It is 1980. You have just found out that in the next game of a chess tournament your opponent will be a strong player who occupies the first place in the table. The stakes of this game are very high for you. If you win, you'll gain a higher chess category and a lot of ELO rating points. If you lose... you'd rather not think about it further. You only have one day, and the game is tomorrow. In that one day you want to get the records of all the games played by your tomorrow's opponent in the last 2 years. You don't know if you will have enough time to analyze the debuts and continuations and the plans your opponent uses in the middle game. Ufff. Big of it and only one day... Maybe your colleagues can help you? .... And if not ? ;-) In the days when no one believed that a computer could win against a human in a game of chess, preparation for a game of chess with a future opponent was... "analog" and took a lot of time and often involved many chess players to work together. Unfortunately, not everyone had a friend who played and understood chess at the level of a master or grandmaster. Today, when chess players have access to databases of chess games and specialized software to work with such databases, preparation for a game against another chess player takes a maximum of a few tens of minutes instead of one or up to several days as it did in the past. This part of the course is prepared in Scid vs. PC version 4.22 in such a way that the vast majority of this program's capabilities can be used in previous versions 4.x. (Scid vs PC 4.0 was released in 2010). In this part of the course I will show you how to use the Scid v. PC program to effectively prepare for a game against another chess player. Let's start with... Prepare Against... Select the function Player Finder in the Windows toolbar. Click to enlarge (works with any image) Note! Instead of the Player Finder, you can use the Player Report function from the Tools toolbar. The difference is that by using the Player Finder function you will avoid a possible mistake while typing the name of the chess player you want to prepare against. Let's enter the chess player's name - Spanton - in the Player field. Press Enter or click the Update button. In this example, we are interested in a chess player named Spanton, Tim R. Let's click on the row with that name. A Player Information window will open containing basic information about the Spanton, Tim R chess player. At the very beginning of preparation, let's assume that we will be playing in the same tournament as our opponent ;-) First, let's look for information on how our opponent fared in chess tournaments with a larger number of players (Open) in which he achieved a result of 2000 Elo or more. Tournaments. Let's click on the Tournaments button. Look for a tournament with the following criteria: Played since 2015 With number of players minimum 40 and maximum 60 With number of chess games minimum 150 in the whole tournament With average Elo rating at least 1800 Enter our criteria in the fields of the newly opened window. Click Update button. Great! Click on each of the displayed tournaments and check the results of our future opponent, remembering that we are looking for one in which his score was at least 2000 Elo. As you may have noticed, Spanton, Tim R - being 60 years old and probably having many years of chess experience - playing in the 2017 11.Highlands Open tournament achieved a score of 2049 Elo and finished in a good 10th place out of 46 players! Let's check at least two chess games: one played against a Chess Master, the other against a player with a lower ranking. Maybe we will learn something important that will help us in our preparations. Let's click on the box described in the table as 3b+ to view a game against a strong player from the top of this tournament. After the new window opened, notice that Spanton, Tim R won a game against Pilschki, Sebastian - that is a player with a high championship ranking 2397 Elo. This is a noteworthy result, but the win was probably "on time", i.e. the Chess Master most likely led to a winning position for himself on the chessboard at the expense of exceeding the available time. The conclusion can be drawn that our future opponent, playing even against a chess master, can be self-controlled, keep his position and lead to a positive result. Now let's check the game against another opponent. Let's click on the box described in the table as 21w+ to view a another game. In this chess game, Spanton, Tim R, playing white against an opponent of similar ranking, chose a closed opening, with the safe position of the white king protected by the white Bishop on g2. Mid-game. Our future opponent without hurry leads the game skillfully maneuvering and leading to a winning position. As we can see, the chess game ended after 41 moves with a convincing victory for white. Very impressive! We can conclude that our future opponent, playing against an opponent of similar strength, playing in a calm manner (closed opening), protecting his King, avoiding risks, trusting in his knowledge and many years of experience - is able to lead to victory. Tip... In the Crosstable window, if you click on the name of any chess player, the Player Information window will display all the data from the database. For example, after clicking on Plischki, Sebastian name... We see that Spanton Tim R won a game against a Chess International Master who has repeatedly exceeded the 2400 Elo ranking. Of course, by using the Player Information window function if we need it - we can at this point get the details of Plischki Sebastian chess career in the same way as described. Detailed report Now, we are interested in a detailed report about the chess games of Spanton, Tim R chess player - and to obtain it we click on the Player Report button. The Player Report window opens. Assuming that we will play black, we select the option Color: White. We're interested in the opponent's chess moves from the start position, so we also check the Start position option. After clicking the OK button, Scid vs. PC will start generating the report. On my computer, after exactly 1 minute the finished report was shown in a separate window Player Report. The generated report contains a lot of detailed data. Already at the very beginning the good information is that there are 331 chess games of our opponent in the Caissabase, which means that the extracted data from these several hundred games will certainly be useful. Hypothetically, if there were 5, 10 or 20 chess games played by white - the conclusions after further analysis could certainly be less accurate and consequently less useful than in this case, where we have data from 331 games. For the purposes of this example, we assume that we want to prepare for a match with Spanton, Tim R, in the opening that this chess player chooses most often, that is, we are interested in the number of occurrences in the report. Let's select from them what is important when preparing for an opponent. In the report, we go to Section 4. Theory Table, where we look for the opening that occurs most often in our opponent's repertoire. According to the data, the opening in row number 5 (1. c4 g6 2.Nc3 Bg7... etc.) occurred 29 times, is the most frequent compared to others according to the Theory Table data. So let's prepare a surprise for our opponent in the opening he chooses most often. The surprise will be move number 3. According to the report, black's third move in this opening is 3...e5. Instead of 3...e5 can black play something else, strong and maybe more interesting ? At this point in our deliberations you can start a strong chess engine to see what it has to offer. How to effectively use chess engines in Scid vs. The PC will be described in the next part of this course "Scid vs. PC - Using chess engines" You can also read the opening report, based on data from Caissabase - the information there can help us choose our third black move. Let's click on the g3 highlighted in the image below. After that, the position on the chessboard will be set after white's move 3.g3. Has a similar chess position been seen before ? Yes ! While reviewing tournament games, more precisely while analyzing the chess game between Spanton, Tim R vs Brasoy, Aksel. The conclusion is that we are on the right track to prepare well against our future opponent, because the data from the Theory Table and from tournament practice indicate that this opening is indeed often chosen by him. Now, select Tools - Opening Report from the toolbar After less than two minutes on my computer, Scid vs. PC created an Opening Report from all Caissabase data. We are interested in the data in section 4.2 Moves from the report position. The data of this section shows that black's move 3...e5 is the most frequently chosen move in this position 26.6% of the time and results in a Score of 44.2%. Score - means that in this case 44.2% of the chess games after the move 3...e5 were won by black. So we are looking for a move that will give a Score at least as high as the 44.2% Score, according to the data. And since we want to surprise our opponent, we look for a move that is rarely chosen. A promising move for black is 3...f5 which is 13 times less frequent than 3...e5 (Frequency 1677 / 129 = 13) and giving a Score of 46.5%. The move 3...f5 is even more interesting when we see that it is rarely chosen but by players on the side with an average Elo rating = 2306, i.e. by Chess Masters. Perfect! I wonder if in Opening Report we can find chess games with continuations created after black's move 3 ... f5. If we could find such chess games, it could help us even more prepare for an opponent named Spanton, Tim R. Below in Opening Report we come across a section with black move 3 ... f5. We see chess games sorted by the chess players with the highest ranking. Let's click on the first of these games between Kovchan vs Korobov A small window will open. By selecting: Browse, we'll review the chess game in a new window. Load, it will be loaded into the main window Scid vs. PC, Merge, it will be linked to the current game in the main window Scid vs. PC. Click on Browse. In this way, we chose a candidate for the move - a surprise for our opponent (3 ... f5). We can also take inspiration for interesting lines by looking at other chess games of strong chess players. Positional Themes Based on previous recognition, we know that Spanton, Tim R likes closed openings, prefers calm continuations, and can play effectively. In the Player Report window, let's see what Scid vs. PC shows. How can this knowledge be used ? Opposite casting looks interesting. In only 8% of Spanton, Tim R chess games did this motif occur. Knowing what kind of chess openings our future opponent chooses, and knowing that in his games Opposite Castling motive occurs rarely (8% of the games), we can direct Black's game in such a way as to lead to a situation on the chessboard with Opposite Castling. First, let's see how Spanton, Tim R., fared in games with this theme. Note, especially the games that he lost, counting a small number of moves. In the Player Report window, click on Opposite castling. When you click on Opposite casting, the Game List window will show the Spanton, Tim R chess games containing this theme. The shortest game that our future opponent lost is in the second row from the top in the Game List window. Let's analyze this game. Opening gambit, white sacrifices a pawn to gain initiative. At the price of a pawn, white gains a developmental advantage early in the game. The black King still in the middle of the chessboard. White almost ready for further action against the black King. Black, despite the unprotected position of the King and not having finished the development, tries a vigorous move of the pawn on b5 to equalize the chess game. Unfortunately it's too late. A pawn move on b5 will only weaken black's position further. And after only a few moves, white's position is completely lost. How did this happen? Spanton, Tim R has developed a beautiful game on the chessboard. Until white's fourteenth move, everything was going perfectly, although the game was not easy, full of complications and possible tactical hits. White's 14th move is a serious mistake, which results in black taking back control of the game. The beautiful sacrifice of the Rook on f6 unfortunately changed nothing in this game. After another 5 moves of Spanton, Tim R lost game. After analyzing this interesting game, we known that our future opponent undoubtedly has a lot of chess knowledge, play very well to a certain point led almost to his victory. Unfortunately for him, in a complicated chessboard situation he made a mistake during tactical calculations of his 14th move. The conclusion to the preparation against this opponent: to bring the situation on the chessboard to the Opposite castling motive, and above all to obtain a tactically complicated position on the chessboard, in which our future opponent can make a mistake during the calculation. Using the features of the Scid vs. PC program, we can gain knowledge about the chess weaknesses of our potential opponents. In a fast, accurate and efficient way we are able to examine in different ways hundreds or even thousands of chess games. We can get valuable knowledge that will help us to prepare effectively for the fight with our opponent. This is the end of the course: Scid vs. PC - Preparing for an opponent I invite you to choose the next course :-))

Chess databases are essentially tools for working with lots of data. Scid vs. PC is essentially a tool for storing, organizing, analyzing, sharing, chunking, ..., etc. data - that is, chess games in many different ways. This part of the course is prepared in Scid vs. PC version 4.22 in such a way that the vast majority of this program's capabilities can be used in previous versions 4.x. (Scid vs PC 4.0 was released in 2010). Scid vs. PC is a free program that was released for Linux, macOS and Windows operating systems. The versions for these systems do not differ in anything. Scid vs. Pc works in the same way on each of these systems. The differences that occur are literally cosmetic and related to the appearance in purpose of integration with the system in which Scid vs. Pc is running. To illustrate these minor differences, I will show the appearance and access to the toolbar on macOS and Windows. macOS In this system Scid vs. Pc is called Scid vs. Mac Click to enlarge (works with any image) Windows In this system Scid vs. Pc is called Scid vs. Pc I'll show you how to organize your work and access to data in Scid vs. PC well. Let's start with... After the first start of the program we are welcomed by two windows: a chessboard (Board) in the initial position and a game annotation window (PGN). At the top of the Board window is a bar with icons - shortcuts to the following tools: Looking from left to right: Replace Game Bookmarks Loading game shortcuts: Load First Load Previous Load Next Load Last Miscellaneous: Game List PGN Window Maintenance Window Tree Window Book Window Crosstable Tournaments Analysis Engines If you hover over any icon, its name will be displayed. In this example by hovering over the floppy disk icon. These shortcuts will make working with the database more efficient and will be presented in more detail later in the course. Below that we see a bar with shortcuts for the current chess game operation, such as go to the beginning of the game, go one move back, etc. Chess Data Base Before we start exploring Scid vs. Pc I highly recommend get a database of chess games. Having access to the database, the Scid vs. PC program will enable us to use all its important features and tools. Chess games in database format can be downloaded from many online sources. A good, recognized and proven place on the net is The Week in Chess or Caissabase. From Caissabase website you can legally and for free download a database containing over 4 million chess games! (December 2021). For us - users, the good news is that the author of Caissabase provides chess games in a format supported by the Scid vs. PC program. For the purposes of this course, I chose Caissabase. After downloading (and unzipping if necessary) the selected chess game database, let's proceed to open it in the Scid vs. PC program. Click File - Open. After opening the chess game database, the first thing we see is that a game notation has appeared in the PGN window -> in this case between Vachier Lagrave vs Caruana. Customize... ...The interface to work with the database. Clicking on the Game List icon will open a separate window with a list of all the games contained in the database. If you click on the Board tab, you will return to the chessboard window. As you may have noticed, to the right of the Board tab, a Game List tab has appeared with the name of the database we opened earlier. From the icon bar at the top of the Board window, let's click on the Tree Window icon. To the right of the PGN tab, a Tree window will open with the database name. But, we don't see the notation of the chess game - we don't see the PGN window. So let's move the Tree window down. Right-click in the Tree pane and choose Move to bottom. When confirmed with a left mouse click, the window layout looks like this: Well done. Let's open some more windows. Select Windows on the toolbar and click on Game Info Below the chessboard you will see a smaller window with data about the first chess game in the database. This way, by clicking on shortcut icons or selecting specific window/s from the Windows toolbar, you can prepare Scid vs. PC to work according to your preferences. In order not to open windows every time after starting Scid vs PC, after clicking Options - Save Layout we can save open windows. After closing Scid vs. PC and restarting it, previously opened and saved windows will be restored. Create a new database Go to the toolbar, select File and click on New In the file window that appears, select the directory in which the database will rest, give it a name "New Database", and then press Save. Now, click on the Game List