Pocket Fritz $49.50
Pocket Fritz is a chess playing program that runs on the latest Windows CE handheld computers. It was first introduced to an enthusiastic public in June, at the Mainz chess classics, where it actually played four games against Michael Adams and Peter Leko. Now ChessBase has finally released this exciting new product. Frederic Friedel reports.
The hit of this summer in the computer world are the so-called "Handheld", small mobile computers that fit in your shirt pocket. They have no keyboards but are operated on their touch-sensitive screens with a stylus, exactly like the Palm computers that came out a few years ago. But the new generation has far superior hardware. They contain ARM or similar RISC processors, running at around 200 MHz. And they run Windows CE.
These slick little machines are applications looking for a problem to solve. They have a pocket spreadsheet, a pocket word processor and a number of other utilities. But there are really no killer applications, programs that make full use of the portability and stylus input of the handheld, something that causes technology freaks to say "This is it, I must have one."
Well, that is about to change. I was able to see first-hand how people react to a chess playing program during the Chess Classic in Mainz, Germany. The author of the program, Stefan Meyer-Kahlen, had come to the tournament to play his latest creation against top GMs. Minutes after his arrival at the hotel Pocket Fritz was already the center of attention.
It started with Vishy Anand, who was about to go for a walk when he saw Stefan in the lobby. "Show us the new machine," he said. Stefan whipped out a Compaq iPAQ and had some difficulty retrieving it half an hour later from Anand's second Elisbar Ubilava, who was completely fascinated by the device. "I could take it with me everywhere," Ubi said, "to the garden, on walks, in trains and planes. You know, I often have ideas when I am moving around, and I must note them on pieces of paper so I can analyze them later. With this thing I can actually analyze on the spot with Pocket Fritz and save the material in the computer." Oh boy, we know who's going to buy a Pocket PC very soon.
Miguel Illescas trying out the tiny machine (left Stefan Meyer-Kahlen)
Stefan checked in and we walked over to the Chess Classics – getting only to the cafeteria, where Miguel Illescas was sitting. He was there as Vladimir Kramnik's second, and naturally he had to try a couple of blitz games against Pocket Fritz, and report his impressions to his master. Kramnik himself frowned when he saw the little machine, took me aside and said: "But what does this mean for open tournaments, Fred? They are finished, aren't they?" We spent quite some time talking about the repercussions of participants owing such highly concealable chess playing devices and consulting them surreptitiously when the situation on the board got tricky.
Almira-Skripchenko-Lautier tries it too
At the playing site of the Chess Classic – and later at the Super-GM in Dortmund – things continued in the same vein. Everyone wanted to see the new ChessBase product, nobody wanted to return the little devices. Players, journalists, spectators, everyone was delighted. If ChessBase had been able to bring along a carton with 100 Pocket PCs they would have been gone in the first day.
Stefan Meyer-Kahlen was gratified so see how people reacted to his product. In the past Stefan has won many world computer chess championship titles with his program "Shredder", but programming Pocket Fritz was the most fun. "I have worked on many projects, some good and some bad, but there was hardly one that I enjoyed as much as Pocket Fritz. Believe me, this product is really great". He keeps repeating this last sentence. "I had practically stopped playing chess, against humans and against computers. But now I'm beginning to enjoy it again. With Pocket Fritz it is fun."
Raymond Keene having fun and beating Pocket Fritz
Playing chess on a Pocket PC is indeed a special experience. In times where Microsoft has prescribed us humans minutes of enforced patience after we switch on our computers, making sure that nobody should spontaneously switch on their machines without sufficient reason, it is a pleasure to touch a switch and have the application appear on the screen in one second. A second later you are already entering moves and playing against the machine.
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The screen graphics are quite beautiful, as you can see in the accompanying pictures. Unlike the Palm Pilot the Pocket PCs have higher-resolution color LCD displays. The chessboard and pieces of Pocket Fritz have proper colors and textures, which are especially clear and bright when you switch the back-light on. |
There are a number of different piece sets from which you can select, some better suited to poor lighting or low batteries than others.
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The moves are always executed with the stylus directly on the screen. You can tap on a piece and then the destination square, or you can drag the piece over the board. At the bottom there are three menus and a number of shortcut buttons for the most common functions: Forward/back one move, notation, analysis, database, flip board, help. There are useful little buttons that appear in many of the screens, e.g. in the status window directly below the board. These buttons allow you to switch quickly between different contents and display modes.
