ChessBase
Asbj|rn St|en
ChessBase . Is it good, what are the main advantages and
disadvantages, what functions are offered etc. etc.? It would be
interesting to know your opinion on it, and whether it can be
recommended. I am only an average club player, rated around 1700.
Thanx.
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| _ |
|Asbjoern Stoeen / \ /___ |
|Studpost 188 /___\ // |
|7034 Trondheim-NTH / \ / \__ |
|Norway / \ |
| / ___/ |
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John Richards
>I was wondering if there was anyone out there who has used or tried
>ChessBase . Is it good, what are the main advantages and
>disadvantages, what functions are offered etc. etc.? It would be
>interesting to know your opinion on it, and whether it can be
>recommended. I am only an average club player, rated around 1700.
There are at least 6 users of ChessBase who read the newsgroup. I've been
using it for nine months and would recommend it. But - it's only good
because it helps you organise a large amount of data and look at it
selectively. You still have to work at the game to improve.
ChessBase 2.3 allows you to store games with annotations, lines and
evaluations. Games can be selected by opponent or event or year or a number
of other criteria. Games can also be indexed by opening. You can use an
Informator-key or create your own for specialised openings databases.
Once a game is loaded (which can be done very quickly using a mouse - I
entered the moves to a game as they were read out to me at a rapid speed
over the phone yesterday, and I didn't have to ask the caller to slow down),
it can be replayed and lines investigated. There are options for viewing
the notation on the screen or writing the game to a file (I use the latter
facility for producing a club newsletter).
Openings: it's great for allowing you to compare your own games with games
from master-level tournaments. You can see where you diverged from theory
and then try to work out what you should have done. You can also use it to
prepare for specific opponents, by looking at what they've played before.
I now get Informator on disc - it's only slightly more expensive than the
paper version, but a lot more useful to me.
But it's not possible to get much out of it unless you understand what's
going on; I recommend you use ChessBase in association with good opening
books that explain the ideas behind the openings as well as give you the
lines.
Middle-game: Not as useful here, but you can use ChessBase to annotate your
own games in depth. I find this is good practice.
Endings: One of the latest things I have discovered is that ChessBase is
great for adjournment analysis. Instead of storing all the lines in my
head or on paper, I can enter them into ChessBase and forget them until
near the time for resumption. (In my local league it's sometimes weeks
before a game is resumed.)
Disadvantages:
You really need a hard disc. It can be used without, but you
will get driven mad.
It is costly. Actually, for all the work that was put into it, I think it's
not expensive and it does save me a lot of time. It's about the same price
as a reasonable chess computer.
There is a competitor: NIC-Base. You should look at that as well.
A new release of ChessBase, 3.0, is supposed to be on its way. This will
add more ways of sorting the data and a number of features to help
desktop publishing.
John Richards
jupak...@cc.helsinki.fi
>>ChessBase . Is it good, what are the main advantages and
>>disadvantages, what functions are offered etc. etc.? It would be
>>interesting to know your opinion on it, and whether it can be
>>recommended. I am only an average club player, rated around 1700.
> A new release of ChessBase, 3.0, is supposed to be on its way. This will
> add more ways of sorting the data and a number of features to help
> desktop publishing.
> John Richards
In a fact, the CB 3.0 has been available a few months already. The most
important new features are (I think): Automatic opening key generation,
speed, laserjet support for diagrams & 7 different sizes, possibility
for middle-game and end-game keys, no limitations in the opening key
(in 2.3 you could classify only about 32.000 gemas to a key-file), etc..
Jukka Pakkanen
Hrafn Loftsson
Which company sells ChessBase in US ?
Does anybody know the price?
Hrafn Loftsson (loft...@cs.psu.edu).
M Valvo
store is located at 2135 Hwy35 in Sea Girt, NJ 08750. This business is just
starting up and is now just being advertised. The price? I don't remember,
but somewhere in the $250 area. He is selling version 3.0 which is great!
I have 95,000 games on a single database on mine.
I understand he will be selling versions which will NOT be copy protected like
those in Europe. Also, Informator games will not be protected. Finally! I
have been a ChessBase user for years (versions 1.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and now 3.0)
and I have been sick of all that copy protection.
By the way, NIC-Base sent me a free promotional copy of their program. I tried
it and it doesn't compare to 3.0. It normally sells for about $150. They sent
me the free copy because I subscribe to their 'Quick Service' of games they
send out 20 times a year (total of 12,000 games). They said they won't offer
the games in ChessBase format anymore ("because of the expense") and were
hoping to get me to convert. I was very angry at this transparent attempt at
manipulation and signed up with Maddox for ChessBase's quick service of
10,000 games per year. I have mixed feelings about this because (a) ChessBase
is much more careful about inputting their data, but (b) they are also slower
about getting the games out. I preferred the speed.
--Mike Valvo
John Richards
>> A new release of ChessBase, 3.0, is supposed to be on its way. This will
>> add more ways of sorting the data and a number of features to help
>> desktop publishing.
>> John Richards
>In a fact, the CB 3.0 has been available a few months already. The most
>important new features are (I think): Automatic opening key generation,
>speed, laserjet support for diagrams & 7 different sizes, possibility
>for middle-game and end-game keys, no limitations in the opening key
>(in 2.3 you could classify only about 32.000 gemas to a key-file), etc..
>
I first saw the announcement of 3.0 in the December issue of Pergamon
Chess. A letter to me from ChessBase in November last year said they were
sorting out the last few bugs. My ChessBase contact in the UK says they
are still waiting for news that it is available.I would be interested to
hear of definite sightings.
--
John Richards
jupak...@cc.helsinki.fi
> Chess. A letter to me from ChessBase in November last year said they were
> sorting out the last few bugs. My ChessBase contact in the UK says they
> are still waiting for news that it is available.I would be interested to
> hear of definite sightings.
> --
> John Richards
My company (PC-Ware Finland) is authorized chessbase distributor in
Finland, and we got the 3.0 last december, and as far as I can tell,
it's reasonable bug free (so far I haven't found any).
Jukka
Roy Stuart Levin
Yes, I am also interested in Chessbase, especially versus NICbase and Bookup.
I see in the latest Chess Life that there is a $99 special on Chessbase and
a similar $75 offer for Zarkov a chess software program which interfaces
with Chessbase. I heard NICbase is good for under 2000 players because of
its training modules. Anyone out there use Zarkov and Chessbase? Is there
an advantage to this setup? I don't have a scanner so any data I would
have to enter from games would have to be typed in anyway. It would be
great to be able to see a game in chess life or on a computer screen and
somehow get it into a program like Zarkov to follow the position on the
screen. Is this possible?
What about you Bookup users out there? Any praises for that program?
Roy Stuart Levin
What is automatic opening key generation? What are middle game keys etc?
Roy Stuart Levin
Chess Base : Saitek Co. 2291 W 205th st. suite 101 Torrance CA 90501
(213) 212-5412
Bookup Chess Laboratories PO Box 341 S. Pasadena CA 91031 (818) 799-7567
NicBase Chess Combination Inc. 2423 Noble Station Bridgeport CT 06608
(203) 367-1555
These are old numbers and addresses and may not be up to date.
See articel by IM Eric Schiller on page 20 Sept. 90 Chess Life