icon A new Game List window has opened. Scid vs. PC shows that newly created "New Database" does not contain any chess games (0 games) Let's move the Game List window down to make the interface view with windows more readable. Right-click in the Game List window and select Move to bottom. Excellent! After adjusting the window sizes, the interface looks like this. Notice, that when you open the Game List window, the following box appears at the bottom: Large icons labeled with the names of chess databases: clipbase Caissabase New Database They can be used to change the currently used database. It is very convenient if you want to change the base - you just click on the icon with its name. For example, when you click on the Caissabase icon... The interface changes and you can work with Caissabase. You can also change the base by selecting File - Switch to Base on the toolbar and clicking on the selected base. When creating a new chess database, we can choose the format in which this new chess database will be created. The default Scid vs. PC chess database format is *.si4. I recommend this format for creating and using chess databases because it allows the fastest work while maintaining optimal size. Scid vs. PC can also open other chess database formats: *.si3 old format, used in earlier versions of Scid vs. PC. *.pgn or *.pgn.gz (Portable Game Notation) is a non-proprietary database format that is used by almost all chess applications. *.epd or *.epd.gz, (Extended Position Description) describes a chess position. Especially if you will be using multiple chess databases, you will probably want to give the chess databases an adequate appearance. To do this, Select Windows on the toolbar and click on Maintenance Window. Now click on the Database Type icon. Now - after opening a new window we can choose the type of database. I chose the type: My games. After confirming the selection by clicking OK, the icon representing the database named New Database will change its appearance. Clicking on the Close button will return you to the familiar interface. Delete a chess database If you need to delete the chess games database, select File - Finder on the toolbar. The next step is to right-click the database to delete. And after confirming the decision by clicking Yes, the database will be deleted. The Game list window When you open the database, the Game List window appears, a scrolling list of all the games in the database. When you first create the database, it will not contain any games. As you enter more and more games, the chess games database program - Scid vs. PC - will become more and more useful. Each game has a number, and as you enter them, they will be numbered sequentially. You can see the names and ratings of each player. Scores, length, ECO codes, as well as the tournament name are also available. You can click on any column header to start sorting, so it's easy to sort by ECO code, game length, player name, score, rating, etc. Moving around the base can be by icons (first, one up, one down, last) or by typing in the game number or simply clicking on the game. We can also search for e.g. player name, tournament name, date, etc. using the search field. Example: searching for games by the date 2021.11.29. When you type the date in the search box and press Enter or click Filter, you get the result. Removing the date from the search box and pressing Enter will return to the default Game List window view. Tournaments From the toolbar after selecting Windows and clicking on Tournaments. A window will open containing a list of chess tournaments from the database. Using the context fields, you can enter your tournament search criteria. Example below: I am interested in tournaments played by up to 9 chess players with a minimum Elo ranking of 2750, between 2015 and 2021, in England. Move game / games to another database You will certainly want to copy games from one database to another. The actions described here do not remove games from the first database (the one you are copying from). We make copies of the selected games and move them to a separate database. Suppose we want to take (copy) four games from Caissabase and put them in our New Database. You can select a game/s in the Game List by clicking on it once. You can highlight individual games with a series of Ctrl (Windows) / Command (macOS) clicks. Then right-click on one of the selected games and select Set Filter. Once this is done, the four games we previously selected will stay in the Game List window. Notice that in the Caissabase icon there has been a change in the number of games from all to 4. Ok, now you can put the four chess games of your choice into a selected different base. In this case we will move the games to New Database. To do this, left-click on the Caissabase icon, the arrow representing the mouse will change to a symbol : While holding down the left mouse button, move the symbol over the New Database icon. After releasing the left mouse button the symbol will return to its previous arrow shape and a window will appear asking to copy four games. After clicking on the Copy button, the chess games will be put into the New Database. Deleting games The way to delete chess games is to select them in the Game List and right click on a one of the selected game and click to Delete. When you do this, you will see that the game is still there, but grayed out and with a line through its text. Scid vs. PC knows that you may have click delete option by mistake and therefore requires additional steps to physically remove the game from the database. Again select the four games to remove and right-click on one of the selected games click Remove. The games will be removed from the Game List window. To irreversibly delete chess games you can use the Compact button. Click this button. New window will appear. After clicking the Yes button deleted games are gone forever. New Database is empty. Database Compaction is a specific type of maintenance that keeps a database as small and efficient as possible. It involves removing any unused space in its files. Removing doubles On the toolbar, select Windows and click on Maintenance Window. Now, click on the Delete twin games button. A new window will appear where you have different options to choose from. Some doubles games will have different spellings in the name and tournament fields, some will have different lengths due to adding extra moves or skipping moves in one of the games. After selecting the options and confirming your choice by clicking Ok, Scid vs. PC will start searching for twin games. As you can see, Scid found 183 twin games and set delete flags for them. After clicking on OK button, a window Twin game checker will open, where you can browse twin games and decide to remove them from the database. Clipbase Clip Database works much like a clipboard for games that are placed there for transfer to another database. The information is stored there temporarily, pending deletion. You can drag and drop (copy and paste) games into the Clipbase. This will move any highlighted game or group of highlighted games into the Clipbase. Opening a game To view the game, simply double-click on it after highlighting it. When you do this, the chess game will load and appear in PGN window. Player Finder Go to Windows - Player Finder. In the newly opened Player Finder window we can set several search criteria, e.g. the Elo rating range, the length of the search results list and the number of chess games. We are interested in the Player field where we can enter the name of a chess player. Let's search for a player named Firouzja. After entering your name, press the Enter key or click on the Update button. Let's get some information about chess player Firouzja Alireza - click on that name. Excellent! The following information appeared in the newly opened window: The green and light blue content can be clicked on, then further information will be displayed, for example: If you select 511 in green, it will display the 511 games of chess player Firouzja Alireza that he won with white. When you click on A0 (ECO code) a window with data on chess openings in the ECO A0 section will be displayed. At the bottom of the Player Information window after clicking the Player Ratings button you will see a graph of changes in the rating of the selected chess player over time. When you click on the Tournaments button, it will show us a list of tournaments that Firouzja Alireza has participated in. A detailed report can be generated by clicking on the Player Report button - this will be explained in the next section of the course called: "Scid vs. PC - Preparing for an opponent". Playback of the game In the Game List window you can open the game by double-clicking on the row that contains the game information. To view the moves made in a game, you can use the arrow keys to move forward or backward, or even up or down the game. Scid vs. PC has a slider that is upper the board. Replay game automatically After clicking on the Autoplay icon, the game will replay automatically. Playing through a game containing variations If the game includes variations and notes, it is possible to play the variations. When you are done playing a variation, you can easily return to the game. It is not uncommon for the players themselves to reveal their thoughts right there, explaining why they played the move they did or why a different move might have been better or worse. In the screen excerpt below, playing through the Caruana-Asadli game, 7th Gashimov Memorial-Blitz 2021, TA was the Annotator. I have just pressed the right arrow after black's 23th move and, as you can see, the game contains a variation at this point. I can continue the game by pressing the right arrow, or explore the variation first by clicking on the variant icon and choosing Kh1. Of course, at any time I can just move the mouse arrow to select the variant I want to play or analyze. Backup your database To back up the chess database, select File - Finder from the toolbar. After selecting the base and right-clicking select Backup, Scid vs. PC will create a copy of the selected database in the same directory. Checking the integrity of a database In very rare cases, files can become corrupted (storage failure, power surges). It is a good idea to first back up the database and after that check the integrity of the database. The integrity check will provide a report on the database. In the first step, select Maintenance Window from the Windows toolbar. Click Check games button - this feature performs basic checks on every game/filter games. You can select All games or only games from the filter - Filter games Click Check games button. The next step to check the integrity of the database is to select Repair base. Before doing so, you should close the database that you are going to check for data integrity and make repairs if necessary. Right-click the database you want to close ( New database ) and select Close. Next, on the toolbar select Tools - Maintenance - Repair base. Select New Database.si4 icon and click to Open button. The chess database will be checked, any errors will be fixed. After finishing the process Scid vs. PC will display a window with message: Create and save your games You can add another chess game to each new database or to an existing one. On the toolbar, select Game - New Game. After entering the moves... ...Press the floppy disc icon or click to Add game on Game toolbar. After entering the game data, confirm by clicking on the Save button. The newly entered chess game appears as saved in the New Database in the Game List window. Correcting misplaced moves If you enter an incorrect move, don't be afraid. You can go back and enter the move you want. When you enter a new move, you gain several options. If the new move 2 is a variation, select Add Variation. If the new move is to become a mainline, with the old move 2 as its variation, select New Main Line. If the first move you entered was an error that you want to replace, select Replace Move. If you need to replace a move in the middle of the game without affecting the rest of the score sheet, select Try Variation. Edit Game Data Game listings are only fully useful if the information entered is consistent and correct. To change one or more game information, select Game - Set Game Information. You will now see a dialog box that gives you the opportunity to make any necessary changes. This is the end of the course: Scid vs. PC - Efficient work with a chess database I invite you to choose the next course :-))

What can help a chess player more than quick access to key information that will help in every area of the chess art ? In short, an up-to-date database with chess games and software for its effective use. In the part of the course devoted to ChessBase entitled "ChessBase - Efficient work with a chess database" I presented in a simple way the possibility of finding a chess player and the games played by him. You will discover how to find exactly the chess games you want. This is part 5 of a 5 part course on the ChessBase program. Suitable for ChessBase 12 or later. Thanks to the possibilities offered by ChessBase you can find chess games with three duplicated pawns, four Queens, a pawn attack on h4 field in the dragon variant of Sicilian defense, and hundreds of positions with unusual endings - so called chess fortresses - from the last 5 years for chess players with rating over 2300 Elo. Is anything... limiting us in this search? Only our imagination. To begin with, I suggest opening a large database with at least several hundred thousand games. In this part of the course, I will be using Correspondence Database 2020. In the Home ribbon, click on Filter List. And click to Advanced button. Note especially - the seven tabs at the top of the Filter Games window. Each tab represents a different thematic set of criteria that can be used to search for chess games. Only those games that meet the criteria you specified will remain in the list of searched games. The remaining games will not be visible until you complete your search. Big Tips... You can download chess games from the Internet by adding them to an existing database; with careful and systematic maintenance, the search will be successful. The downside of this solution is the time-consuming nature of the process. You can also download ready packets of chess games from various websites and similarly to the above described method - add them to the existing database. The downside of this solution is the necessity to verify many (hundreds, thousands of) chess games for correctly entered data and correct them if necessary. This also makes this process very time consuming. From his own experience the author of this course once a year buys the chess games database he is interested in or updates it from a reliable source. When you use ChessBase, the natural choice is to get the chess games database from this producer. This way you will get an up-to-date database maintained in a correct, meticulous and professional way, which is 100% compatible with the software you use. One of the key reasons to have access to a large, very well maintained chess database is to be able to search every field in the Filter Games window. If the database is properly maintained and updated, you will be able to get reasonable results. Back to window with Filter Games. Here's what you'll find in the tabs: Game data Search for players, tournaments, years, results, etc. Annotations Search for different types of commentary contained in games. Position Search for positional fragments, themes and sacrifices. Material Search for material distribution and balance. Manoeuvres Search for manoeuvres. Medals Search for medals. Attacks In addition to the search for manoeuvres and material constellations, in any database the program can conduct a targeted search for pre-defined defensive – or attacking – motifs. In the search mask you can define the search criteria you wish via the tab Attacks . All of these sections are connected with a logical "and". This means that if a number of criteria are defined all of them must be fulfilled in order for a game to be retrieved. When there are definitions present in any section a check box at the bottom of the search mask is switched on. You can unclick it to switch off that section. Ok, so let's go ahead and search by setting many different criteria. Search Masterfully, example 1. We are interested in chess games that meet the following conditions: The average ranking is between 2200 and 2400 Elo. White wins. The chess game is at least 41 moves or a maximum of 99 moves. White pawn on c7. There is a difference in material held between whites and blacks. Overworked piece With an attacking white bishop. For your convenience, I have marked the criteria of interest to us in the appropriate tabs. On my computer, a database consisting of 1,626,801 chess games was searched in 6 seconds! ChessBase found 3 chess games that met the above complex criteria. Below these three chess games in key positions according to ChessBase. Search Masterfully, example 2. We are interested in chess games that contain a motif of white attacking the black King's position with the help of the white pawns g4 and h4, the white rook on h1 and after castling made. On the black side with the King defended by Bishop on g7 and supported by Rook on f8 and pawn on h5... ...and meet the following conditions: Players with any rating Elo. A chess game takes a minimum of 15 moves, a maximum of 29. That is, we are interested in a game with not too many moves. Results: 0-1 and 1/2-1/2 With 0-0 With mark: Critical Middlegame Position In position tab: structure showing white's attack on the king's wing. See below for a picture with the chessboard setup. Medals: with attack. Manoeuvres: Double Attack. Attacks: Defended by black Knight. For your convenience, I have marked the criteria of interest to us in the appropriate tabs. After click OK button, ChessBase found 3 chess games that met the above very complex criteria. Below these three chess games in key positions