# Wanted: a hard-to-beat chess program

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-a-hard-to-beat-chess-program/161309>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [March 14, 2003, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-a-hard-to-beat-chess-program/161309 "2003-03-14T12:44:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2003, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-a-hard-to-beat-chess-program/161309/1 "2003-03-14T12:44:40Z")

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[guest question] - - - I need a commercially difficult-to-beat chess program there is. It must run on a WinXP laptop. Anybody know of any site where such programs are ranked by difficulty?  
~

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**Author:** ![mallocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f4b2a3/32.png) [@mallocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mallocks)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2003, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-a-hard-to-beat-chess-program/161309/2 "2003-03-14T12:54:48Z")

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Fritz 8, I’m not sure if that’s the actual name of the game, but if you’ve got a good comp, it gets more and more difficult

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**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2003, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-a-hard-to-beat-chess-program/161309/3 "2003-03-14T13:01:34Z")

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[Here’s a good, recent (Feb 2003) list](http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=796) ranking the top 50 chess programs.

Shredder 7.0 comes in number 1, with Deep Fritz 7.0 getting the silver. They both top the 2760 rating. Testing hasn’t ended on Fritz 8.0.

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**Author:** ![CastleAnthrax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@CastleAnthrax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CastleAnthrax)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2003, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-a-hard-to-beat-chess-program/161309/4 "2003-03-14T13:38:54Z")

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The February issue of Games Magazine had an article on the latest ‘computer program versus the Grandmaster’ contest, and an off-the-shelf title beat one of the big names (Kasparov?) a couple times.  
I don’t remember the titles of the software but you can probably find out easily enough.

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**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2003, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-a-hard-to-beat-chess-program/161309/5 "2003-03-14T13:52:58Z")

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Chessmaster 9000 is the best chess game out there and it will kick your ass.