Assistance Creating Chess Database? (and introduction...)

All Things Chess
1

Greetings. I am a brand new USCF member from Green Bay, WI. I wanted to introduce myself and say “hello” to those in these forums.

My question involves the creation of a computer chess database. I am an avid chess player. I notate my games and would like to enter them into a computer database to store (and possibly have software analyze) my games. I’ve searched the new for freeware before investing in something. The common thread seems to be Chessbase Lite. However, I don’t understand how I input my hand notation into a piece of software like Chessbase or Chesspad. I keep reading about PGN files, but it’s not clear to me how I create a PGN file.

Any assistance in this area would be much appreciated.

Many thanks… :smiley:

2

Greetings,

Welcome to the USCF.

I don’t think there is a single FREE product that will do everything you mentioned, but if your willing to try several products, and see what fits with you, you can do all that with free software.

PGN files are plain-text ASCII files in a particular format, they can be created in any text writer, but you have to follow the rules of the format or the files won’t work in anything (databases and chess engines)

Creating a PGN file is fairly easy with a PGN reader/writer. There are many around, I think that easiest and most comprehensive is “Winboard”.

chess.com/download/view/winboard-427

You install the program, one of the shorcuts it creates is called “game viewer”. Click on this and you see a chess board at the starting position. Take your game score sheet and play in the moves by moving the pieces on the board. When your done, click “file” and then “save game”, pick a folder and a file name, do yoursef a favor and pick a meaningful file name. You have your PGN file. Whatever datebase or chess engine you use will import this file. As you are playing though the game (or later as you are going back over it), you can insert notation comments by clicking “mode” and then “edit comment”. What you type in will be saved in the PGN file. Cicking on “mode” and then “edit tags” will allow you to insert header information. Winboard can also be use to connect to chess servers and play online, though over the years most chess servers use dedicated (must use our’s) software. Winboard has a chess engine built in, but you can only play against the engine, not use it fo evaluation of games.

One of the problems I have with Chessbase is that it has it’s own file format. Yes, it will convert back and forth to pgn, but I personally found it querky and non-intuitive. But, it will only cost you your itme and effort to find if it works for you. The pay version is more comprehensive.

Another free chess database is Chess DB.

chessdb.sourceforge.net/

Another free porduct to check out is BabasChess.

babaschess.net/

Like Winboard, you can use it to connect to some chess servers. It will also read and create PGN files. It has a chess engine built into it that can be used to evaluate your games, but not to play against it (the opposite of Winboard).

A lot of this depends on how comfortable you are with computer software.

Good Luck.

3

SRDudley’s post (which I didn’t read till now) is more helpful than mine.

First, a disclaimer. I’m not hawking a particular software vendor’s software & have no financial interest. Others can tell you how to do the same thing using other freeware. And I discovered in the middle of writng this explanation that the functionality of the freeware version may have been degraded for legitimate commercial reasons…so folks are going to have to correct my version.

  1. You can download the free version of ChessBase Light 2009 here:

chessbase.com/download/cblig … ewsid=5654

  1. Click downloaded file to run CBLight setup.

  2. File / New / Board to get a new board.

  3. Use mouse to enter moves.

  4. File / Save to save game to database. (I don’t think you can create new DB’s with ChessBase Light, but you can open existing DB’s with less than 8000 games.) ***CAN THIS BE DONE WITHOUT BUYING LICENSE? IS THERE MORE APPROPRIATE FREEWARE? ***

  5. File / Send to send game to email. I just downloaded a copy of CBLight: here’s an example

Lasker,Emanuel - Delmar,Eugene [D02]
New York sim New York, 1892

1.d4 e6 2.Nf3 d5 3.Bg5 f6 4.Bf4 Bd6 5.Bg3 Ne7 6.Nbd2 Bxg3 7.hxg3 Qd6 8.e4 dxe4 9.Nxe4 Qb4+ 10.c3 Qxb2 11.Nfd2 0-0 12.Rb1 Qxa2 13.Nc4 Qa6 14.Ncd6 Qxd6 15.Nxd6 cxd6 16.Bd3 h6 17.Bc2 Nbc6 18.g4 Kf7 19.Bb3 d5 20.f4 Bd7 21.Bc2 Rfb8 22.g5 fxg5 23.Qh5+ Kg8 24.fxg5 Be8 25.Qe2 h5 26.g6 Nxg6 27.Qxh5 Nce7 28.Qh7+ Kf8 29.Rf1+ Nf5 30.Bxf5 exf5 31.Rxf5+ Ke7 32.Qxg7+ Kd8 33.Rxb7 Rxb7 34.Qxb7 1-0

  1. This is not quite PGN, but it can be read by any PGN reader (via Ctrl-C & Ctrl-V) & you can add the headers. (The freeware not fully functional because CB wants you to buy the program.)

  2. CBLight comes with Fritz 6, so you can quickly see (Engine: Add Kibitzer: Fritz 6) that 14.Qh5 may have been even stronger than 14.Ncd6 in the above game.

It’s easy to do the above by spending reasonable $$ on Fritz / Rybka (for one base) with ChessBase or CA (for managing large DBs and multiple DBs). But what’s the best way to do this (with the limited functionality GB_Kine seeks) for free?

4

And if there’s freeware that does it all, why not make it available for download from the USCF website with instructions for newbies? (This will only create new markets for the high-end products.)

I consider myself reasonably proficient in CB, and I was having trouble doing some functions on the freeware.

5

Welcome to the USCF and to the Forums!

Actually, CB Light (the non-paid version) no longer allows saving of games at all. :frowning: One can open games with it, but not save nor replace them. (I ended up, until buying the Premium Light version, creating games in ChessBase Light 6, which I still had rattling around my archive storage. :wink: Then opening them for viewing in Light 2007…)

The four biggies are: ChessBase, Chess Assistant, SCID, and Winboard. I briefly covered them here. Free wise, if I weren’t a dedicated ChessBase user, I’d be using SCID.

I’ve been meaning to update that article, though, as Fritz 12 now seems to have database capability as well - I haven’t used it, though. (Not sure about Rybka and Aquarium - maybe someone else can comment.)

In all versions, you have a chess board and you can enter your moves just by dragging and dropping the pieces. Then you save that game into a games collection, entering in information about who was playing and when. It’s not complex, it just differs just a little by which program you use.

6

Thank you all for the information. I believe I will be going with ChessBase. Many thanks again for all of your suggestions and your welcome. What a wonderful fraternity of chess players.