according to ChessBase. Search Masterfully, example 3. And a final example. This time with less specific search criteria; suppose we are interested in positions similar to those arising in the King's gambit after a short castling of the white King and with an attack of black pawns on f4 and g4. We are looking for games in which black was victorious and made a spectacular sacrifice. For your convenience, I have marked the criteria of interest to us in the appropriate tabs. After click OK button, ChessBase found 21 chess games that met the above criteria. The attentive reader will have noticed that two games were labeled Top Game and annotated. Let's look at one of these correspondence games between Pervago vs Neustadtl played in 1903. A beautiful chess game with a amazing sacrifice black Rook on h8 :-) Concluding this part of the course, I would like to emphasize that using a professionally maintained chess database (which is the Correspondence Database from ChessBase), we can also find annotated games with diagrams and variants from interesting continuations. Find games in the ChessBase Online Database In the Database Window, select the Home Tab - Online The benefit of such an online search is access to current data, updated by professionals. The downside is that the search capabilities are much smaller than those available in a database locally stored on your computer/storage. Let's try simple search - you can enter a chess player's name, tournament, year, etc. After click the OK button we get 500 games with chess player Nickel Arno: Advanced search (click Advanced button) offers some additional features, but with very limited criteria to choose from. And here are the search results: Tip... It is worth using ChessBase Online Database if: You do not have access to your local database (on your computer / storage). You want to quickly find recent games of famous chess players or from important tournaments. You are only looking for a chess game or games and don't need more advanced search options. Keys One of the more interesting features for finding chess games is Keys. To make it easier to use Keys, I suggest in ChessBase Settings - Misc to check the Use 'Theme Keys' option as shown in the image below. After confirming with Apply and OK buttons, we open the database. In this case I will use Correspondence Database 2020. To the right of the Openings tab, four new ones have appeared: Themes, Tactics, Strategy, and Endgames. Select the options you are interested in from the thematic tree by clicking on the plus or minus sign and pointing to a specific game. Keys are an extremely useful tool for chess players aiming to deepen their knowledge in various areas of the art of chess. In the Strategy tab we can learn about many different techniques, the mastery of which will help a chess player in achieving success. A large number of chess games are enriched with professional annotations! Similarly, under the Themes, Tactics and Endgames tab, you will find a lot of training content for many different endgame themes - with annotations. Searching Masterfully using ChessBase does not require any special skills, knowledge or a very fast computer. With examples I have shown - that regardless of whether the search criteria are very simple (the chess player's name), or very complex consisting of many elements... ...using ChessBase we can achieve accurate and useful results in a very short time - even within a few / several dozen seconds. It is amazing how much technology -> computers -> friendly software is able to enrich the chess world and support the development and search for interesting solutions, ideas. This is the end of the course: ChessBase - Search Masterfully I invite you to choose the next course :-))

ChessBase allows you to use chess engine / engines when working with chess games - ChessBase calls them Kibitzer. For any move or position you can call the Kibitzer, which will evaluate the position, suggest a good or interesting continuation, or analyze the chess game noting the good and weak moves, suggesting what to play. The longer the chess engine works, the more confident we can be in its evaluation. ChessBase allows you to install multiple chess engines and use one or more of them simultaneously. ChessBase allow access to millions of already proven positions by other chess players using the Kibitzer. If you find yourself in an interesting position and turn on the Kibitzer, you can immediately see the results that other chess players have obtained in the same position using different chess engines, The result is astounding. You can now quickly go through the key lines, observing not only what moves made, but also what the different Kibitzer - chess engines - calculated. ChessBase has compiled all these Kibitzer evaluations into a separate book of openings called the Live Book. The result is a lively, fast-moving environment that helps chess players in their analysis, position evaluations which enables faster and more effective preparation for opponents and promotes learning and rapid progress in the art of chess. This is part 4 of a 5 part course on the ChessBase program. Suitable for ChessBase 12 or later. Depending on the version of ChessBase you are using dear reader, your program includes one to several Kibitzers that are integrated into ChessBase. The very good news is that... Each of the pre-built Kibitzers plays with a strength that surpasses even the playing strength of a World Chess Champion! This means, that the results of position analysis and evaluation using any of the Kibitzers will be objective and at a very, very high level. You can install additional engines, you can set the default engine as any of the installed ones, you can even rent some really powerful Kibitzers in the cloud. How to use chess engines with ChessBase - that's what this part of the course is about. Kibitzer In the rest of this course, I will use the name: Kibitzer instead of chess engine. To see a list of installed Kibitzers: - Open a any game and go to Home - Add Kibitzer As you can see, I have added several additional Kibitzers to my list of chess engines. Install Kibitzer You can install any chess engine in ChessBase that uses the UCI (Universal Chess Interface) protocol. Almost all modern, free and commercial chess engines support the UCI protocol. To install new Kibitzers, download them, open any game or empty chessboard and click Home - Create UCI Engine. A new window will open: Set up UCI Engine. Click "..." button. And in the next window indicate the chess engine to install. In this case it will be Colossus v2008b.exe. Click on the Open button. Note that ChessBase recognized the engine name: Colossus 2008b and its author: Martin Bryant. To install the selected chess engine, click on the OK button. UCI engines can be used wherever they are, in any folder or any disk on the computer. The configuration files with the extension *.uci are always saved in the folder / Documents and Settings/Username/Application Data/ChessBase/Engines.UCI. When you install new ChessBase programs (such as Fritz), the built-in chess engines are automatically placed in the Engines directory. Once the chess engine has been installed correctly, it will be visible in the list of available Kibitzers. Kibitzers (engines) management If you have installed a lot of Kibitzers and would like only selected Kibitzers to be listed, go to Home - Engine Management. After moving the selected Kibitzers from the left side ( Active engines ) to the right side ( Inactive engines ), confirm your choice by clicking on OK button. Again by clicking on Home - Add Kibitzer, my list contains only selected Kibitzers ( Active engines ). Of course, inactive Kibitzers (they are installed) can be activated in the same way as described above by clicking on Home - Engine Management. After activating two Kibitzers named: Colossus 2008b Fritz 15 My Kibitzers list looks exactly like this: Default Kibitzer Let's open any chess game. There is always one selected default Kibitzer in ChessBase, which can be started by clicking on the Home - Default Kibitzer ribbon. The default Kibitzer can be set by entering the main options - Click on the key icon. The Options window will open. After click on Engines, you will see options on the right side of the window for setting the default chess engine. To make a change to the default Kibitzer, click Browse... A familiar window with a list of chess engines will open. After selecting another default Kibitzer from the available chess engines, confirm with OK button. As we can see, the default Kibitzer ( Default Engine ) has been changed to Fritz 17, which we selected in the previous window. The default Kibitzer should be the chess engine that is best / most used for you. After clicking the OK button, we will return to the window with the chess game opened earlier. So let's check if our new default Kibitzer will work after launch. Oh yes, it works ! A chess engine called Fritz, which comes with ChessBase, provides perfect integration with all ChessBase options and capabilities. There are different versions of the Fritz chess engine. One of the most powerful is Fritz 17 released by ChessBase in 2019 (author Frank Schneider) , whose chess playing power has been measured at the sky-high level of 3190 Elo points ( rapid time control ). By comparison, the playing strength of World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen in December 2021 was 2842 Elo points ( rapid time control ), which is 348 Elo points less than the Fritz 17 Kibitzer! Click on this link - if you want to learn more about the Elo ranking system. Working with Kibitzer / Kibitzers As you may have guessed, working with Kibitzer-who can play chess with a strength far superior to that of any human player - produces very good results. And this is indeed the case. With a game board, open the default Kibitzer or select another Kibitzer: Home - Add Kibitzer and double-click on your engine choice. You can add several different Kibitzers if you wish. For example, let's add a second Kibitzer. As we can see, two chess engines ( Fritz 17 and Stockfish 14 ) simultaneously analyze the initial position of a chess game. If you have more than one Kibitzer running, you can remove the last one loaded with Home - Remove kibitzer. The more Kibitzers you add, the more impact it will have on your computer's resources. In 1994 a set of chessboard positions was created to test the chess engines of the time. One of the positions was then briefly summarized by Mr. Bruce Moreland, who stated: "I don't think that anyone ( chess engine) has ever solved this one." Here's that position: Fen notation: r2qk2r/ppp1b1pp/2n1p3/3pP1n1/3P2b1/2PB1NN1/PP4PP/R1BQK2R w - - 0 1 I will show you how powerful is modern chess engine.... Let's start Fritz 17 Kibitzer :-) After... 6 seconds I get result: Just 6 seconds after running Fritz 17 Kibitzer, we got the result of the analysis - the strongest move Nxg5 in that position was found. After adding the next two top lines of analysis, we see that the Nxg5 move is by far the strongest continuation. To increase or decrease the number of lines to be examined by Kibitzer, click on the magnifying glass with + or -. Twenty-five years after this position was published, the unsolvable task was solved in... 6 seconds ! I would like to emphasize that the quality of position and game analysis by chess engines has increased incredibly over the last quarter of a century. It is worth using the suggestions of modern chess Kibitzers like Fritz 17, as they are able to quickly, efficiently and accurately offer any chess player objective and accurate suggestions, continuation plans, finding errors and inaccuracies or analysis of chess games. Important Notes... When you open a Kibitzer, it will not be available for use in a position in another game until you close it in the game where it is used. If you don't see Kibitzer in the list of available engines, it means you left it active in another window. If you cannot open Kibitzer, you probably have so many ChessBase windows open that the program no longer has enough resources (e.g. ram memory) to load the chess engine. You should close some windows or other programs. You can block Kibitzer to explore other parts of the game or a completely different game: right-click on the engine panel - Block Engine. If you do not lock the engine, its results will be lost when you click elsewhere in the game, because Kibitzer will otherwise assume that you are interested in evaluating movement in a new game location. Understanding the result of Kibitzer's work As you may remember, in the content of this course above - I opened Fritz 17 to analyze a position that 25 years had been considered unsolvable for chess engines. Let's recall what was shown. The result of Fritz 17's work was revealed in a window called Kibitzer: Fritz 17 Popcnt and included: Position evaluation: 1.35 Search depth: 24 Best move analyzed: Nxg5 The number of positions checked per second: 374 kN/s Continuation of moves after the best found move: 1.Nxg5 Bxd1 2.Nxe6 Qc8 3.Nxg7+ etc. Detailed description: this is what the engine window displays: Top line from left to right: Engine name; the move currently under investigation (number x of y legal move); stop engine; increase (+) or decrease (–) the number of variations calculated simultaneously. Second line from left to right Fail high/fail low display; position evaluation in pawns (+ is good for White, – good for Black); search depth (full width/selective); time used on current search; number of positions per second (in thousands). Functions in the engine window Right-clicking the variation window produces a function menu for the analysis engine. Engine: Selects an analysis engine. Lock: Normally the engine follows the board notation. But you can lock it to a specific position, after which it will ignore what happens on the board. Increase/Decrease number of lines: You can instruct the engine to calculate the n best lines in the position. Next best: This is only supported by some engines (e.g. Fritz). The engine ignores the best move found so far and uses its full power to search for an alternative (the next best move). Threat: Calculates the "threat" in the current position. Clip analysis: Copies the entire analysis history into the Windows clipboard. It can be pasted into any text editor. Copy to notation: Copies the best line found so far into the game notation (Ctrl-Space). Scroll main line: New lines are added to the end of the list. If this is switched off, new lines overwrite the previous ones. Extra search information: Records evaluation, search depth and number of positions after each main line. Scroll new moves only: New lines are recorded only if the first move changes. Variation board: Produces on a small board on which you can replay the main line. Choose font: Select font and size for the the analysis display. Properties: Allows you to set the engine parameters. The engine parameters influence the analysis style of the engines. For example, hash tables are memory areas in which the program can store positions and evaluations while it is calculating the moves of a game. If the program encounters the same position again, it can simply take the evaluation from the hash tables, rather than analyzing the position all over again. Hash tables increase the playing strength of the program considerably. For slower time controls and deep analysis the engines need large hash tables, eg. 512MB and more. Close: Closes the window and shuts down the engine. Chess engines evaluate positions with the help of a numeric value. The evaluation is expressed in pawn units, always from the point of view of White. Piece Value in pawn units Pawn 1.0 Knight 3.0 Bishop 3.0 Rook 5.0 Queen 9.0 If the program is displaying a value of +1.30, this means that it considers the white position to be better by the equivalent of 1.3 pawns. If White is actually a pawn up, then the additional 0.3 is the result of positional considerations (mobility, deployment of pieces, king safety, pawn structure, etc.). A display of –3.00 means that White is a piece down – either a bishop or a knight, which are both equivalent to about three pawns. Rooks are worth five and the queen about nine pawns. Of course the king's value is unlimited – lose it and you've lost the game. Always it is the case: positive values favour White, negative values favour Black. In addition to the precise pawn values, the evaluation is also given in standard chess symbols: To show how Kibitzer "thinks" when it analyzes a position, let's use the setting on the board according to the image below. Fen notation: r2qk2r/ppp1b1pp/2n1p3/3pP1N1/3P4/2PB2N1/PP4PP/R1BbK2R w KQkq - 0 2 2.Nxe6 Qb8 3.Nxg7+ Kf8 4.Ne6+ Kf7 5.Nf4 Bg4 6.Nxd5 Ke8 7.0-0 Rf8 8.Rxf8+ Kxf8 9.Bxh7 Be6 10.Nf4 Black is better: -/+ (-0.99) Depth: 10 00:00:00 2.Nxe6 Qb8 3.Nxg7+ Kf8 4.Ne6+ Kf7 5.Nf4 Bg4 6.0-0 Kg7 7.Nf5+ Bxf5 8.Nh5+ Kf7 9.Bxf5 Ke8 10.Ng7+ Kf8 11.Ne6+ Kg8 12.Nf4 Black is slightly better: =/+ (-0.69 ++) Depth: 14 00:00:00 531kN 2.Nxe6 Qc8 3.Nxg7+ The position is equal: = (0.05 ++) Depth: 17 00:00:01 1942kN 2.Nxe6 Qc8 3.Nxg7+ Kf7 4.Bh6 Bg4 5.0-0+ Kg8 6.Rf4 Nxe5 7.N3f5 Bc5 8.dxc5 Qf8 9.Ne6 Qf6 10.Re1 Bxf5 11.Bxf5 Qxh6 12.Rxe5 c6 13.Re2 White is slightly better: +/= (0.60) Depth: 17 00:00:01 3477kN 2.Nxe6 Qc8 3.Nxg7+ Kf7 4.Bh6 Bg4 5.0-0+ Kg8 6.Rf4 Nxe5 7.N3f5 Bc5 8.dxc5 Qf8 9.Ne6 Qf6 10.Re1 Bxf5 11.Bxf5 Qxh6 12.Rxe5 c6 13.Re2 White is better: +/- (0.92 ++) Depth: 18 00:00:01 4942kN 2.Nxe6 Qb8 3.Nxg7+ Kd8 4.Kxd1 b5 5.Bf5 Na5 6.Rf1 b4 7.Ne6+ Ke8 8.cxb4 Bxb4 9.Ng7+ Kd8 10.Bg4 Be7 11.Rf7 Nc6 12.N3f5 Qb4 13.Ne6+ Kc8 14.Nf4 White is clearly better: +- (1.81 ++) Depth: 22 00:00:09 36408kN It is worth noting, the change in Kibitzer's evaluation of the position over time and with the increasing depth of the search for the best move and continuation. The longer Kibitzer analyzes and the deeper he searches, the more accurate his evaluation of the position becomes. Threat in position You can use the Kibitzer to find the threat in any position. After open the Kibitzer (do not lock it) and right-click in the engine and select Analyze threat or press X key. The Kibitzer will now shift ahead a half ply and it start analyzing the position. The result is a list of the possible threats in the position. There might well be more than one threat, and so make sure that the Kibitzer is analyzing more than one line at a time. In our example, Kibitzer analyzes three lines. As the Kibitzer chugs away on a position, there will be times when you know that its top choice is wrong. That can be useless, because the Kibitzer will be wasting time on a line that you have already rejected. In that case, right-dick It Next Best or press the Y key to force the Kibitzer to start its analysis with the next best line, excluding the main line from looking for a threat. Variation board You can watch the positions of the Kibitzer's analysis on the additional chess board. Right-click within the Kibitzer's analysis pane and click Variation Board. To the right of the Kibitzer analysis window, the Variation board will appear. Don't forget to click on the button marked with a red border on the variation board, this setting on the chess board will automatically update. After some time and analyzing the position more deeply, the setting on the additional chess board was updated. Clip analysis You can insert the main line or all lines being analyzed directly into the game notation by right-clicking in the analysis pane, and then selecting Copy to Notation or Copy all to notation. Example: When you click Copy to Notation, the analysis line is inserted into the notation and preceded by the name of the chess engine (Fritz 17 Popcnt). 