All I can say is wow! This program is light years ahead of CM9 (or
any previous versions) in terms of sophistication and tools to help me
get actually better at chess. The CM line had good tools also, but as
a professional programmer I feel pretty comfortable with Fritz's
interface, even as clunky as it is at times.


I can't speak for v8, but I have v9 which I bought a few years back
and only recently started using on a regular basis. Comparing it to
v11 (out of interest) I didn't see any reason to upgrade unless you
need a stronger engine (unlikely?), or you're into the drop-down
robotic 3d eye candy (No thanks!).

I know what you mean about the clunky interface though. On the whole,
it's a well written piece of software, but it is let down by some
serious bugs/non-standard UI guidelines.

These range from minor accelerometer mis-matches on menus, to annoying
bugs like not saving settings, or using different handicap values for
'Patzer' depending upon the button you happened to have clicked before-
hand.

I was going to ask Chessbase whether these have been patched, if
they're fixed in a later version then it could be worth an upgrade -
don't think we should have to pay the full price again though...

Regards,

Duncan