How to install the ChessBase Players Encyclopaedia

The new Player Encyclopaedia 2008 is not automatically installed along with the Mega Database 2008. It is highly recommend to install it separately in order to get the latest player info (with upgraded Elo ratings, etc.) in your ChessBase 9.0 program. This is how to do it.

1. Insert the Mega Database 2008 DVD in your DVD drive and start your ChessBase 9.0 program.

2. Go to menu File – Open – Encyclopaedia.

3. The dialog box "Player Database Path" will pop up. Select your DVD drive with the Mega Database 2008 DVD.

4. Double click the folder "Playbase" from the list. Scroll down to the very end of the list and double click the file "Playbase.plh"

Now you already have access to the ChessBase Players Encyclopaedia from the DVD. In order to install the Encyclopaedia permanently to your hard disk go through the following steps:

5 . Go to menu File – Install – Install Player Encyclopaedia.

6 . That will bring up a dialog box "Save as" (your dialogs will be in English, unlike the German in the pictures below). It is important to make sure that the new Playbase files will be stored on your hard disk, so click into the small field that now shows "Playbase" and ensure that this is a folder on your hard disk.

7. Click the "Save" button ("Speichern" in the German operating system above) in order to start the installation. It may take a quarter of an hour to install all the pictures to your system.

After the installation is complete ChessBase 9.0 will access the new Player Encyclopaedia 2008 from your hard disk. In order to check whether everything worked fine, start ChessBase 9.0 again and go to menu Edit – Find Player. Type in “Anand” and tell the program show the full details from the Encyclopaedia. ChessBase 9.0 is now to show a total of 66 photos. The following should be displayed first:

If you click on "Elo Profile" you will get a graph showing you the development of the current World Champion:

Note that with the Players Encyclopedia installed you can display pictures of the players when you load a game (use the menu "Window – Panes – Players photos" to bring them into the board window).

ChessBase will use pictures that match the year of the game as closely as possible. In the above example both players were 18 years old and the Players Encyclopedia has retrieved pictures from 1987.