1.70 is the position score and 25 is the depth at which Kibitzer analyzed. You can also copy the Kibitzer analysis result directly to the clipboard. To do this right-click to Kibitzer pane and click Clip analysis. When you paste the contents of the clipboard into Notepad or another text editor, you get: The first line is a record of the position setting on the board in Fen notation On the second line is the name of the Kibitzer that did the analysis. In the third line is the chess notation of the analyzed line along with the position evaluation, the depth of the search, the number of chess positions analyzed (103M). The more lines at a time Kibitzer analyzes, the less accurate the result of the analysis will be than if Kibitzer analyzes only one line - I recommend especially such to correspondence chess players. The greater number of lines at once analyzed by Kibitzer allows for more insight into the chess player's evaluation of the position - I recommend this to chess players who want quick analysis results for several possible continuations - not necessarily the strongest. Let's Check It is worth waiting some time until the engine reaches sufficient depth to offer a useful analysis result. In popular lines, many players often analyze the same positions, which is an inefficient waste of time and computing power. ChessBase has a useful Let's Check feature, a way to save and share analysis results. To use this feature, select Lets Check from the Analysis ribbon. Lets check the analysis of other players in the interesting opening that is the king's gambit: As we can see, the eighth move was once analyzed by three Kibitzers: Stockfish 14, Komodo 13.2, and Deep Fritz 14. It is worth noting, that Kibitzer Stockfish 14 analyzed this position deepest to depth 33, meaning that his choice of move 8.Bb5+ is probably the most accurate and strongest. Being at move nine, we see that only one Kibitzer has previously analyzed this position: Komodo 14. Note, that after some time when you, dear reader, analyze positions using Lets Check, the result of your Kibitzer's analysis will also be recorded - similar to mine in this position - first line (sedarpl) I recommend using Lets Check You can find out the analysis results of other Kibitzers instantly, without having to wait and spend your time and electricity for hours. Let's check does not favor some engines over others. Let's check suggests more of the longest and deepest analyses assuming that they will show the most accurate results. Your analysis can supply Lets Check :-) As you may have noticed, by sharing analysis, everyone on ChessBase (who uses Lets check) can benefit. If you would like to join this excellent group of users, then after starting Let's Check, click on Settings. Enter your PlayChess username and password, then click OK button. When you connect to Let's check using the account you are using on the PlayChess, you will be able to send positions and chess games to the Let's check server. If you want to disable this, in the Lets check window, click on Settings and select Disconnect. Worth knowing: You will not be able to participate in these activities without having a Playchess account. Let's Check Analysis Chess players review their important and interesting chess games as well as strong and famous players as part of their chess passion, while studying, or just for fun. Let's Let's Check automate this process! With the game open, launch a Kibitzer and Let's Check, and then Analysis - Let's Check Analysis. And in the newly opened window, we see four main types of analysis. Blunders, Combinations, Training includes a useful summary of turning points in the game. Here is a game analysis of the chess game between Anatoly Karpov vs Garry Kasparov played in the World Championship 32nd-KK2 in 1985. After a short while we get the analyzed chess game with annotations. As we can see, serious errors occurred on both sides, but the decisive error for White was 40.e5??, which Garry Kasparov precisely exploited and in three moves made Anatoly Karpov resign. Lets Check Analysis is an extremely effective way to watch and study chess games. The Retrieval Only option shows a list of major alternatives when players chose moves that were not at the top of the Let's Check recommendation list. The analysis starts when a game deviates from the established debut theory. Again, Lets Check delivers results very quickly and you don't need a super fast computer to get this data. Standard analysis provides a summary of available Let's check results usually in three or two variations. Below is an extract of the notation along with an analysis. Win variations calculates until at least one variation has been won. If you use Win variations to analyze your chess games, historical games or games that have just been played - it is possible that you will "discover" new positions and interesting continuations. It is worth remembering, that after an important live match, deep analysis is probably already available for the entire game. Just a few clicks in your ChessBase using Let's Check :-) With Let's Check, without having to buy an expensive computer or spend your time, you can get a very quick, objective overview of the chess games that interest you. Tablebase There are a total of 64 pieces on the chessboard in the starting position. The total number of possible moves is so unimaginably large that chess will remain an unsolvable game for a very, very long time. But... during each game the number of pieces and pawns decreases with time due to the players' moves, and one by one they disappear from the chessboard. After a certain number of moves, it is not uncommon for the situation on the chessboard to go into the so-called endgame phase. In a situation where e.g. a few pieces remain on the board, is it possible to use solutions that will help Kibitzer to analyze chess positions even more accurately? Yes! The answer is Tablebase. For us ChessBase users, it is important to know and take advantage of this knowledge that the cooperation between chess engine and Tablebase significantly increases Kibitzer ability to deliver accurate results in endgames. Kibitzer using Tablebase will be even faster and more accurate - catching transitions to winning continuations in endgames, typically providing, for example, the exact line of the continuation and the number of moves to mate the opponent or achieve the desired draw. The concept of using a Tablebase is not new, so over the last few years with the development of computers and the increase in computing power, several Tablebases with different capabilities have emerged. In ChessBase, after entering the Settings - selecting Tablebases - Edit.., The Tablebases window opens. ChessBase can use various Tablebases: Nalimov Syzygy Gaviota. So which Tablebase should I choose ? I recommend using Syzygy Tablebase. If you are interested in the details between the different Tablebases, I recommend the excellent article on the ChessBase website; one example: a big advantage of the Syzygy Endgame Tablebases is that they are much smaller than others Tablebases. The 6-man Syzygy tablebases need 150 GB disc space, whereas the Nalimov tablebases need more than 1 TB. To start enjoying the benefits of Kibitzer working with Syzygy Tablebase, that tablebase must be accessible to ChessBase and correctly configured in the settings. There are several ways to integrate the TableBase results into ChessBase kibitzers. All of the above Tablebases are legally available for free and downloadable from the Internet. If you want to make the process of getting Tablebase its installation and configuration as simple as possible, then ChessBase offers to buy a ready-made kit that, once installed, will do the job in a few clicks. Click to image to visit ChessBase shop. You can also manually point ChessBase to the path to Syzygy Tablebase. An example is shown in the image below. Due to the size of the Tablebase, I recommend installing them outside the Documents folder, for example in D:\syzygy After entering the settings and clicking OK, Syzygy Tablebase will be prepared to work with a modern Kibitzer such as Fritz 17. You can check whether the access is working by looking at the output of a chess engine. I suggest to first create a position on the chessboard consisting of e.g. 4 pieces (White King, White Queen, Black King, Black Rook) and then open the Fritz chess engine. In this example you can see entries like tb= 281, which show how often the chess engine is accessing the endgame Syzygy tablebase. If you are not seeing tb=xxx entries, there are several possible causes: Syzygy Tablebase was entered incorrectly in Settings - most common cause. The position on the chessboard contains too many pieces, and Syzygy Tablebase does not have the required data. Kibitzer - the chess engine - can't work with Syzygy Tablebase. This happens when you open an old Kibitzer published e.g. in 2000. ChessBase has incorporated some items from TableBases into the Let's Check analysis results. This means, that if you reach a position that exists in Let's Check, you will immediately get insight into it using the analysis result. You can certainly use Syzygy TableBase as a tool to learn and develop your chess skills, such as quickly matting your opponent's King using the Knight and Bishop with your King support. LiveBook LiveBook is the largest source of information on openings that have already been played. ChessBase collects data from Let's Check in LiveBook, a huge and very fast-growing book of openings. LiveBook is ready to use, right from the cloud - all you need is ChessBase and Internet access. By browsing chess openings and gambit continuations internally, you can get to know all the lines very quickly. Thousands of computers and chess engines all over the world are analyzing variants, gambits, correspondence and master games at any time and adding the results to this cloud database LiveBook! ChessBase together with LiveBook is a powerful tool for every chess player, which offers the best continuations resulting from group work :-)) LiveBook is "live" because it can change from second to second. Every position that is checked in LiveBook is immediately available with a evaluation / position score. LiveBook "forgets" the information that is irrelevant and rarely used, and leaves the information that is most useful. Here is a chess game between Grischuk Alexander and Carlsen Magnus played at the 2007 Wch Blitz tournament. In the Notation + Opening Book pane, press the LiveBook tab indicated by the red line. First, the starting position: Move: shows the possible moves in this position. Games: The number of games in which the move was played. Result: The average performance of the move. Elo-AV: The average Elo's of the players in the games used. Date: The last analysis added to the LiveBook. Evaluation: The average of the evaluations added by chess engines. Visits: The number of accesses to the position that is being displayed. [ % ] : The frequency with which this move was played. This is based on the games in the LiveBook. If you are connected every move you make is stored, so click on Disconnect for private preparation. Data is only transferred to the LiveBook when the connection light is green. On the chessboard we see the position before Grischuk's eighth move 8.Ng4. Let's try to interpret white's eighth move 8.Ng4 according to information obtained from LiveBook. 8.Ng4 is a rarely chosen move for white (8 games, 3%) but after playing the results are good (69%) by players with an average Elo 2500 (chess grandmaster rating). Conclusion: it's worth to check the move 8.Ng4 and its further possible continuations. After selecting and clicking Novelty Mining... First of all the settings dialog is started. Here you can specify exactly how the search for a playable (usable) innovation is to be carried out by the default Kibitzer. The following settings are possible: The Side for which a usable novelty should be found. Depth sets the nesting depth of the variations which will be investigated from the current position. The resulting variation trees can be flatter if not sufficient games have been played with them. Evaluation Range fixes the evaluation interval in hundredths of a pawn: if a move calculated achieves a value in this range it counts as a possible. For White and Black these ranges are different and are automatically suggested when colours are changed. The more aggressively or optimistically you set this interval the fewer hits are found , but these nuggets are all the more important. Already played refers to the number of possible games already played: if “Never” the move should not have been played in good games. “Max. once” means that one previous game has been found. “Side Line” concerns less than 5 percent of all games. With “Every move” all limitations are off. All moves played are analysed. That results in an automatic engine check of the variations which follow. The engine search for novelties works very efficiently. Normally one would set up a search with many multi-variations in order to explore widely for alternatives. The multi-variation search, however, gives exactly as much calculating time to the main variation as to all the other continuations. So, side lines are calculated clearly less deeply. Click OK and after some time we get the results of Novelty Mining. As you can see, Novelty Mining added annotations in the Notation tab, and listed continuation lines in a separate window. Looking for new interesting continuations - novelties, I recommend using Novelty Mining option. If a top game is being played on the chess server and lots of viewers are using Let's Check, then when the game is over it is available in full in the LiveBook with relatively deep engine analyses. Anyone can add his own moves to the LiveBook, sensible or not. Just like a human brain the LiveBook forgets unimportant material after a while, i.e. information that is rarely updated. When the engine is running additional information can be found in the engine window when the Let's Check function is active. Deep Analysis When you want to analyze multiple moves in a chess position it is a good idea to use the Deep Analysis feature. Go to a position on the chessboard that is interesting or important to you. In the example below I have chosen a chess game between Rotlewi Georg vs Rubinstein Akiba played in the Polish city Lodz in 1907. Black's move number 22. On the Analysis ribbon, click Deep Analysis. ChessBase runs the default Kibitzer, which begins its work by describing the most important variants in the annotation field in increasing detail. The longer Kibitzer runs, the more accurate its analysis becomes. Deep Analysis also eliminates variants that have failed, speeding up the analysis of more competitive continuations and leaving behind a consistent analysis. There are three options available on the Deep Analysis ribbon. You can Stop Process. The results will remain, giving you an opportunity to save them. You can open access to chess engines in the cloud: Open Cloud Engines. This option will be described in the course content below. You can Skip Iteration - namely skip a level of analysis, immediately moving the processor to a higher depth. This is very good for preliminary analysis so that you can get used to the motives of the position, but sometimes engines need more time to examine a position in detail. For this it is necessary to let an engine examine a position for a long time. After longer times the search depth is bigger, but not too complex so that the result remains easy to understand. The program analyses candidate moves and makes the moves for further analysis, as every chess player would do it himself. This generates a tree which changes from iteration to iteration. In the notation variations are shown in grey if they do not seem good at the current depth. If a variation cannot be proved to be good at two consecutive depths it disappears from the notation, so that only the best continuations are analysed and displayed. Here is the Deep Analysis result obtained a few tens of seconds after starting. If you leave Deep Analysis for several minutes or longer, the variant tree will always be richer and showing even more accurate continuation lines. Deep Analysis will continue until you stop it by clicking Stop Process. Tactical Analysis ChessBase in newer versions ( if I remember correctly from version 14 ) provides a Tactical Analysis option to automatically check one or many chess