Chessbase
12 Review
By Carl Portman
I admit at the start of this review that there is still much I have to learn
about Chessbase 12, because there is so much to it – but I know enough
to be able to share my considered thoughts with fellow chess players and anyway
learning is fun. These are my views only and I take responsibility for them.
There is just so much I could say but I have to be fairly brief so as not to
overload the reader.
Question - Why should I get Chessbase? I already have Fritz.
The first big question for me (and I know many other chess players) is ‘why
should I get Chessbase when I already have Fritz?’ This depends very much
upon what you want from your chess. For many people Fritz is enough, because
you can (amongst other things)...
- Play against the computer at various levels
- Play online at Playchess.com
- Create databases of games from around the world past and present
- Input your own and other games for analysis and reference
- Have tutorials
- Use the training facilities to improve
So what will Chessbase 12 give you in addition to the above? Firstly I should
say that it can be purchased in different packages and your ‘outcome’
will depend on what you choose. The starter, Mega and Premium can all be viewed
at the ChessBase
website.
If you already have ChessBase 11 it can be upgraded at a reduced price. Let’s
say that you take the plunge and begin with the starter package. For that you
will get the ChessBase 12 program, a big database with over five million games
– and you can download games online until the end of December 2013. Also
you get access to the online database and a half year subscription to the excellent
ChessBase Magazine. What a great start! All of this for the price of a small
service on your car. It’s chess for chess fans and if you are able to
you should treat yourself and begin 2013 with a new chess adventure. If you
want to add to this there is much more and the details are given at the end
of this article.
The Chessbase 12 Interface – logical and intuitive
ChessBase is about a chess journey. You can’t play a game against ChessBase
like you can Fritz. It is more of a preparation and chess management tool. If
you are really serious about improving your chess and you want to be better
able to prepare against opponents, then ChessBase is worth its weight in gold.
There are some things I am still to understand or use such as the ‘engine
cloud’, which is deep analysis done by several engines working in parallel.
There’s ‘similarity search’, where endings can now be looked
for with just one click and displayed according to the position on the board.
There’s Deep Analysis which generates many variations and you just leave
it running as long as you like. There’s so much more.
Chess Publishing
Is it more than just a big database? Well, the answer is yes, especially with
regard to chess publishing. You can do things with ChessBase 12 that you cannot
with Fritz, like publish a game online (for example to Facebook) with just a
couple of clicks – it’s fantastic.
For example the game below I took at random from the Correspondence database
(but it could have been one of my own games to share with friends). I simply
clicked on publish to web and this screen comes up. You click on the Facebook
logo and in a few seconds you will be publishing your game there – magic!
I will be working out how to publish a game direct to my own chess page on
my site (see below), but one step at a time for now! You can see that it actually
works by clicking on this
link.
When you have a position on the board you can with one click connect to the
ChessBase database online to see if the identical position is there. This is
a great tool for analysis. As a chess coach it simply means that it is easier
for me to share work with students and other folk. I am clear that there are
many more publishing possibilities in addition to the above and many ways to
share chess information online with other people.
Preparing for an opponent
Now
let’s say I want to prepare for an opponent. Okay, this is based on the
presumption that your opponent actually has any of their games in the database,
but you’ll be surprised how many do. I used the ‘Big Database 2012’
that comes with the starter package and clicked the ‘Prepare against’
button (shown right).
Next, I looked for the person I wanted and in this case a list of 159054 players
comes up to scroll through. I now had have several options as shown in the buttons
below…
I was black against this person so I clicked on ‘Prepare against white’
found my player (who shall remain unnamed) and his games as white came up –
so I immediately had a good idea what he played. You can see below that I might
reasonably save loads of time looking at 1.d4 openings because he almost never
played it.
Of course this does not mean that he has not played it recently, but it’s
a good indicator of a player’s style. This is just one aspect that I will
find useful and I will of course use a lot.
Allied to this I can download all new games instantly from online for the next
12 months without having to scratch around various site which takes up valuable
time. The program is very intuitive and I think based on Microsoft interface
so all the buttons are there, you just have to play around with them to get
a feel for how it all comes together. But as I said that’s all part of
the fun.
