Pocket Fritz 2
Pocket Fritz 2 is a chess partner with mobility built in. Take it with you wherever you go and leave boredom behind. Pocket Fritz 2 is much stronger than its predecessor and has an estimated blitz performance rating of 2450 Elo points. The younger brother of the world’s strongest chess program has made great strides in the area of design, functionality and user friendliness. New pieces and board colours, formatted, colour-coded notation, all contribute to optimum clarity, even in deeply annotated games. The moves of the computer as well as hints and threats are displayed with coloured arrows.
Pocket Fritz 2 has many diverse playing levels that make it an entertaining opponent, while the database functions and new commentary options fulfil the needs of even strong professional players. The program gives you mobile access to the ChessBase Online database with well over two million games. There you can search for the games of specific players, tournaments or openings. You also have online access to a giant state-of-the-art openings book with over seven million positions and full statistics for each of them. Other new functions: extended, user-friendly move entry and annotation; automatic game replay with adjustable speeds; special energy-saving mode for longer battery life. Have fun, play chess. Anywhere and everywhere with Pocket Fritz!
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Pocket Fritz runs on Pocket PCs with Windows Mobile 5.0, Windows Mobile 2003 (Pocket PC 2003), Pocket PC 2002, Windows CE 3.0. Display resolution 320 x 240 or higher. Pocket Fritz 2.0 does not run on Windows Mobile 5 Phone Edition or Windows Mobile 6. Installation requires a PC (notebook or desktop computer). Language of user interface and helpfile: English, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch

It's back and it's better

By Peter Schreiner

The need for a handy, portable chess playing computer is great. Unlike a notebook or a desktop computer you can use a Pocket PC really anywhere you are. You whip it out of your shirt pocket and just seconds later you are playing a game, analysing or looking for a new opening move.

Stefan Meyer-Kahlen's Pocket Fritz program fits this slot perfectly. Now it is available in a new form, version 2.0, which has a number of substantial improvements.

File handling

A weakness of the first version was that you could not delete or replace games from within the program. Now this is very simple to do. At the same time the dialog screens for loading and saving games has become much more intuitive to handle. You can enter the Elo rating of players and also use that in the search.

The search function has been improved and is now much easier to use. It automatically presents you with an alphabetically sorted list of all the players in the current database, so you simply tap on the one you want, without having to type in a search string as was the case in the previous version.

Commentary

There are a surprising number of people out there who like to annotate games on their Pocket PCs. For this reason Pocket Fritz 2 has received full commentary functions. Simply hold the stylus for a second or two on a move and the annotation box appears. In the dropdown menus you can select any chess commentary symbol or enter text remarks.

The handling of variations has also been revamped. In the move list you can delete lines, trim or promote them. When you arrive at a branching point in a game the variations are shown with more than a single ply.

The screen of a Pocket PC is relatively small, and displaying extensively annotated games is not easy. Pocket Fritz 2 solves the problem by assigning different colours to variations and commentary.

There are many other ergonomic improvements. For instance if you tap on the game header in the notation of a loaded game the dialog to edit the data appears on the screen.

Options

You can configure the program in many different ways to suit your needs. Here are some examples

  • Sound: You can switch the sound effects on or off here.

  • Mark last move: This will mark the last move executed by the program with a coloured arrow, making it easier for you to see when and what Pocket Fritz has played.

  • Animation: Changes the speed at which a piece glides over the chessboard.

  • Pieces: You can select different styles of chess pieces.

  • Board: You can select different chessboard styles.

  • Dark/light squares: You can manually set the colours of the dark and light squares.

  • One tap entry: This is an option to speed up move entry. When it is on, a single tap on a square or piece will execute the move, if it is unambiguous. For instance tapping on the e4 square in the initial position will cause the e2-pawn to jump there. Naturally you can also enter moves in the traditional fashion.

  • Show legal moves: All legal moves are shown with dots on the chessboard. The colours of the dots have different meanings: Green: the square is not under attack by an enemy piece; Yellow: the square is attacked but there is a balance of power - both sides have brought an equal amount of material to bear on the square; Red: the square is under attack and not sufficiently defended. Move a piece to it will generally result in a loss of material.

  • New move: This determines what should happen when you enter a new (alternate) move in an existing game:
    • Ask: this will always produce a dialog box in which Pocket Fritz will ask you whether it should overwrite the existing moves, add the new move as a variation, or make it the main line and the original moves a variation;
    • Overwrite: simply overwrite the moves without asking;
    • Add line: The new move will be inserted as a line or variation, i.e. an alternative continuation to the game.
    • Add main line: The move replaces the game move, which becomes the alternative continuation (together will all the moves behind it).
Engine options
  • Permanent Brain: You can switch off thinking on the opponent's time if the program is too strong for you, or if you find it irritating that it plays so fast, or if you want to save battery power.

  • Learn: Pocket Fritz learns from its mistakes and will try to avoid losing lines. You can switch this feature off for experimental purposes. Of course that weakens the program.

  • Prefer Open Positions: With this option switched on Pocket Fritz will try to keep its games open and tactical, going for the kind of positions in which computers excel.

  • Save Energy: You can switch Pocket Fritz into a mode in which it plays with reduced strength and saves battery power. This is only meaningful in longer games, especially if you find the program too strong for you anyway. In blitz games Pocket Fritz will always play at full speed and strength.

  • Openings Book: This determines how Pocket Fritz will use its openings book:
    • Best move: Pocket Fritz will only play moves that are optimal for its playing style;
    • Tournament: Causes the program to use a special and fairly restricted openings book - in this mode the program is strongest;
    • Normal: Pocket Fritz will play a wide variety of moves, some that are not the best, but still only moves that suit the style of the program.
    • Wide: The program will play a very wide variety of openings, including moves that are not the best and do not suit the style of the program. It is the most entertaining and instructive mode of play.
    • Off: The openings book is switched off and Pocket Fritz has to calculate moves from the start of the game.

  • Max. Hashtables: You can set the maximum hash table size. The minimum is 1 MB and the maximum is 16 MB.

Online database

If you own a Pocket PC, a mobile phone and Pocket Fritz you have mobile access to a giant online database that is maintained by ChessBase in Hamburg. It contains over two million games.


The perfect pair: Pocket Fritz communicating with a mobile by infrared.

When you search in the online database you have many criteria at your disposal: for instance the white and black players, the event, date, result, Elo ratings, etc. You can also simply search for games in which the current board position occurred.

In the opening Pocket Fritz has online access to a truly gigantic online openings tree. The program will give you full statistics on each move: the success rate, Elo performance, etc. The moves can be sorted according to different criteria, and clicking on one will execute it in the game.

System requirements

Windows Mobile 5.0, Windows Mobile 2003, Pocket PC 2002 or Windows CE 3.0. Compatible with the most Windows Pocket PCs.
Support for Pocket PCs with StrongARM or XScale processors and it runs on many MIPS and SH3 devices.

Note that the program comes on a CD and does not include the Pocket PC computer. As with all Pocket PC programs the installation requires a PC (notebook or desktop computer).

Links

49,99 € incl. VAT
42,01 € without VAT (for Customers outside the European Union)
65,11 $ (without VAT)






 

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