games for tactical errors and inaccuracies. This feature is useful for quick, automatic analysis of your own unannotated games. For example, I always use it after I finish a tournament I've participated in. Important! Tactical Analysis is performed by the default selected Kibitzer. If you use Tactical Analysis often, then I suggest you set the strongest tactical engine you have. The stronger the default engine - i.e. Kibitzer - the less time it takes for accurate tactical analysis Analysis of multiple chess games. After selecting a chess database or after opening it, select the chess games to be analyzed tactically. You can point to the selected games by holding down the CTRL key + clicking on the games. In the screen below, I have selected only result games (win/lose) from 931st Friday's Tournament. After right-clicking on one game or many games, select Tactical Analysis. Based on the computer hardware you are using, the program suggests a time for one move; a longer thinking time would slow down the analysis. You can simply leave the tactical analysis to run in the background while you perform other tasks on your computer in parallel. If you want to do a quick tactical analysis, such as few chess games in a few minutes or less, then I recommend setting the time to 2 or 3 seconds per move. After clicking on the OK button, the tactical analysis will start In a similar way you can analyze tactically a chess game opened in the window. Using the Analysis ribbon, click on Tactical Analysis, and after setting the parameters (as described above) the Tactical Analysis begins. Let's look at the result Tactical Analysis chess game analysis between Rotlewi Georg vs Rubinstein Akiba. As we can see in the ChessBase program using Tactical Analysis we get a rich analysis of the chess game including annotations, novelties, diagrams, inaccuracies and errors found and indications of stronger continuations and comments. Also we get overall summary at the end of the notation including centipawn evaluation. Centipawn Analysis When playing chess over the Internet, there is sometimes a concern that an opponent is using the chess engine suggestions in an unauthorized way. In good, proven, recognized as safe places to play chess honestly, there are automatic safeguards that detect this kind of reprehensible behavior. One of the best and most friendly places on the World Wide Web to play chess online is a server from ChessBase called PlayChess. On the PlayChess if any player uses an unauthorized chess engine assist, the server software automatically identifies that person, bans him, and removes him from the chess community. In this way on the PlayChess server and other verified places there is a space for fair competition. In a situation when we have doubts whether the chess games were played without the help of a computer assistant, we can analyze them using the function called Centipawn Analysis offered by ChessBase. In the same way as in the description of Tactical Analysis, you have to select the chess game for Centipawn Analysis. Analysis - Centipawn Analysis Centipawn loss is calculated as follows: if, from the chess engine's point of view, a player makes a move that is worse than the engine's best move, he suffers a centipawn loss on that move. This is the distance between the move played and the engine's best move, measured in centipawns because, as you know, each engine rating is represented in pawn units. If this loss is added up over the whole game, i.e. the average is calculated, we get a measure of the tactical precision of the moves. If the best move is always made, then the centigrade loss in a given batch is zero. Even though centigram losses vary widely from game to game, they still provide a useful measure of the strength/precision of the game over several games. For players of all classes, blitz games have correspondingly higher values. Search times from zero (=400ms) to three seconds are perfectly adequate when working with a modern fast computer. Here is an example suggesting that a player using white colors was using the chess engine support during the game. Strong GMs in long games achieve Centipawn losses between 15 and 25. Club players achieve between 30 and 60. Centipawn Analysis has shown that a player using white pieces and having 1861 Elo rating has a Centipawn score of 11 -> statistically even lower (!) than chess Grandmaster (GM plays with Elo strength greater or equal to 2400 Elo). As it is easy to calculate, this player played this game with strength over 500 Elo higher than it would result from his rating. And one more example where the Centipawn Analysis results clearly indicate that fraud has occurred. Player Robosky with rating 1620 Elo got Centipawn score equal to 3, which is very rarely achievable even for Grandmasters of the world's top players in games with long - tournament thinking time. Initial suspicions may already be aroused by the result of a game in which a player with a rating lower by 500 Elo points wins against a club player with a rating of 2120 Elo in a chess game with rapid tempo (15m+5s). And a final example of a chess game between GMs with similar Elo rankings, the game ended in a draw. However, these values can vary greatly. Even club players can sometimes completely manage low values such as 10. A low value in a single game is not evidence of cheating. In quiet draws, values are usually lower. Reliable values Centipawn Analysis can only be obtained in more games. Remember! If you suspect that your opponent used the chess engine during an online game, then to successfully claim the result to the Referee, it is worth using the Centipawn Analysis result, which shows the the game with the numerical values. Before starting the Centipawn Analysis, make sure that the default Kibitzer setting is a chess engine playing with a chess master strength or greater. This will ensure the correct Centipawn Analysis result. It is a good idea to use the Fritz chess engine or another chess engine that comes preloaded with ChessBase or from ChessBase Cloud Engines. Cloud Engines and Cloud Analysis The cloud, in an IT context, is associated with storage and access to data via the Internet. In the ChessBase Cloud you can put chess games as well as entire databases of chess games, to which easy and direct access is provided by ChessBase and programs such as Fritz or Komodo. However, the ChessBase Cloud is something much bigger and useful in a chess context because it allows access to chess engines running on very powerful computers! The ChessBase Cloud also offers the ability to link your computers together, using the chess engines for the same analysis. The great thing is that you don't have to have a powerful computer to use ChessBase Cloud Just a simple laptop that, for example when traveling, will give you access to the computing power of powerful machines and modern chess engines. In the ChessBase Cloud some engines are provided for free, some can be rented. Please note that you must have PlayChess account and internet access to use ChessBase Cloud. Ok, so let's check out ChessBase Cloud. First, let's open a game with an interesting chess position. In the example below I have opened a chess game between Sedarpl vs Grazie played in the 926th Friday Tournament (08.10.21). White's eighteenth move. Fen notation: r3k2r/pbq2pp1/1ppbp2p/3nN3/3P1B2/2PB4/P1PQ2PP/4RRK1 w kq - 8 18 Now, on the Analysis ribbon, click Open Cloud Engines. The first thing you will see is a window listing the chess engines with the following information: Name The name of the engine that is being offered. Provider The name of the Playchess.com user. You can right click on a column and click on Show User Information. Experience The experience rating of the user. It is based on the usage of the engine, the number of different users, the number of Likes, and the amount of ducats that have been earned. You can see also the quality of the Internet connection. Machine The hardware configuration of the computer being offered. Nation Current Rate The price per minute for the use of the engine, as decided by the user. MN/s The performance of the Clound Engine in meganodes per second. Speed Single processor core speed. Threads + Hash The number of processes that are used by the engine, followed by the size of the hash tables. Cores The number of cores and threads that are being supplied by the provider. The example shows that 4 cores with 8 threads are being offered in 1 processor. Likes The number of positive ratings of the user configuration. Fix Rate The fixed price per minute, as decided by the provider. Max Fix Time The time limit for the use of the engine at the Fixed Rate. At the end of this time the user can be outbid. Booking Fee The one time booking fee, which is independent of the time used. Waiting The number of users that are waiting to use the engine, in the order of their offer for using the engine. Author The name of the developer of the chess engine. Let`s Check The speed index for the access on the Let’s Check server. The higher the index is, the faster green entries appear in Let’s Check. Some information in the list are displayed in different fonts and colours. If you are using a Cloud Engine yourself it is displayed in green and underlined. If an engine is only available for private use it is displayed in the list in blue. The colour of an engine changes to red when an offer has been made for an engine. If a yellow symbol is used the engine is being used by someone else, but you can take control of the engine for your own analysis by offering a higher price. The engine name is displayed in red if there is a waiting list for the engine. A red symbol next to the name means that there is a fixed price per minute. Use Engine: the engine is loaded that is selected in the list. Like Engine: you can say that you like the engine. Cancel Bid: this removes your bid from the waiting list. Ping Provider: this measures the speed of the provider’s Internet connection. Personal Data: this opens the provider’s Personal Data menu. Ducats are the currency of the Playchess server. You can purchase ducats in the ChessBase Shop. By clicking on Use Engine... A window opens with reservation information for the selected chess engine - in this case Komodo Chess 2. The cost of using this engine is 0.02 Ducats/min. The Chat window shows that the engine is running. I chose one of the most powerful chess engines Komodo Chess 2 running on a very powerful machine using 22 processors. The quality of analysis of such a powerful chess engine as Komodo Chess 2 (Komodo Dragon 2) running on a computer using 22 processors is at an incredible level of about 4000 Elo ! It is worth noting that you can access ChessBase Cloud Engines and such a powerful engine using an ordinary, not even the fastest and not the newest desktop or laptop / notebook computer. You can offer your own engine privately or publicly. When you select one of that option, a list of your engines will be displayed. After selecting one of them, you will be able to make the necessary settings. More about Cloud Analysis You can improve the quality of your analysis by using different chess engines on different computers and combining the results in a single board window. This is as convenient as if you were running the engines locally on your own computer. If you have several computers, you can use them with Engine Cloud to create one analysis. This way, you have all the resources of available hardware and software on hand. It is possible to remotely access, for example, a computer located in an office, server room, or your home and use its chess engines in the Interface as if they were stored on your own computer. This system gives many advantages to tournament players or chess players away from home. They can go to a tournament with a relatively weak laptop/notebook. In between rounds, they can use Engine Cloud to analyze positions on the computers they have at home. Chess engines are extreme programs - works of programming art that require the full power of the computer. This means that a great deal of power is required. If you work a lot with a laptop/notebook, you can use the processing power of other computers in Engines Cloud to extend battery life and still use maximum power for analysis. Another advantage is that the fan doesn't have to be used as often, so the computer runs quieter during analysis. Powerful computers cost a lot of money. By using Engine Cloud you can use the best engines running on very powerful hardware for a small fee. You decide how often you want to use these resources, so you don't have to invest a lot of money in expensive hardware to perform top-notch analysis. For complex analysis you can have access to several machines simultaneously as supporters, each running at full power. Tips... If you have fast hardware and the best engines, you can use Engine Cloud to offer your resources to other users for a small fee. You can use engines in the cloud for anything you would use local machines for, such as analysis, engine matches, or Engine Room games on PlayChess. This is the end of the course: ChessBase - Using chess engines I invite you to choose the next course :-))

I mostly play chess online. This is a convenient and quick way to participate in a chess tournament or to spend time with a friend chatting and playing chess in a suitable online location. I play on PlayChess server, which is hosted by ChessBase company. On PlayChess, my chess games are automatically saved in the MylnternetGames database, which I access from ChessBase and Fritz. The database of my chess games currently contains over 3000 games and is an excellent material for analysis and consideration aimed at improving the quality of my chess play. There is no point in making mistakes if we are not going to learn from them. I monitor my game in making annotations and analyzing with the chess engine. Over time, ChessBase provides me with statistics for each chess opening and on the games of my opponents. This is part 3 of a 5 part course on the ChessBase program. Suitable for ChessBase 12 or later. How to do annotations - that's what this part of the course is about. Annotating game When reviewing a completed chess game or when entering moves, ChessBase allows you to add explanations to variants, comments, move ratings (!, !!, ?, ?!, etc.) and positions (+-, ±, -+, =, etc.). To enter Evaluations and / or Marks select Insert on the board ribbon, then click Annotations. A palette of different symbols will be displayed. Using the Symbol Palette, you can select and add the appropriate symbol for your chess game notation. You can get a wider selection by selecting Set Mark or Set Evaluation or Prefix to the right of the Annotations option. You can also recall these symbols by right-clicking on the movement and selecting one of the available options. After adding the ?! symbol to black's thirteenth move, the notation looks like this: The red numbers next to the moves tell you the number of seconds spent on that chess move. The chess game in this example was played on the PlayChess server at blitz tempo. Of course, if the information about the time spent on each move is not needed, you can remove this information. Right-clicking on any move and choosing Delete - Delete Evaluation + Time Commentary will... Remove the time thinking and evaluation information for each white and black move. Adding text commentary and variations To enter a variation, select Insert on the ribbon and click Enter Variation (or press T key). When you are finished entering a variation, you can click on any field notation (outside the variation) and click End Variation. Excellent! Here is the new variation ( 13...Kh8 14.Bxf5 b5 ) after its entry: To add a text comment, select Insert in the ribbon and choose Text Before Move or Text After Move. A new window opens where you can enter a text comment. After typing the comment and clicking OK button, we should get the following notation: You can get the same effect if you right-click on the selected move and select Text After Move or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+A. Deleting variation. After clicking Delete Variation as shown in the following image (18...c5= deserves consideration.)... A variation of move eighteen has been removed from the notation. Promoting variation. When you click Promote variation, the selected variation will be moved up one step in the chess notation of that chess game. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Alt+Up ( Up is the up arrow key ). After promoting the variation, the notation looks exactly like this: Insert diagram Since Chessbase version 14 (also in ChessBase 15 and newer, like ChessBase 16) - it is possible to insert a diagram into the chess notation for each selected move. This is a very useful option that increases the readability of the chess notation and allows you to easily see e.g. the key positions in the commented chess game. In the commented chess game in this case, after black's move 13...f4 we will insert a chess diagram. Choose Insert Diagram on the Insert ribbon. In the newly inserted diagram we see the position created after black's thirteenth move 13...f4. To remove a diagram that has been placed next to a badly chosen chess move, simply select that move - in this case 13...f4 and click again on the Insert Diagram option on the Insert ribbon. The diagram will be removed. WARNING! If you want to delete all comments you need to click Delete All Commentary from the Insert ribbon. Delete All Commentary option deletes all text and graphic comments! This is what the notation looks like after removing all text and image comments. Quick access to symbols In newer versions of ChessBase, there is a way to quickly access symbols via the bar under the chess game notation, below the score graph. You can use this to make annotations in chess games even more efficiently. Finding and insert novelties. You can use ChessBase to find novelties in any chess game. Using the chess game notation example in the batch shown earlier, let's select the Report ribbon and click on Novelty Annotation. After a while, we see changes in notation. ChessBase now transforms the notation in game, identifying the new move 9...Rb8N, marking it in blue as a novelty - that is, a critical opening move - and adding two parties to the annotation - the first one it identifies as Relevant and Predecessor. You can also label yourself a move that you think is novelty-critical in the opening. For example, I'll create a new variation of move 9...Na5 and mark it as novelty. Right-click on the desired move 9...Na5 in the newly created variation and choose Special Annotation - Critical Opening Position. Then by pressing Ctrl+A I type "My novelty.". After the changes made, the notation is as follows: Using ChessBase we can add annotations to chess games in many different ways described above in the course content. This is to make the annotations on chess games as clear and attractive as possible, and to help understand the moves made and the flow of the chess games played. This is the end of the course: ChessBase - Annotating games I invite you to choose the next course :-))