Saving time
The thing about ChessBase is it saves so much time. Here’s a fine example.
I have a large chess library. Often I just pull down a book or magazine and
rummage around in the dustbin of history. My last chosen tome was the British
Chess Magazine from December 1996. In it is a game between Ansell-Crouch, and
I was interested in the French Defence variation played. I like to add such
games to my personal training database. To do this I have to type the moves
in and save it etc. This time I thought, hold on perhaps the game is already
in my huge Megabase 2013. I looked under ‘Ansell’ and sure enough
the game was there! All I had to do was copy it into my training database. Done
in an instant – how cool. I should say that optional Mega Database 13
has the same 5.4 million games as the Big Database, but that over 67,000 have
annotations and one year free updates.
Now you might argue that if you have Fritz alone you can build a database and
you might (might!) have had that game in it. Sure, but you have to mess about
downloading tournaments all the time. With the Mega Database 2013 you get free
uploads for the year and someone else has done all the work. Marvellous.
My conclusions
As I said at the start, whether or not you decide to procure Chessbase 12
will depend on several factors, not least financial. But I am able to put the
cost in some sort of perspective when one considers just how much a few rounds
of golf are or even a day at a Premiership football match. Once purchased you
have this resource for months – years even, and it will help you develop
your game if you put in the effort. I definitely made a good decision to run
ChessBase in addition to Fritz, so it is not either/or for me. I have played
in several tournaments and even league matches where opponents have ‘found
me’ in ChessBase and prepared a few lines, giving them (I felt) a distinct
advantage. This in turn encouraged me to try to find some new opening moves
which is good for my chess development.
If you want to improve your game, if you want to be better prepared for chess
tournaments and league games, if you want an outstanding chess tool to help
you as a coach or if you are publishing online, then I have no hesitation in
recommending ChessBase 12.
For me it is a brand new world but one in which I embrace wholeheartedly. These
days I use my SLR cameras without a thought, because over time I have become
so used to them. I am sure that this will be the case with ChessBase, and I
am now an avid user. Each time I turn it on there is something new to find and
I look forward to the challenge of trying to improve my own game as a result.
I should finally say that the support from the ChessBase team is nothing short
of outstanding. If you have a problem and you cannot resolve it despite going
through the help notes that come with the program, then the team will always
sort you out. That’s my experience at least. Many thanks indeed to Steffen
Giehring and his colleagues for their marvellous customer service.
If you shop around for Chessbase you can get a competitive price. There
are many outlets, easily found online. Buy it and enjoy it. Below I give the
official product information released from ChessBase.
My Chess CV
I am proud to have achieved at least some things in chess, if not in the rest
of my life. This includes...
- Charlton School Chess Champion (my proudest ever chess moment)
- Member of seven championship winning teams in Shropshire
- Played for Shropshire County team many times
- Shropshire County Individual Champion 1998
- British Chess Federation County Master title achieved in 1996
- Played for Oxfordshire County team
- Organised many high profile events including simultaneous displays by Lev
Polugayevsky, Jonathan Speelman, Nigel Davies, Daniel King, Nigel Short (lecture
and simul in 2012)
- Won prizes in several tournaments including in Germany where I played in
the Niedersachsen league for three years
- Played Viktor Korchnoi in a simul at the London Chess Classic 2010
- I am the Chess Correspondent for the Ministry of Defence
- Captain of the Ministry of Defence team for the CSSC games
- I am the Editor of the Combined Services Chess Association Magazine 'OPEN
FILE'.
- Runner Up Victor Ludorum trophy 2012 (Combined Services)
- English Chess Federation Chess Coach
- Chess in Schools and the Community Coach
- Member of the United Kingdom team in the 2012 NATO Chess Championships
in France
- Currently playing actively in the Oxfordshire, Leamington and 4NCL leagues.
Editorial note
We (the editors at ChessBase) have spent some time – actually quite a
lot of time – on Carl's web site, and looked at many pages not directly
related to chess. Here are some we would like to share with you:
-
Photography
– "Photography gives me the opportunity to interact and co-exist
with the world around me. Life through a lens brings many pleasures and
I believe a wider appreciation if life."
