Best Chess: Shredder Classic 3, Bobby Fischer

So far, my favorite commercial chess program is Shredder Classic 3. This program boasts a really excellent user interface for the Shredder Classic 3 chess engine. You can replace the standard engine with Shredder UCI 11 or Deep Shredder 11, at substantially greater cost, or install a third-party engine (either UCI or Winboard) such as GNU Chess, Beowulf or Crafty .

Play online against Shredder. But if you want realtime play against human beings, look online at the FICS, and get your hands on BabasChess.

Bobby Fisher, whatever else may be true about him, could see the chess board with almost supernatural clarity. Anyone, including beginners, who studies his games eventually understands chess a little better than he or she ever did before. Like Edmund Hillary, he stood at a pinnacle of human achievement. He shocked Boris Spassky. He shocked the world of chess. He shocked entire governments. Maybe he even shocked himself. He gave temper tantrums in the cause of sport immeasurable cachet. He may be gone, but the thunderclap does reverberate.