A goldmine for chess excavations

by ChessBase
9/1/2006 – What chess database is best suited for you? For Masters, club players and all others, the Mega Database is first choice. Correspondence Chess players should also not miss the Corr Database 2006. Now FIDE Master Petronic points out that there is a lot to discover in the Corr 2006 for everyone! Review.

ChessBase 18 - Mega package ChessBase 18 - Mega package

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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.

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Review by FM Jovan Petronic 

"The new ChessBase Corr Database 2006 can be read with ChessBase 9.0, Fritz 8/9 or the ChessBase 9.0 Reader that comes with the CD. The ChessBase 9.0 Reader automatically opens the database on the CD. There are exactly 588.148 entries stored. The CD package cover reveals that these are made up of classical correspondence mail games, as well as e-mail games, ranging from 1804-2006!



Unfortunately, there is no introductory, correspondence chess-related text to the database, which would be useful for the average user.



Don’t let the years trick you. Correspondence games take a while to complete. A Correspondence Chess Playerbase for ChessBase 9.0 users with approximately 63.000 names is included! The Playerbase can be accessed via the Tools/Options menu in the Reader.If your data is not included in the Playerbase, you can use online access through “Update My Player Encyclopedia Entry”. A closer look inside the database reveals not only the advertised tournament games, but Correspondence Opening Surveys, too!? There seem to be a significant number of these included.



Popularity of correspondence chess is easily seen by the number games played by the most active players, among close to seventy-five thousand in all. Openings, Themes, Tactics, Strategy and Endgames keys are fully classified and searchable through specialized keys. 



More than 48.000 tournaments are available for browsing! A large number of annotated games, close to 500 annotators, by Correspondence and OTB (grand)masters, is another highlight of this database. High-corr-rated games ensure quality of this remarkable collection. 

Conclusion:


Buy it now...

The tournaments collected and published here are of the obvious highest quality, “featuring all games of the correspondence chess world championships 1-18, correspondence chess olympics 1-15, correspondence chess european championships, national chamionships (AUS, CSR, DEN, GER, NED, USA) and memorials (1965 SUI jub75, 1991 FIN jub30, NED jub 25, NBC Millennium Email, ICCF 50th Jubilee Elite and ICCF 50th Jubilee World Champions)”. OTB players may as well benefit from researching these games, as they contain masterpieces that can be useful in pursuing novelties necessary for modern tournament preparation, ideas that can only be found in games such as these. Correspondence games, although its players might argue differently, are relieved of typical OTB time control stress situations, thus hinting on potentially higher quality precision techniques in openings, middlegames and endgames alike. Even with the growing powers of computer chess engines, having witnessed a number of regular correspondence chess players spending countless hours in analyzing their ongoing games over the board, without external aid, I have no fear of software overtaking the human element in producing competitive and evergreen correspondence games of chess.

My personal earlier experiences with experimenting OTB chess, using Correspondence Chess based knowledge, have brought me success on more than a few occasions and will always play an important part in tournament preparation and general study of the game of chess.

ChessBase continues its quest in storing the history of chess, updates it on a regular basis, to the joy and convenience of all chess friends and professionals. This jewel, enriched by the powerful features of ChessBase’s software, is a must for all past, present and future correspondence chess players and a goldmine for chess excavations."


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