-
Aston Villa
– "Just saying the name aloud makes me shiver. Ever since I was
able to walk I have supported this great club. It's not just a football
team, it is a way of life."
-
Natural
History – "I love the natural world. It is a wealth
of colour, information and wonder. I never cease to be curious about everything
from the smallest ant to the tallest tree. We humans can learn much from
nature - respecting it would be a good start."
-
My ICD
– "A lot of people keep things medical in confidence, and I totally
understand that. However this is me and I figure that I have nothing to
lose and everything to gain by sharing information and experiences."
-
Poetry
and Prose – One of the most wonderful things about being
human is the power to express our thoughts and feelings through language
in written and verbal form.
-
Music
– If music be the food of love, stand by for a good rogering...
-
Carl's Planet
– "Welcome to my world. In a world where so many people are ignorant
of the beauty of nature I am lucky to be able to appreciate it, to be curious.
From a cockroach to a dolphin from a stinging nettle to a Brugmansia I find
the wonder in everything." (Official web site)
ChessBase is a stand-alone chess database that has become the standard
throughout the world. Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the
amateur next door.
What can you do with ChessBase?
Enter, annotate and save games, including variations, text commentary, spoken
comments, embedded pictures, soundtracks and even video!
- Analyse positions with GM-strength engines like Fritz & Crafty (both
included).
- Retrieve games according to opening, player or tournament.
- Generate tournament cross-tables and statistics of players or openings.
- Generate a player’s dossier containing all information from the database.
- Find the new move (theoretical novelty) in a game with just one mouse-click.
• Find out which lines are currently fashionable in the position on
the board.
- Generate a comprehensive openings report with main and critical lines, plans
and most important games.
- Search for material distribution, positions, manoeuvres, tactical themes,
checkmates and stalemates.
- Access to the comprehensive ChessBase online database (6 million games -
constantly updated)
- Easy emailing of positions, games or databases. Single click publishing
of games on the internet.
- Create a repertoire database, ChessBase then shows you any new games which
involve an opening variation that you play!
- When you prepare for a specific opponent, you can see at a glance what openings
they play and when they modified their repertoire.
New in ChessBase 12
Online player encyclopaedia regularly updated with new Elo
ratings/player photos • Access to LiveBook, the Engine
Cloud and Let's Check (see Fritz 13 for details) •
New “Deep Analysis” feature: ChessBase generates
an analysis tree with the best candidate moves and replies. This tree changes
dynamically as with time weaker variations are dropped. New Search Facilities:
You can now search for similar games to the game on screen. Ask ChessBase to
find you games with a similar pawn structure, endgame theme and even manoeuvres!
ChessBase can now automatically shows all previous games in an opening by the
players of the active game all classified according to the level of similarity
with the original game. It makes use of the most recent games from the online
database.
Program
packages
- ChessBase 12
- Integrated CB online database with more than 5 million games
- Access to player encyclopaedia with over 30,000 pictures
- Language: English, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, German
- plus: ChessBase Big Database 2013. Automatic update until 31st December
2013
- plus: ChessBase Magazine subscription, half year, 3 issues DVD + print
- On DVD-ROM or download
179.90 EUR incl. 19% VAT
- ChessBase 12
- Integrated CB online database with more than 5 million games
- Access to player encyclopaedia with over 30,000 pictures
- Language: English, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, German
- plus: ChessBase Mega Database 2013 + automatic update until 31st December
2013
- plus: ChessBase Magazine subscription for one year (6 issues)
- On DVD-ROM or download
Euro 269.90 EUR incl. 19% VAT
- Integrated CB online database with more than 5 million games
- Access to player encyclopaedia with over 30 000 pictures
- Language: English, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, German
- Only as download
Euro 99.00 incl. 19% VAT
System requirements
Minimum: Pentium III 1 GHz, 512 MB RAM – Windows Vista, XP (Service Pack
3) – DirectX9 graphics card with 256 MB RAM – DVD-ROM drive –
Windows Media Player 9 and Internet access to activate the program, Playchess.com,
Let's Check, Engine Cloud and updates.
Order
ChessBase 12 in our ChessBase Shop