It is 1980. You have just found out that in the next game of a chess tournament your opponent will be a strong player who occupies the first place in the table. The stakes of this game are very high for you. If you win, you'll gain a higher chess category and a lot of ELO rating points. If you lose... you'd rather not think about it further. You only have one day, and the game is tomorrow. In that one day you want to get the records of all the games played by your tomorrow's opponent in the last 2 years. You don't know if you will have enough time to analyze the debuts and continuations and the plans your opponent uses in the middle game. Ufff. Big of it and only one day... Maybe your colleagues can help you? .... And if not ? ;-) In the days when no one believed that a computer could win against a human in a game of chess, preparation for a game of chess with a future opponent was... "analog" and took a lot of time and often involved many chess players to work together. Unfortunately, not everyone had a friend who played and understood chess at the level of a master or grandmaster. Today, when chess players have access to databases of chess games and specialized software to work with such databases, preparation for a game against another chess player takes a maximum of a few tens of minutes instead of one or up to several days as it did in the past. This is part 1 of a 5 part course on the ChessBase program. Suitable for ChessBase 12 or later. This is part 2 of a 5 part course on the ChessBase program. Suitable for ChessBase 12 or later. In this part of the course I will show you how to use the ChessBase program to effectively prepare for a game against another chess player. Prepare Against... The first step will be to select the base where your chess opponent's games are. In this example, I select Correspondence Database 2020 by right-clicking on it and selecting Properties... Click in the Reference-DB field. Notice that this will be followed by a change in the icon representing the Correspondence Database 2020. Confirm by clicking on the OK button. Select the function Prepare Against in the Home ribbon. A new window appears that lists the players whose games appear in your database, in my case Correspondence Database 2020. Of course, ChessBase is, as we know, a chess game database tool, which means you can sort the data in many ways, not just by date. Above the list of games there are column headers. Clicking on them will immediately sort the data by that field. You can use the sort function to sort the games in the database by the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (ECO) code, by score (if you're only interested in white or black wins), by author (which comes in handy to find games that are annotated), by game length, or here, as we'll do now, by ranking Elo. You can scroll through the list of players until you reach the name of your opponent or, better yet, use the search function in the lower left corner of the window or the Filter List function on the ribbon. Type in the name of your opponent, in this case: Schulz Klaus Juergen. By highlighting a player's name, you can see all of their games, as well as a scrolling list of tournaments they have participated in. Highlight your opponent's name and press the Enter key. A picture of your opponent and pertinent information about them will appear on the screen. After clicking on the Elo Profile button, a window will appear with a graph of the changes in ranking over time. Clicking the Esc (escape) key closes the window with the ranking graph. Clicking Esc (escape) key closes the window with the ranking chart and returns to the ID-Card window. What happens when you click on the Dossier button I will present in the course content below. Clicking the Esc key closes the ID-Card window and returns to the window with hihlighted your opponent name. Clicking the Esc key closes the ID-Card window and returns to the window with the opponent's name highlighted. Highlight one of the tournaments for eg. BdF-Bronze 08 email And press T to view the interactive table. If you wish, you can choose any chess game played in this tournament to open. I chose the chess game Schulz vs Ottesen. Double-click on this game to open it. OK. Again, let's return to the window where your opponent's name is selected (the easiest way is to use the Esc key). We are greeted by the now familiar sight of a list of chess players' names, in which the name of our future chess opponent is marked: Schulz Klaus Juergen. At this point of preparation the ChessBase program will show how powerful a tool it is in a chess player's work. From the Players ribbon let's choose the option Prepare against white. On the new screen that has appeared you have immediate access to all the games in the database in which Schulz Klaus Juergen played with white. As you can see, when playing white he prefers 1.d4 which he has played on the first move in 97 chess games and scoring 57.2% of games won. An important piece of information is that 1.d4 was last played in 2018 which means that he has used this opening relatively recently and there is a good probability that he will choose 1.d4 in the next game that Schulz Klaus Juergen will play in white. After answering 1...d5 the opponent always plays 2. c4 and continuing with 2...c6 3. Nf3 his opponents answered in 14 games with 3...Nf6 and in only one game with 3...e6. And at this point in the chess game we can prepare a surprise for Schulz Klaus Juergen in the form of a move he has not yet played against, and for me and maybe also for you my dear reader - it is well known. After 3...g6 we get a position that is very well known to me. Knowing what variant I'm going to face, I can spend as much time as I want to study the continuations in depth, using the chess engine or opening book suggestions in ChessBase and my own knowledge - to prepare the best lines against my opponent. Player statistic With a chess player's name highlighted in the Players tab, you can view their scores. Click Player statistic on the ribbon, or right-click on a player's name and select Player Statistic. The first column shows the total score of Schulz Klaus Juergen against each opponent. You can sort by name, number of games or score. The second column lists the tournaments he has participated in. You can sort by tournament name, date, score, or call up the Table for the highlighted event. The third column contains the number of games and overall score in each ECO line. You can sort by White, Black, or as here by ECO code. Clicking OK button or by pressing the Esc key, closes the Statistics window and returns to the window with hihlighted your opponent name. Now, pressing the S key - will open the statistics window along with the graph. It is possible to search directly from the dialog box for the results of a specific player. While typing the first letters of the surname, ChessBase will show the chess players from the database These are the statistics for the chess player Schulz Klaus Juergen in the Correspondence Database 2020. The choice of colours is selected under White / Black or Both On this screen we see the main statistics, e.g. The number of chess games played (231) Number of victories 51 which gave 22.1%. Etc. Among the important information that can come in handy when preparing for an opponent is the Performance score, which in this case is 2342 Elo when playing white and 2243 Elo when playing black. This tells us that Schulz Klaus Juergen plays much stronger with white by as much as 99 Elo points. On the left side of the window we can choose other options that will be useful during the preparation. For example, by clicking on Endgames the ChessBase program will show us the most often played endings by a chess player - in this case the endings are Rook vs Rook, Rook and Bishop vs Rook and Bishop, etc. according to the data on the graph. The Length/ Years/ or Eco boxes give the length of the games, the number of years in which they were played, or an overview of the games according to the Chess Informant rating system. Here is an example of a breakdown of the games by the years they were played. In the chart the bottom axis gives the year, the left-hand one gives an overview of the number of games played. How long pieces remained on the board is shown by the Piece survival function. Below is an example of the results board. Take the white queen on d1 as an example. The white queen survives in 55% of games and remains on the board statistically until the 44th move. Another example: the pawns on a1, b2 remain in play in 72% of the games until the endgame, which means that the player in the vast majority of chess games prefers to play with these pawns until the endgame (pawn a2 to 64 moves pawn b2 to 57 moves). Statistical data for selected chess games If we are interested in detailed data about chess games selected according to specific criteria, it is enough to select chess games in the list of games in the Games window by e.g. CTRl+click or by sorting according to e.g. player name, Elo rating or chess opening type ECO. Below in the example, chess games sorted by ECO and selected against the D43 key (15 chess games). Click the S key and a familiar window will appear containing detailed statistics for the fifteen games selected earlier (ECO D43 by chess player Schulz Klaus Juergen). Any further analysis of the data may follow the methods described above in the body of this course. Clicking OK button or by pressing the Esc key, closes the Statistics window and returns to the window with highlighted your opponent name. Dossier By selecting Players from the ribbon and clicking on Dossier: ChessBase will create a complete Dossier of the selected chess player, in this case Schulz Klaus Juergen. A window will appear with an option to enter additional parameters. When you generate a dossier you can set some parameters, mainly to determine how detailed the report will be, Or simply click OK when the box below appears if you do not want to set any parameters. Below is a description of some of the parameters. Repertoire Select the level of detail for repertoire analysis from coarse (only a few lines, terminating early) to fine (many lines, terminating late). In the report the player’s repertoire with white and black is given, with the best and the worst lines highlighted. You can click each line that is given to retrieve the games. From year You can limit the investigation to only the recent games of a player by setting this value. First name length This determines how many letters of the first name will be given to uniquely identify players. Using just a few letters (e.g. one) will produce neater columns on low resolution displays. Max. photographs This limits the number of photos that will be included – otherwise in the case of celebrities like Kasparov and Anand there may be pages and pages of portraits. Career highlights Retrieves the best tournament results of the player and his most spectacular games. After (possibly entering parameters) clicking the OK button, the ChessBase program will start processing data creating a complete Dossier of a selected chess player. Dossier will include complete personal and chess profile of a player. The report contains biographical data and pictures, statistics on the player’s games, his or her openings, career, results against individual opponents and a selection of spectacular positions for training purposes. Report generation assumes that a reference database is defined and ChessBase has access to the player encyclopedia. Of course you can click in all the highlighted fields to see more detailed data, e.g. to see your chess games against a selected opponent, to check your results in a particular chess tournament or to see the chosen continuations in white or black games. By analyzing the Dossier of a chess player, we can also easily and quickly deduce how to prepare for the opponent. In the discussed case we see that the chess player Schulz Klaus Juergen achieves the weakest results after the opening game 1. Nf3 and after the continuation 1...d5 2. d4 after the move 2...e6 his results are 0.0% This means that it is worthwhile playing against this chess player to prepare a further game plan after the continuation 2...e6 After generating a complete Dossier of a selected chess player, the ChessBase program will automatically open two windows with the games played by him in white and black for our convenience. In both windows we can see various statistical data, e.g. about the popularity of the chosen openings, the percentage [ % ] and the number of chess games won in a given continuation, etc. Below is a window with chess games in white color. Such powerful knowledge synthesized in a readable form using the ChessBase knowledge program, can certainly help you prepare for your opponent. This is the end of the course: ChessBase - Preparing for an opponent I invite you to choose the next course :-))

Chess databases are essentially tools for working with lots of data. ChessBase is essentially a tool for storing, organizing, analyzing, sharing, chunking, ..., etc. data - that is, chess games in many different ways. This is part 1 of a 5 part course on the ChessBase program. Suitable for ChessBase 12 or later. I'll show you how to organize your work and access to data in ChessBase well. The main database window is where we start our work to edit, merge, delete and backup chess games. The default is the Tile View, which appears like this: Click to enlarge (works with any image) To switch from one view to another, you can make your selection at the bottom of the database window. For example, when you click Details, the chess database window looks like this: You can customize the appearance of the chess database window according to your preferences by choosing smaller or larger icons, sorting the chess games by clicking e.g. Games, Date or by choosing another option like Usage or Title. Create a new database Go to the Database ribbon and select Home - New. In the file window that appears, select the directory in which the database will rest, give it a name, and then press create new. A new icon will appear in the database window. When creating a new chess database, we can choose the format in which this new chess database will be created. The default ChessBase chess database format is *.CBH. I recommend this format for creating and using chess databases because it allows the fastest work while maintaining optimal size. Other chess database formats used are: *.CBF is a database type in old versions of ChessBase. *.PGN (Portable Game Notation) is a non-proprietary database format that is used by almost all chess applications. *.CBONE, which is a self-contained, single file that can be useful if you are creating databases containing few chess games. *.CBCLOUD, is the format used when you create a chess database in the ChessBase Cloud. Especially if you will be using multiple chess databases, you will probably want to give the chess databases an adequate appearance. To do this, right-click on the icon and select Properties. In the new window that opens, the database name will appear in the name field. On the left side in the same pane, you can select the type of database you want. For the purposes of our course, in this case let's choose Analysis and click Ok button. This way, the database you are interested in will become visible faster. Folders The folders panel will always contain My Databases - Your database, which contains your databases and directories. My Databases lists the databases you access most often. My Databases always includes a reference database and a Clip Database. To place a database in My Databases, simply open it with the Ctrl-o key or select Home - Open in the database view. MyInternetGames contains the games you play on PlayChess server. My InternetKibitzing contains the games you watch pn PlayChess server. MyInternetMachineGames appear if you play with a computer on PlayChess server. If you want these databases to live in My Databases, just open them or drag to My Databases folder. Open the chess games database from the My Database folder Double-clicking on the database icon/symbol opens it and displays the game List window, a list of all the chess games in that database. Some of them may even contain millions of games (Big / Mega Databases). If you want to open chess databases that are not in the My Database folder, then go to the main database ribbon and select Home - Open. To open a database, you can (like in windows explorer) highlight it (single click) and press the enter key. Delete a chess database There are two possibilities. You can delete the icon without deleting the database itself, or, disregarding that, you can physically delete the database. To remove the icon from the database window without deleting any data: Right-click on the icon - Remove... or simply click on the icon and press the delete key. To delete both the icon and the data, click on the icon - select the Maintenance tab on the ribbon - select Delete