DeepFritz7
RRP £74.99/$99
Upgrade from Deep Fritz £45/£70

DeepFritz7 is the multi-processor version of Fritz7. The strongest program produced by ChessBase won the very strong CSVN computer chess tournament in Leiden 2002. Deep Fritz 7 will run in computers with between one and eight processors. On a dual system the increase in speed is around 85% compared to a single processor of equivalent speed. But even on a single processor system the playing strength is greater than that of the regular Fritz7. The “Deep” version has been improved and enhanced, it has more positional understanding and additional endgame knowledge. This has been achieved without diminishing the program’s legendary tactical power. Deep Fritz 7 comes with the full Fritz7 interface and gives you full access to the ChessBase chess server playchess.com

Fritz 7
RRP £39.95 / $49.50

More than just the best and most popular chess program. Fritz 7 is the key to a new world of chess. Fritz 7 connects you with chess enthusiasts in New York, London, Bombay, Sydney, or with your pal down the street. Visit the Fritz server, where every day is chess club day. All over the world. From morning to evening, or in the middle of the night. With Fritz 7 and a normal Internet connection you are exactly two clicks away.

HIARCS 8
£39.95 / $49.50

The program HIARCS, written by Mark Uniacke of England, has been one of the world’s top programs ever since it won the microcomputer world chess championship in 1993. HIARCS stands for "Higher Intelligence Auto Response Chess System". And indeed the distinguishing feature is that the author, like no other, uses a maximum of chess knowledge to increase the playing strength of his program. The new version of HIARCS has been improved and enhanced in a number of areas, especially in its search algorithms and the implementation of concrete chess knowledge. The search tree has been further optimised and results in an increase in search depth of up to three ply in the middle game. The maximum search depth is now 62 ply! This leads to substantially increased tactical power while at the same time the program maintains its active positional playing style. Chess knowledge has always been the program’s main strength. The improved search algorithms made it possible to implement even more advanced positional functions, especially in the areas of "typical pawn structures" and "dynamic evaluation of the centre". HIARCS 8 evaluates important factors like weak squares, king’s safety, piece exchanges, initiative and king attack much more reliably than the predecessor versions.

System requirements: Windows 95/NT4.0 or higher/98/ME/2000/XP, Pentium 200 MHz or compatible,32 MB RAM,1 MB graphics card,sound card,CD ROM drive, mouse keyboard