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Is FatFritz1 and 2 fraud?

The more I read the more I become convinced CB should retract FF2. Or drastically change the marketing of it.

On their site CB are advertising FF2 and making a casual note of Stockfish as if it was one not very important contributor under many, see here:
https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/fat_fritz_2

But it isn't. What CB is selling there is basically Stockfish with just another training file - the so-called net - than the original SF file. And they are deceiving their customers with this.

I can see why they are doing it. If they would do what was adequate - only selling the training file as the great improvement for Stockfish - not a lot of people would pay 100 EUR for it. But that's not the fault of the customer. It is the fault of CB overpricing their contribution to Stockfish.

Anyway, I highly doubt they make enough money on it to compensate for tarnishing their own brand.

The more I read the more I become convinced CB should retract FF2. Or drastically change the marketing of it. On their site CB are advertising FF2 and making a casual note of Stockfish as if it was one not very important contributor under many, see here: https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/fat_fritz_2 But it isn't. What CB is selling there is basically Stockfish with just another training file - the so-called net - than the original SF file. And they are deceiving their customers with this. I can see why they are doing it. If they would do what was adequate - only selling the training file as the great improvement for Stockfish - not a lot of people would pay 100 EUR for it. But that's not the fault of the customer. It is the fault of CB overpricing their contribution to Stockfish. Anyway, I highly doubt they make enough money on it to compensate for tarnishing their own brand.

I wonder though if Lichess will make a statement (blog post) about this. I think they should do so, not only making the chess world aware of the fraud going on by CB but also giving much needed support to their open sourced brothers.

I wonder though if Lichess will make a statement (blog post) about this. I think they should do so, not only making the chess world aware of the fraud going on by CB but also giving much needed support to their open sourced brothers.
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I fail to see why I would want to purchase a commercial chess engine today.

The past ten seasons in a row for the Top Chess Engine Championship have been won either by Stockfish or Lc0. The past seven seasons have seen Stockfish/Lc0 (or a varient of Lc0: Alliestein) as the top two finishers.

If someone prefers to get the support of a company instead of being on their own for the care and feeding of their engine, then I see no harm as long as ChessBase is following the letter of the law. In addition to the training files, you also get a subscription to their database. They are adding value, however dubious that value is. :)

I fail to see why I would want to purchase a commercial chess engine today. The past ten seasons in a row for the Top Chess Engine Championship have been won either by Stockfish or Lc0. The past seven seasons have seen Stockfish/Lc0 (or a varient of Lc0: Alliestein) as the top two finishers. If someone prefers to get the support of a company instead of being on their own for the care and feeding of their engine, then I see no harm as long as ChessBase is following the letter of the law. In addition to the training files, you also get a subscription to their database. They are adding value, however dubious that value is. :)

I confirm that fat fritz is a scam. I bought Frtiz17 for fat fritz lco. When I use fat fritz my GPU runs at 45% ... (I have an RTX2060S and they said we have to use RTX Graphic cards with Fat Fritz). When I use stockfish my CPU (12 cores) runs at ... 100% !! But especially in complex analyzes Fat Fritz lco gives me stupid moves ! I wrote to CB support to ask for an explanation and the answer is: "With a Nvidia rtx 2060 you should use the cuda rtx mode" The problem is, in all available engines supplied with Fritz 17 CUDA RTX does not exist 🥴. I still tried ALL engines supplied with Frtiz17 and none gave me satisfaction 😪. Analysis time too long 😴 and as already said, stupid moves 😱! So now ... I'm using Stockfish 😉! So, when I saw the Fat Fitz 2 advertisement by CB .... I said to myself : They are downright cheeky to do that ! because first, that is to say, they admit that Fat Fritz lco was really bad 👎 and second we have to paid 99€ 💰💰💰 for stockfish engine dressed in fat fritz 2 😂🤣

I confirm that fat fritz is a scam. I bought Frtiz17 for fat fritz lco. When I use fat fritz my GPU runs at 45% ... (I have an RTX2060S and they said we have to use RTX Graphic cards with Fat Fritz). When I use stockfish my CPU (12 cores) runs at ... 100% !! But especially in complex analyzes Fat Fritz lco gives me stupid moves ! I wrote to CB support to ask for an explanation and the answer is: "With a Nvidia rtx 2060 you should use the cuda rtx mode" The problem is, in all available engines supplied with Fritz 17 CUDA RTX does not exist 🥴. I still tried ALL engines supplied with Frtiz17 and none gave me satisfaction 😪. Analysis time too long 😴 and as already said, stupid moves 😱! So now ... I'm using Stockfish 😉! So, when I saw the Fat Fitz 2 advertisement by CB .... I said to myself : They are downright cheeky to do that ! because first, that is to say, they admit that Fat Fritz lco was really bad 👎 and second we have to paid 99€ 💰💰💰 for stockfish engine dressed in fat fritz 2 😂🤣

Fat Fritz 2 NUMBER ONE on shitstorm list ;-)

Fat Fritz 2 NUMBER ONE on shitstorm list ;-)

@PawnLivesMatter_2020

It's not only about money why engine programmers use other GUI's if you look into their forums. My experiences with the CB service when asking about the slow adding of new games to my reference db was similar. I use SCID. If I would need a professional games service ChessAssistant offers the same cheaper, if you don't need commented games. In case you want to work with chessbase you can import CA's pgn-files.

CB has lost contact to the floor.

@PawnLivesMatter_2020 It's not only about money why engine programmers use other GUI's if you look into their forums. My experiences with the CB service when asking about the slow adding of new games to my reference db was similar. I use SCID. If I would need a professional games service ChessAssistant offers the same cheaper, if you don't need commented games. In case you want to work with chessbase you can import CA's pgn-files. CB has lost contact to the floor.

Actually you buy a modified engine resp. newly trained network (see above #7) including 6 months of premium content plus the Fritz GUI with database and playing functions. 99 Euro for the full monty.

It‘s up to s.o. to take legal actions. Unless a court decides matters I rest my case.

Actually you buy a modified engine resp. newly trained network (see above #7) including 6 months of premium content plus the Fritz GUI with database and playing functions. 99 Euro for the full monty. It‘s up to s.o. to take legal actions. Unless a court decides matters I rest my case.

@Sargon Yes, you get a GUI and you get database functions but this is not the point. Chessbase is not advertising these features, they are advertising "the strongest chess program of all". With it they are overstating their own contribution and they are massively understating the fact that this is Stockfish with just another training file. For which it BTW seems very dubious whether it is actually an improvement.

And yes, it is doubtful if a court case against Chessbase would hold any water. But again: If CB becomes a company that only cares for what is legal instead of what is legitimate then they deserve the scorn.

@Sargon Yes, you get a GUI and you get database functions but this is not the point. Chessbase is not advertising these features, they are advertising "the strongest chess program of all". With it they are overstating their own contribution and they are massively understating the fact that this is Stockfish with just another training file. For which it BTW seems very dubious whether it is actually an improvement. And yes, it is doubtful if a court case against Chessbase would hold any water. But again: If CB becomes a company that only cares for what is legal instead of what is legitimate then they deserve the scorn.

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