification revised and improved.
• Improved engine management: >4 GB memory for 64-Bit UCI engines, CPU display and simple settings for multi-engines.
• Evaluation profile optionally as non-linear display (as at the Chess Classic in Mainz).

 Fritz 12 at Playchess.com

• Twelve months Premium membership on Playchess.com is included
• Games grouped together under headings (tournaments or time controls), making it easier to find the chess games you want.
• Fast search in the chess players list
• Friends and titled chess players are displayed with desktop alerts.
• Multi-watch with many new functions, e.g. time difference display.
• Separate formulas for humans and computers.
• A series of chess games against the same opponent is displayed as a match in the chat window.
• The games list display includes number of moves (for games and broadcasts).
• Evaluation profile available in the chess machine room while playing and watching.

 Fritz 12 Chess Engine, Database and Multimedia

• New Fritz engine: even stronger!
• New openings book by Alex Kure
• Twelve hours chess tutorial videos with international trainers and world class players
• Updated database of 1.5 million games from 1625 to 2009 

Fritz 12 System Requirements

Recommended: PC Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.4 GHz, 3 GB RAM, Windows Vista or Windows 7, DirectX10 graphics card (or compatible) with 512 MB RAM or more, 100% DirectX10 compatible sound card, Windows Media Player 11, DVD ROM drive and internet access (playchess.com, updates and activation).