all files ... or right-click on the icon - select Delete all files. Folders A window to access folders appears by default in the upper left corner of the database window. To turn it on or off, choose View - Folders. Database path - Opens directories and database contents on the local hard drive in the "Database" section. This PC - Opens directories at a higher level, and so allows access to external drives as well as the computer's UBS / DVD. Public Documents - Opens a location where you can store, for example, shared files with other users of the same computer or users connecting to that computer over a network. Network - Allows you to access files located on networked devices, for example NAS devices. OneDrive - Personal - Opens the network location of the OneDrive you signed in to. Game History - Lets you view all the files you have access to in ChessBase by date. Shop - Database summarizes just that, databases you have purchased. Cloud Databases - With ChessBase, you can store your data not only on your own hard drive, but also on our ChessBase servers. This allows you to access your data from different devices without having to copy or reinstall your databases. It is even possible to share your databases with other users as a cloud database. This has the following advantages: You can access your opening repertoire or saved games from anywhere without using ChessBase. You can put games in the cloud so that your friends and teammates can access them via a web browser. You can publish the database to the web with a single click. These are new features that make sharing chess data much easier. My Databases - returns you to the most used and familiar view of databases, the view of your favorite databases. Database Preview You can view the list of games in the database without opening it. In the Database - View - Database Preview When you click on a database to highlight it, games from that database will be displayed in the database preview window. You can scroll through this list and even open a game directly by double-clicking on it. You can organize game information by right-clicking on the column above the game entries. You can also add a quick board to play the games right there: - Right-click on any game - List Format - Quick Board. Below on the image is a view of the game list with Quick Board enabled. The games list window When you open the database, the Game List window appears, a scrolling list of all the games in the database. When you first create the database, it will not contain any games. As you enter more and more games, the chess games database program - ChessBase - will become more and more useful. Each game has a number, and as you enter them, they will be numbered sequentially. You can see the names and ratings of each player. Scores, length, ECO codes, as well as the tournament name are also available. You can click on any column header to start sorting, so it's easy to sort by ECO code, game length, player name, score, rating, etc. The games list window tabs Almost all databases will open to a list of games, but some, such as Mega Database (from ChessBase) on first use, will open to a text summary. You can select the games list view using the tabs. The Players tab contains an alphabetical list of all players in the database. Find (or search for) a player first, then click on his name. Here are all of that Players games. The Tournaments tab also provides an alphabetical list of events related to the database. Click on the Tournaments name and the Games and Players will be shown on the right side of the window. The Annotators tab lists everyone who has annotated a game. It is also a searchable list, so you can search for your favorite annotator or sort by the number of annotated games. The Sources tab lists games by source. Here you can find all the games that were included in each issue of ChessBase magazine. Under the Teams tab, for example, you can find the names of members of any team. For example, here, the 2019 Poland team. Working with other tabs is the same way. Move game / games to another database You will certainly want to copy games from one database to another database. The actions described here do not remove games from the first database (the one you are copying from). We make copies of the selected games and move them to a separate database. You can select a game in the Game List by clicking on it once. You can use that game as an anchor and use Shft-Click to highlight a series of games. You can highlight individual games with a series of Ctrl clicks. In the example on the screen below, it was right-clicking on the game selecting Edit and then selecting Copy. Then in the My Databases window after double-clicking on Clip Database (example empty database) Click on the Paste button And confirm copying the game by clicking OK button in the newly opened window. The previously selected chess game was copied to the Clip Database. A chess game or multiple chess games can be copied between bases using drag-and-drop. Deleting games The way to delete chess games is to select them in the Game List and press delete ... or on the ribbon Home - Delete or right click on a game Edit - Delete. When you do this, you will see that the game is still there, but grayed out and with a line through its text. ChessBase knows that you may have pressed the delete key by mistake and therefore requires additional steps to physically remove the game from the database. In the database view, right-click on the name of the database that contains the deleted games you want to permanently delete - Tools - Remove Deleted Games. Removing doubles In the Database window, right-click on the database name - Tools - Find duplicate games. A window will appear where you have different options to choose from. Some doubles games will have different spellings in the name and tournament fields, some will have different lengths due to adding extra moves or skipping moves in one of the games. Some games may be annotated. You will be prompted to create a new database where new games will be placed. Clip Database Clip Database works much like a clipboard for games that are placed there for transfer to another database. The information is stored there temporarily, pending deletion. You can drag and drop (copy and paste) games into the Clip Database, but you can perform this transfer to the Clip Database more efficiently by pressing F5. This will move any highlighted game or group of highlighted games into the Clip Database. To move games from Clip Database to another database, copy and paste or drag and drop them or simply drag the Clip Database icon to the target database icon. Opening a game To view the game, simply double-click on it or press enter after highlighting it. When you do this, the chess game will open in a new window. Players index / Player Encyclopedia ChessBase maintains a Players Encyclopedia containing pictures and data of over 120,000 players. The encyclopedia is also online. To view it, go to Home - List Player Encyclopedia. You can automatically update the player encyclopedia that you have installed. ChessBase regularly publish an updated version of the encyclopedia with new players and updated Elo ratings. Depending on your settings the program accesses the encyclopedia on the server and updates the encyclopedia that you have stored locally. Player Encyclopedia brings up a search window with a variety of options. List Player Encyclopedia shows an alphabetically ordered list of international players. I have opened game Wojtaszek-Pert from the 22.11.2007 WCH Blitz Moscow. Note, that the game window contains pictures of the players. ChessBase since version 12 stores this data on a server and recommends entering player data over the Internet rather than locally. You can control the flow of player data in Options - Encyclopedia. The path represents where the local data is stored, but by default the data is accessed from the ChessBase server. Playback of the game You can open the game by double-clicking on the row that contains the game information. To view the moves made in a game, you can use the arrow keys to move forward or backward, or even up or down the game. ChessBase recently added a slider that appears below the board. To activate the slider, right click on the chess board and select Board design - Slider. Click Slider and then OK button. Here is overview game with Slider. Overview ChessBase offers still other ways to see the game. In the list of games: right-click on the game name, select Overview. With the game highlighted, press "o" key. Clicking on any board will open the game at that location. You can also get a more detailed overview with smaller boards by clicking the Board button at the bottom of the overview screen. Replay game automatically After clicking on the game row and selecting Replay games automatically. The selected game will open in the following window. You can adjust the playback speed and also pause the playback if you want. Playing through a game containing variations If the game includes variations and notes, it is possible to play the variations. When you are done playing a variation, you can easily return to the game. It is not uncommon for the players themselves to reveal their thoughts right there, explaining why they played the move they did or why a different move might have been better or worse. In the screen excerpt below, playing through the Meijer-Marseille match, 1903, Mr. Alapin was the Annotator. I have just pressed the right arrow after white's 28th move and, as you can see, the game contains a variation at this point. I can continue the game by pressing the right arrow, or explore the variation first by pressing the up arrow. Of course, at any time I can just move the mouse arrow to select the variant I want to play or analyze. Backup your database In the Database Window, highlight the database you want to backup, and then select the Maintenance - Backup Database. You can also right click on database name and select Tools - Backup Database View game history You can view recently viewed or modified games. After loading any game, select Home - View game history. Then, on the day I clicked View Game History 02-Thursday, ChessBase displays 32 games. Checking the integrity of a database In very rare cases, files can become corrupted (storage failure, power surges). It is a good idea to first back up the database and after that check the integrity of the database. The integrity check will provide a report on the database and offer to correct any errors found. To check the integrity of a database, select the database name in the Database window, then select Maintenance - Chess Integrity. Or you can right-click on the database name select Tools and Check Integrity. Create and save your games After creating a new database or using an existing one, you can open it by double-clicking on the icon in the main database window. You can also open a new game window with keys CTRL+n. Of course, the new database is empty. This will bring up a new game board. The new screen, the game board view, has a special ribbon to help you introduce new moves and new variations, as well as tools to help you examine and evaluate all positions. Heumas - Enter moves with single clicks You can drag a pawn or figure to a destination, but ChessBase includes a heuristic called Heumas that suggesting moves. The heuristic move assistant Heumas is responsible for suggesting plausible moves during game entry. It is the move input assistant and is itself a small, fast chess engine. Using Heumas allows you to enter most moves with a single click of the mouse. So click on d4, and the pawn will move to that square. If more than one pawn or figure can move to the selected square, ChessBase will offer a suggestions. You can press the right mouse button to select other possibilities. When you enter Options - Engines, you can change the Heumas settings. You can switch it off if you want. Heumas Ply determines how deep Heumas looks into the position. With depth the quality improves, but this also requires more processing power. Heumas Ply sets the search depth for the Heumas function. Assisted Analysis: switches on or off this analysis function. Legal moves carries out a search for legal moves. Singe click-entry: This corresponds to what in older versions was the version of the Heumas function which was implemented. This works with or without Assisted Analysis. With Assisted Analysis the function can be activated with a right click while holding down the left mouse button. Should Assisted Analysis be deactivated, then instead of it the legal moves of a piece can be shown. In this case all the squares are highlighted alike, in grey. If a piece only has a single move, one-click entry can then be activated immediately. Forced Moves entry: Insert the only possible move Correcting misplaced moves If you enter an incorrect move, don't be afraid. You can go back and enter the move you want. When you enter a new move, you gain several options. If the new move 2 is a variation, select New variation. If the new move is to become a mainline, with the old move 2 as its variation, select New Main Line. If the first move you entered was an error that you want to replace, select Overwrite. If you need to replace a move in the middle of the game without affecting the rest of the score sheet, select Insert. There will be times when you need to correct more than just a move. If you have incorrect moves in the middle of the game, enter the corrected variants, then, on the Game Board ribbon, select Insert - Exchange Moves. The moves from the variant will replace those from the game, as long as they are all legal. You can also insert pairs of moves into the game. Enter the new moves as a variation at the insertion point, then choose Insert - Insert into Game. ChessBase will insert them into the game, as long as all the moves are legal. Saving game When you are done entering your game or just ready to save your work, go to File - Save and click Save: Or use the Ctrl-S keys or simple click the diskette icon at the top left of the ChessBase window. This will bring up the following window: You can enter player names, tournament name, game date, result, and other information. ChessBase already has an ECO (Encyclopedia of Chess Openings) code assigned to the game precisely because it first introduced enough data into the game to recognize a variant. If you want to change the ECO code, open the game and use the Ctrl-S keys. It is best not to change games in large databases because each game has many indicators. If you must change games, make sure they are in smaller databases or in a copy of a large database. If necessary, create a new database and move the games you want to change before making changes. Edit Game Data Game listings are only fully useful if the information entered is consistent and correct. For example, instead of the name Carlsen Magnus you will enter Karlsen Magnus, then you will not find all the games of this chess player. ChessBase can make it easy to edit the data and fix any errors that may have occurred. To change one or more game information, select Home - Edit Game Data. You will now see a dialog box that gives you the opportunity to make any necessary changes. Correcting many games one by one can seem very time consuming. ChessBase has a feature to automatically correct player names. Click on the Players tab, and then select Improve Player Names. When you save a game, you can type in a few letters of your name and then click on the question mark. This will allow you to look up the chess player's name in the ChessBase Player Encyclopedia. Improving Tournament Data To improve tournament data and spelling, highlight the database, then select Maintenance - Improve. Layouts ChessBase allows you to move panels around and shape your environment to best suit your individual needs. For example, if you resize a chess board and then close the Game Board window, ChessBase will remember what you did and open each board at the same size. You can also create a more complex working environment by, for example, adding a Chess Engine panel and an Online Database panel. Click and hold the title bar of any panel and you can move it, using the on-screen arrows to anchor the panel where you want it. ChessBase has a built-in set of ready-made game environments that you can try out View - Standard Layouts. If you need to revert to the default display settings, you can click on View - Factory Settings to reset all settings. This is the end of the course: ChessBase - Efficient work with a chess database I invite you to choose the next course :-))

I invite you, to read the results and summary of MCERL - Mac Chess Engines Rating List, February 2023. Source: Scid 5.0 & Berserk 11.1 Each new release of MCERL, which occurs monthly, is an opportunity for recaps. I am very pleased, with many new engines, and updates - more and more authors are making their engines available to the chess community, that it is impossible to notice and positively receive it. I do not hide the fact that it is a pity that some few engines do not have their representation for Mac or even Linux users. Some engines like Rebel 16.2, for example, are made available only for one operating system and only in one version (Windows, avx2). Well, as you can see, some of the Creators have this approach and not another, which as a result limits the number of potential recipients of their works. Let's be happy with what we have. A dozen years ago and before, computer chess was mainly PC, Windows paid software (one of the few exceptions: the Crafty engine). Today, we are no longer so limited. In addition to Windows, there is Linux, Mac and Android, Web among others - from which we can also have a great experience communing with chess engines and chess software. Let's not forget that this is all thanks to the work of people involved in the open source community and, of course, the fruits of modern technology. Without further ado: welcome to MCERL February 2023 edition. In the Files area you will find free chess engines for download.

