Winning starts with what you know
The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.
Another nice feature of ChessBase is the possibility of training with the Mega Database.
After clicking on “Filter list” in the database window go to the “Annotations” tab and select Training.
More than 2000 games have training questions. The ‘t’ that is added to VCS stands for training.
After opening the game make sure that you “enable training” in the “Training” tab in the game window
“Can White still save the game?” is the training question here. A pretty tough one though!
You have exactly five minutes to solve it!
The three stars denote the training question and the answer cannot be seen
Once you have found the answer or clicked on the three stars, the entire game can be seen
You can also search for games with specific medals if you want to study a particular area of the game. This can be particularly useful if you or your trainer feel that you have a weakness in a particular area of the game.
In the Filter Games window, you can go to the ‘Medals’ tab and select the specific medal to get the games of that central theme. Here the blue in the medal stands for Novelty and the red stands for sacrifice. You can select as many themes as you want.
All the games that have the theme of novelty and sacrifice are in front of you!
Anytime you like to play a game online or watch some live games you can login to Playchess.com from the main window of ChessBase-13.
You can find the Playchess.com tab on the bottom left of your screen
You can buy your own Playchess.com account or you can even login as a guest. After studying any opening it is always good to play practise games and such an easy access to a worldwide, enthusiastic playing field will be very handy.
From a trainer’s point of view I see a very important improvement in ChessBase-13, the setup of illegal positions! An example where a trainer would need to use such a position is the following.
In the earlier versions of ChessBase, setting up of illegal positions was not allowed.
This is quite a welcome change.
The ‘extended information’ of pictures, flags and ratings (classical, rapid or blitz) in ChessBase 13 is a nice addition, but what I really liked is the new ‘annotation toolbar’.
Pictures of the players with their country flags
The new annotation toolbar at the bottom of your screen
As a player and a trainer, I tend to be objective and that means, frequently using the annotation symbols and entering text. Although I am used to working with the keyboard shortcuts and occasionally bringing up the annotation palette, I am pretty sure that getting used to the annotation toolbar is going to save me a lot of time!
Search results for ‘Similar Structures’ and ‘Similar Endgames’ are now faster and much more accurate!
This feature has been explained in detail by GM Vidit Gujrathi and can be found here.
A few things that have been explained in detail before by others, I will just mention in passing.
The ‘Cloud databases’ is a wonderful new feature for players who like to have easily accessible backup of their work, for trainers who would like to share databases with their students, or for seconds who would need to update their ‘firsts’ with the analyses! Previously only ‘cloud analysis’, with the use of remote chess engines around the world was available. It’s now getting more ‘cloudy’.
The ‘Black and White’ Repertoire feature is another interesting update especially to keep track of the latest happenings in your openings.
The ‘Analysis Jobs’ feature is a fantastic improvement. Players and seconds can now take more frequent walks or get better sleep after instructing their machines to do the analysis.
The USP of ChessBase 13 for stronger players according to me, is the ‘Analysis Jobs’ function! This will be extremely useful, for players, trainers as well as seconds. Other improvements like extended information in game window, Cloud Databases, setup of illegal positions, annotation toolbar, etc. are useful additions and will save a lot of time and effort. For those who have never used ChessBase, I have tried to mention some important points and instructions. The bottom-line is clear. It matters not, at what level you play chess. If you are into chess, you need ChessBase 13. Period!
Prathamesh Mokal is an International Master and FIDE Trainer from India. He won bronze medal in Commonwealth Junior 2003 and was Asian Junior Joint Champion in the same year. He made his maiden grandmaster norm in 2009 and scored an unprecedented 100% in the FIDE Trainer’s exam in 2012. He is a reputed coach based in Pune, India, and has produced students with National and International achievements. He is also a Martial Arts enthusiast and was awarded Black Belt 1st Dan in Isshinryu Karate as well as Matayoshi Kobudo, before he stopped training in the year 2009.
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ChessBase 13 Premium package
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ChessBase 13 Mega package
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ChessBase 13 Starter package
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ChessBase 13 - Upgrade from ChessBase 12
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