 Analysis with multiple variations |
 Enter position |
Anyone who was expecting a very frugal implementation of chess on a Pocket PC will be disappointed – in a positive sense of course – with what Stefan has packed into this 500 KB program. You can play through games, forwards and backwards, start new lines, nest variations to any depth. You can analyse with the computer, using multiple variations if you want, you can enter positions, create databases, save or copy games. Everything that is required for your daily chess routine seems to be in this machine. The openings books is derived from Shredder's tournament repertoire and is eight Mbytes in size. But even here Stefan has created a new and more compressed format which only requires 500 Kbytes of storage space on the Pocket PC.
 Load games from a database |
 Search for games in a database |
Without doubt this is a full-blown chess program. There are many and varied playing levels – tournament, blitz, time per move, user-defined, plus handicap levels which allow you to set an Elo level between 1000 and 2000. There is even a Fischer clock (each side gets a certain amount of time for the entire game and a certain number of seconds added to the clock after executing each move). Pocket Fritz has a chess trainer which pops up when you make a serious blunder, it has a tactics training mode which presents you with positions in which you have to find a combination. The training files can be periodically downloaded from the Internet, so that you can take the latest lessons with you on a holiday or to the beach.
 The options menu |
 The coach feature in action |
Talking about the Internet: this is probably one of the most spectacular applications of Pocket Fritz. Windows CE machines all have an infrared connector, which can be used to "beam" a game or a database from one machine to another. But the Pocket PCs are also willing to talk to a mobile telephone. Pocket Fritz uses this ability to connect easily and without any wires or cables to the Internet. It is a simple process requiring one to place the Pocket computer and mobile telephone next to each other and dialing the Internet provider on the latter.
The main application of the Internet connection is to provide Pocket Fritz with access to the ChessBase server in Hamburg and the giant database located there. This database contains almost two million games and is updated on a weekly basis. Since the games are heavily indexed (the data volume is about 15 Gigabytes) access is almost instantaneous. For instance you can ask Pocket Fritz to show you all games Vishy Anand won with white in the years 1998 to 2000, and the list appears almost at once. They are stored in a temporary database, so that you can disconnect and then begin studying them in peace. This is important because of the relatively high prices for mobile telephone calls in certain countries. Normally you will dial up, send your query and disconnect in just a minute or two.
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Frederic Friedel, Matthias Wüllenweber, Stefan Meyer-Kahlen consulting the two-million game ChessBase database in Hamburg. Pocket Fritz is connected via mobile phone to the Internet. |
We had an opportunity to see this Internet connectivity firsthand and in full action during the Mainz Chess Classic. There the two world champions Vladimir Kramnik and Vishy Anand were playing a rapid chess match, and we were all watching in the audience. Naturally the best way to do so was with a Pocket Fritz in your hand, so you could get instant answers to all the usual questions ("Can't Anand simply take on b2?", "Isn't the knight on c6 hanging?, "Why can't Kramnik play Bxh7 and immediately win the game?").
In the game Kramnik vs Anand, a few move before the dramatic
"novelty".
In game five of their encounter the two world champions had reached the following position after 15 moves:
Kramnik, who at this point was leading with 2.5:1.5, was eager to close things once and for all in this Queen's Gambit Accepted. In the above position he played a phantastic move which led people in the audience to murmur "Novelty" and "Home preparation": 16.Bxe6!?
In the commentary boxes the GMs were also puzzling whether Kramnik had found this move himself and kept it ready for his game against Anand. But in the audience Stefan Meyer-Kahlen had already clarified matters. Using his Nokia mobile he dialled in to the ChessBase database and whispered to us: "Bxe6 was played four times before, in Uhlmann,W-Balcerowski,W, Bad Liebenstein 1963; Campos Moreno,J-Adianto,U, Moscow ol Moscow 1994; Campos Moreno,J-Magem Badals,J, Barbera del Valles 1995 and Nechaev,A-Zakharchenko,A, Yalta 1996". After Anand had thought for a while and played 16...fxe6 17.Nxe6 h6! Stefan told us that this last move was the real novelty. "In the previous games 17...g6 was played three times and 17...Ne5 once". Anand was able to win the game in fine style and went on to take the entire match in a tiebreak after a 5:5 result.
After the above game GM Eric Lobron, who was anchoring the event on the stage, held up Pocket Fritz to show the players and the audience what the ChessBase people had found during the game. After that Matthias Wüllenweber was asked to join the GMs in their commentary cabin and analyze the games with Pocket Fritz for them.
Part two: Pocket Fritz vs. world class GMs (to follow
soon)
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