They waited and finally got it !! This is not the official logo of the Berserk chess engine. This is about fans and sympathizers of the Berserk chess engine, to which I also belong :-) If you haven't yet heard of the Berserk chess engine, then I invite you to visit a special page dedicated to the Berserk chess engine - here. The latest eleventh release of the Berserk chess engine brings a lot of changes, improvements and new features in the source code of this popular and extremely powerful chess engine. Berserk is a free open source chess engine under GNU GPL 3.0 license. * I hope that no but no company will get the idea to use the source code of the Berserk chess engine contrary to the provisions of this license ;-) " What's Changed Don't increase reductions for cutnodes when the move is tactical by @jhonnold in #417 Between search optimizations by @jhonnold in #418 Disable SE Extensions when clearly winning by @jhonnold in #419 Fast Range over modulo for TT indexing by @jhonnold in #420 Setup Pyrrhic submodule by @jhonnold in #421 Remove depth requirement on eval adjustment by @jhonnold in #422 Fix recapture extension extending non-captures by @jhonnold in #423 Introduce negative reductions when hash move is singular by @jhonnold in #424 Update Github Workflow to force Ubuntu 20.04 by @jhonnold in #425 Standard LMR + PVS Logic by @jhonnold in #426 Search Stack by @jhonnold in #428 Combined Patches by @jhonnold in #430 Cleanup by @jherrera80 in #429 MovePicker Refactor by @jhonnold in #433 Prevent positive score differences from impacting TM by @jhonnold in #435 12 Byte TT Entries by @jhonnold in #437 Accumulator Cleanup by @jhonnold in #438 QSearch ordering strictly based on Capture History by @jhonnold in #439 Utilize 128bit multiplication for TT indexing by @jhonnold in #440 Train with a mix of Berserk and Koivisto data by @jhonnold in #445 Track bestmove using "Root Moves" by @jhonnold in #446 Move Type in Continuation History by @jhonnold in #447 Add simple protections for search explosions due to extensions by @jhonnold in #448 History values fit within int16_t by @jhonnold in #449 Remove SF Chess960 Cornered Bishop Logic by @jhonnold in #450 General Cleanups by @jhonnold in #451 Speedups by @jhonnold in #452 Optimize Apply Updates by @jhonnold in #453 Additional continuation histoy for follow-follow up by @jhonnold in #454 Separate Move Pickers by @jhonnold in #455 Hold TT Entry by @jhonnold in #456 Increase hidden layer to 768 neurons by @jhonnold in #458 No TT eval correction in QSearch by @jhonnold in #459 Updates by @jhonnold in #460 Add PV TT Eval correction in QSearch by @jhonnold in #461 Identify upcoming repetitions by @jhonnold in #462 Add WDL Output and Normalize CP to 50% at 100cp by @jhonnold in #463 Utilize LMR Depth when move pruning quiets by @jhonnold in #465 History Pruning by @jhonnold in #466 Split Good and Bad captures with history and SEE by @jhonnold in #467 " Source: GitHub A lot of it, right ? Berserk chess engine author Jay Honnold and a new contributor nicknamed jherrera80 have been very busily over the last few months, as I witnessed by following their work on GitHub. And there was certainly plenty to do. Berserk is one of the world's top chess engines, and undoubtedly the development of an already advanced and sophisticated chess engine is not a trivial thing and requires advanced programming techniques and extensive knowledge. The official logo of the Berserk chess engine, source: GitHub Have these so many changes been followed by the strength of Berserk as well? Let's see its performance: Source: MCERL (ongoing) After playing 1100 games: 3652 Elo. 36 Elo more than Berserk 10. I'm happy to say that Berserk is growing in strength and consolidating on the third place of the MCERL rating list :) (Dragon 3.2 and Dragon 2.6.1 are the same chess engine by Komodo Chess in different versions). It is noteworthy that: There is an increasing difference in playing power between Berserk and the next Koivisto, even though it was recently released just 1 month earlier. Berserk 11 plays at a very similar level to the excellent Dragon 2.6.1 by Komodo Chess, which is a commercial chess engine (6 Elo difference). Big kudos to Jay Honnold and jherrera80 and hearty congratulations to the significant increase in the strength of the Berserk 11 chess engine. I also thank you for such a universal source code that allows compilation for different systems. Respect! Update 2023-02-21 Release: Berserk-11.1 " Note: TCs with an increment are mostly un-impacted. This is a bug fix release to resolve a major issue with TM in cyclical and no-increment TCs. Berserk would use all of it's time until playing completely random moves. Apologies for all testers who potentially wasted their time and CPU hours on a buggy Berserk. " Source: GitHub Download area is at your disposal: Berserk 11.1 source code & neural network – by Berserk Devs Android – Compiled by Archimedes Linux arm64 & x64 – Compiled by Darius Mac Apple Silicon & Intel – Compiled by Darius Windows x64 – Compiled by Darius In the Files area you will find free chess engines for download. * Fat Fritz 2 - free for all under the GNU GPL 3.0 license.

Knowledge is the place from which to gain knowledge about chess engines, chess software and related issues. The creation of the Knowledge section was inspired by Christopher Lazok. Thank you :) To access, simply click the Knowledge link on the navigation bar at the top of the page. After a while a new window will be displayed - you are in the Knowledge section :) Using, that is, obtaining information /answers is very simple. You can use a modern search engine... ...That once you start typing a phrase, will begin to display the answers found. Every month I receive a rich correspondence from chessengeria.com Readers containing, among other things, many questions - more or less specific questions about our passion for chess engines and software. I have noticed that many of these questions are sometimes repeated in emails from various Readers. Knowledge, is a section that is, as it were, answers to the questions asked and arising. The content of the Knowledge section is written to be understood by the widest audience. Currently, as of today, Knowledge contains a little over 100 answers to questions that have arisen most often and are closely related to the activities of this blog. A bunch of Readers has signaled to me in correspondence that the information provided on some specialized sites is not understandable to them, or it takes too much time to assimilate it including reading additional links and footnotes. It is my intention that the Knowledge section is not in competition with, for example, Wikipedia and the like. My goal is to make it convenient, easy and quick to get understandable, brief answers / information to any interested Reader through the Knowledge section from one place. The Knowledge section will be developed over time with the same formula, i.e. a question and a relatively short concise answer. Other sections, e.g., Courses, How-To and Articles, will also be enhanced with new entries, but these sections will contain more complex content. If you would like to get involved in the development of chessengeria.com, in the development of the Knowledge section or, for example, would like the answer to your question(s) to appear in this section, feel free to contact me. In the Files area you will find free chess engines for download.

With the appearance of chess in Persia is connected one of the most beautiful and profound legends of the origin of chess. This legend I cannot omit here, the legend of how a humble sage proved to a powerful ruler that his power was limited and that the limits could be accommodated on a small chessboard. Imagine the court of Shah Khusraw I Nushirwan (of the Sassanid dynasty). His magnificent palace, surrounded by a beautiful, extensive garden - more extensive than the famous gardens of Semiramide. On one of the cloisters, leaning against a stone balustrade, two young courtiers are conversing. - The news of Eroes' disfavor had already reached me during the journey, says one of them. - What could cause the anger of our Shah... May Ormuzd give him a long life! After all, our mathematician and astrologer has been his favorite for many years? - Ormuzd has justly punished this boaster, although he used a strange tool this time. Listen. A few days after you left, a wise man named Sissa Nassir came to our court. He showed us a beautiful new game that depicted a battle between two armies. On a wooden board, two hordes of infantry, battle chariots, steeds and elephants are facing each other. They are led by two chiefs. The battle continues until one of them is captured. - What could be more beautiful than a real battle ? - You say with a sneer... Wait until you know the game. And before that don't disrespect it, as it is very dear to our chess player, who now spends whole days at it. I see. Surely the astrologer didn't show proper admiration? You're wrong. He, too, was keen on chess (for that is the name of the game), and he showed enough sense not to win with chess. The reason for his disfavor is different. Behold, the chessman, made happy by a new amusement, promised Nassir the reward he would demand. This was at a solemn audience in the throne room. The whole court looked at the old sage with curiosity and envy, awaiting his words. I stood just behind the shah and wondered what I myself would have requested in his place? And he expressed a wish that astounded us all. Marriage to the Shah's daughter ? Woman was created for our affliction, and Sissa Nassir is a sage. No! He only asked for a certain number of grains of grain. As many as the chessboard itself determines if you put one grain on the first field, two on the second, four on the third, and so on, with twice as many on each subsequent field. And you say that this Nassir is a wise man? What kind of a wise man is he who wants a handful of grain when he can get a bag of gold? Our astrologer thought just like you. They all did. And Eroes had always looked at Nassir the wrong way. He was afraid he'd lose the Shah's favor. He had a good feeling... Hearing such a request, he took the opportunity to whisper to the Shah that Nassir probably wanted to insult him, such a powerful ruler, by expressing such a modest wish. I saw the shah wrinkle his brow angrily... But the old man persisted. He only asked Eroes how long it would take him to calculate the reward. - You don't need an accountant for that! I would have calculated the grains myself, before the sand had even spilled in the hourglass. This is how Eroes answered Nassir. But the latter, thanking the chessman, said that our mathematician himself did not know what he was talking about and that he was giving him two days to make the calculations. And do you know what happened? Eroes didn't make it... The whole court mocked him, the chess called him every day asking if he'd finished and offering to send him some market girls to help him... But we were all really amazed when our mathematician finally finished his calculations. Imagine that the granaries of all Persia would have to give all their supplies to Nassir for probably a thousand years... Are you kidding? No, I'm not. Do the math if you don't believe me! Count it yourself, if you feel like it. But don't be too surprised at Eroes' failure. The decimal system was unknown at that time, for numbers greater than a million there were probably no appropriate signs... To the curious and impatient I will say that the number of grains is: 18 446 744 073 709 551 615 This is calculated using the formula: This quantity is hard to imagine. It corresponds to years of grain harvest from the whole earth!

The coasts of Spain had not yet completely dissolved into a fog of remoteness, when chess master Paolo Boi remarked with satisfaction that the voyage promised to be splendid. They set sail early in the morning. The weather was lovely, the sea calm, and the ship's captain proved a perfect chess partner: he played poorly, and Paolo's proposed rate of a ducat a game did not frighten him at all. By the end of the first day's sailing, Paolo already had four captain's ducats in his purse. The fifth, lying by the chessboard, was about to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors. However, the captain was thinking longer and longer about each move and the chess master, who was somewhat put to sleep by the silence and the gentle, steady tilting of the ship, was looking more at the sky and the sea than at the chessboard where the outcome of the game was already decided. The sky was cloudless, only low over the horizon, behind the stern, clouds rising as if from the sea were slowly lighting up with the purple of the coming west. In the glow radiating from them the sails of a ship were pinking. Paolo knew little about sailing and ships, but he thought that this unknown ship must be unusually fast, for it was growing before his eyes, even though almost all the sails were spread on the brig. The ship attracted the attention not only of our master. The boatswain quickly ran up the steps from the deck and approached the captain and said something in a low voice, indicating the approaching sailing ship. The captain reluctantly took his eyes off the chessboard, looked in the direction indicated and then shrugged his shoulders. - You have been seeing pirates everywhere for some time now - he said to the visibly worried boatswain. - It must be some French clipper that is sailing to Majorca. No cursed corsair would dare to show himself so close to the shores! The boatswain went away, and the captain, after a long consideration, finally made a move, after which the following position was formed: Now, in turn, Paolo mused. He saw mate in two moves almost immediately, but he always tried to impress his partner that he was winning with him not without difficulty. An opponent who is played quickly and mercilessly can easily lose the will to play and to take further stakes out of the purse... He finally stretched out his hand to make a move - but the hand hung in the air. A shrill scream vibrated in his ears, paralyzing his movements. He looked down at the deck. The brig's crew was clustered around the petty officer, several hands outstretched as if in a defensive gesture. One glance in that direction and Paolo went numb. The unknown ship was very close, with a black pirate flag fluttering on its side ! The captain broke off abruptly and, cursing, ran down the stairs from the stern. Shots rang out on the pirate ship. A bullet from some musket shattered the end of the rudder, and a wooden block falling - fortunately from a small height - hit the master in the head. He was revived by a stream of cold water and a loud retching. He opened his eyes. There were several pirates standing over him, one of whom was pouring the rest of the water from a canvas bucket over his head. - What kind of bird is that? A man with black hair and a brown-tanned face jumped into the stern. The pirates around Paolo stepped back with apparent respect. Paolo, whose head was still buzzing from the impact, sat down. He tried to get up, but his legs refused to obey him. He guessed that the newcomer was the ringleader of the corsairs and was surprised to see that he was richly and even somewhat exquisitely dressed, contrasting with the half-naked thugs standing behind him, who bore the marks of the battle. - Who is this guy? asked the leader roughly. - What are you doing here? Tell me! He explained to Paolo in somewhat confused words who he was and where he had come from on the merchant ship. - I have heard about you, Signor Boi - said the captain in an unexpectedly more polite tone. He weighed in his hand the master's purse that one of the pirates had given him. - I like to play chess myself, but I never thought - he went on, looking inside the purse, - that it could bring such a profit... Damn it! All ducats! Did you play chess here too? - I played with the captain - Paolo explained, pointing to the chessboard. - So our visit has prevented you from continuing to collect those yellow pucks? asked the chief maliciously, picking up the ducat lying by the chessboard. - Surely you would have won this game too? - I was just about to lose in two moves - Paolo explained, feeling an unjustified surge of optimism. Maybe this time chess will help him in a difficult moment? The chief gave brief orders to the robbers around him, who immediately dispersed, while he himself sat down in the captain's seat. - I wonder - he said after a moment, looking at the position on the chessboard. Indeed, it is dead in two moves. But if you want, I can finish the game for the captain. What were you playing for? - A ducat - said Paolo, surprised. - A stake worthy of a miserable trader! - said the captain. - I value higher the honour of facing such a master as you. If you win against me, I'll return your purse and put you ashore... as close to the harbor as possible. Do you agree? Paolo, not believing his ears, just nodded. - Very well. Then we'll finish this lot - said the pirate. - But if you don't give me defeat in two moves, I'll keep the piece and you'll have to get ashore by yourself. That means - he explained, seeing Boi's bewildered face - that I'll just have you thrown into the sea. - In the... the sea? - Boi exclaimed in horror. - I doubt that any slave trader will buy you - said the captain. Nothing will pay to take you all the way to Algiers. And we are not in the habit of feeding freeloaders. My people would never agree to that. For once in your life, you'll be playing for really high stakes... Anyway, he added carelessly, it's not that far to land. See that dark line on the horizon? That's Majorca. - But I can't swim! Paolo said. - What a pity... For you, of course, signor. But I can't be held responsible for your lack of education, and we don't have time for swimming lessons now. I'll give you a beam on which you can support yourself... Paolo was stunned. The buccaneer's calm voice, his cool politeness and correctness of expression were so blatant against the ominous content of words that the master felt the growing chaos in his still aching head. Thousands of thoughts ran through his head in a mad rush - only one of them stuck out clearly: this is really a mate in two moves... I am not risking anything! - I agree - he finally said in a voice not his own. I was sure you would agree - smiled the pirate. There is only one small detail left to discuss... You won't require me to play in a hopeless situation and pay for the failure of my predecessor with such a high stake? We will exchange this queen, saying this he took off the white queen from the chessboard, putting the black queen in its place. - Oh yes. The position hasn't actually changed, and the forces have equalized a bit. Now give me a defeat in two moves. - But this is impossible! - howled the terrified master. - I can't give the mate now. - Perhaps - answered the chief mockingly. - You know better than I do. But the conditions have already been discussed, and I advise you to hurry up. As soon as my men are ready to go, we will have to part... Boi listened in stupor. - If you can't give that mat, I agree to another one... - The corsair threw carelessly. - I am not finicky... The master was looking at the chessboard with increasing intensity and suddenly a flash of joy lit up his face. - I give mate in two moves - he called out. He made a move, and the astonished checker saw that he would indeed be defeated in the next move. This is Caissa's story about playing for the life chess master Paolo Boi :-) Did it really work out that way ? Hmm, who knows... Here are the solutions to the two chessboard positions quoted above. In the position of the first diagram you should play 1. Nxe6. In the position of the second diagram - after swapping queens - solve 1.Nb5.