I am interested in purchasing chess database software. I play postal chess and would use it mostly for that. Any suggestions?
Thanks … Jim
ChessBase has extensive correspondence chess features. You can record the sent and received dates, “if” moves and so on; it will even print postcards or e-mail a move directly from ChessBase. There is an eight-part series of articles about all the correspondence chess features on their web site, here:
chessbase.com/download/index.asp
The other major program in the database market is Chess Assistant. I don’t know if it has correspondence chess features.
– Hal Terrie
Hal … thank you for the info. I had been leaning toward chess base. I hadn’t previously seen the info in the link you provided though. Probably sealed the deal. Does anyone know anything about chess assistant?
Regards … Jim
In addition to Chessbase and Chess Assistant there are a couple of free utilities that you can use that aren’t too bad:
scid: prolinux.free.fr/scid/
chessdb: chessdb.sourceforge.net/
They are both based on an earlier version of scid, which is no longer maintained by its author. They take some getting used to, but they can be useful especially while you are still deciding on whether to get CB or CA.
Cool, maybe I can save myself a few bucks with the freeware.
Thanks … Jim
I have both Chessbase Light Premium and ChessAssistant 9.1. Each has its own advantages and quirks. My only complaint about CA 9.1 is that it has many bugs in the program that render some features, particularly some of the analysis modes, useless at times. CA is also not as user friendly as CB. That said, CA has some very neat features such as preparing for an opponent that will tell you a specific opponents likes and dislikes as to openings and lines within openings.
If you order CA, do not, repeat, do not purchase it as a download. Buy the cd from a reputable store online. I found that the download version was rife with bugs. The tech service response with CA is top flight and they eventually switched out my download version for a CD. The postal people looked at me like a spy when it arrived at the local PO from Moscow in a brown paper wrapper tied with string.
Playing online via the CA club is a very interesting experience. Most of the players are Russian or Eastern European. If you speak Russian or another Slavic tongues, you’ll have a blast. Last night I played a guy in Siberia; one of my rare CA club wins. 
I’ll agree with the comment about CA tech support. I had some difficulty installing one of their other CDs, and they offered to ship me right away a more expensive product as a replacement. I had a problem with one of the CB CD’s I bought, and they offered to replace the CD, but only after I packaged it up and sent it back to Germany first. So I’d be down for the weeks that would take.
Guess whose products I’ll be buying more of?
I’m in the interesting position of owning both CB9 and CA9.1. I use them both, and there are some very useful and interesting features in CB. But If I had to only use one, it’d be CA.
Still, as Mr Lafferty remarked, there are some annoying bugs in it. It’s hard to get it just to generate a page of diagrams, for example. It always wants to put the first move after the diagram on the page, even if you tell it to print 0 moves. Occasionally the search box goes flakey.
But CB9 isn’t without its problems, either. It generates two errors and wants to quit every time I start it. Last time I got rid of those errors by reinstalling, but I’m tired of reinstalling all the time, so I just tell it to continue and it does so without problems.
If you’re just using it to study, I don’t see a great deal of difference between the two. CB might be marginally better for this, but since it’s 2-3x the price I don’t think you’re getting the advantage you’re paying for, especially considering the quality of the analysis engines that ship free with CA.
If you’re going to do any publishing, I like CA far more than CB. The RTF export works quite well, especially if you’re using specialty fonts like the sets from Alpine. You can even export diagrams that you’ve drawn graphics like highlighted squares and lines and arrows on, something I’ve never been able to get CB to do.
CA also updates their DB for free. CB makes you subscribe to CB Magazine to get game updates. You can pay CA for even more games, but they also have a free weekly update you can download. The December files (4 updates) come to over 14,000 new games for free.
I’ve used both (though I didnt upgrade from chessbase 8/fritz 10). I would say that Chessbase (and Fritz) are much more professionally written than Chess Assistant and Rybka. Cleaner, more professional interface; things are easy to find; less quirks and bugs. Better instructions.
Lest you think that this is a slam-dunk vote for Chessbase, well, no. Consider the immense difference in prices between both versions, especially if you download CA (I had no problem downloading and installing the Convekta software, as another poster says he did, thereby saving a couple of more bucks). For my purposes, Chess Assistant and Rybka are excellent projects CONSIDERING THE PRICE, which is darned cheap.
So, the conclusion here is, if you have the money to spend, I’d say go for the Chessbase family. If you’re looking to economize a bit , Convekta products are a really good alternative to help us improve and enjoy our chess better.
I am currently using Master Chess 6000. It is a basic database program from Bookup, and I happened to get it free with the purchase of a set of chess DVDs from Chess4Less.
MC6000 has most features of a database, and comes with its proprietary format (G98) though it can import/export PGN files/databases. The software also comes with a Nalimov tablebase (up to 5 pieces), and a searchable collection of 1.4 million games. There is a Ruffian engine embedded in the software as well.
For my basic needs, MC6000 serves well, at least while I mull over CB 9.0 or CA 9.1, and wait for the releases of versions 10 (which should be very soon – does anyone know when these are launched?).
I don’t think that chess databases are much help.
Most of the games in the databases are random moves.
Using a chess engine such as Fritz is very beneficial to positional analyses.
Personally, I have never used my database that came with Fritz.
You can download Chessbase Light for free. For obvious reasons, some feature are absent or restricted, but it has more than enough functionality to show you the basic features of the software.
I think the biggest limitations is you can’t save games, and a database is limited to the first 30,000 entries.
But other than that, there are literally scores of smaller databases you can download off the internet. There are a whole series of “opening” databases that are mostly less than 30,000 games, and of course plenty of micro databases based on particular historical tournaments, or specific players.
I will explain. This is just my opinions. Opinions are protected under the first amendment.
First, I will acknowledge the benefits of a database. Databases are great sources of information when you want to study a opening. It allows one to see the many possible moves.
But that is only when one wants to play a particular opening or preparing for an opponent. No one has the time to memorize all the openings by heart. This is why tactics are 99% of chess. A chess engine helps one improve tactics by analyzing the moves and rating them. Unless you are preparing for a championship game or something, spend your time on tactics.
First part: Way overestimation! 85% I’d say. Sometimes tactics will give you a winning advantage without material gain! You have to be able to recognize that. You do have to consider tactics just about every move.
Second part: At least most of the time. It takes practice.
You are human, not a machine. You have to play like a human. Just be more sophisticated in your play.
All the best, Joe