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.
I am not really a tech savvy person. I am happy with an outdated and obsolete software if it can help me in complete my work efficiently. For example, Microsoft came up with Office 2013 but I am still using the 2010 version. The same was the case with ChessBase 12. I was happy with all its functions and I did not find any need to upgrade to ChessBase 13. But after reading a few reviews on the website, there was one feature that caught my fancy: “Cloud Databases”. Everyone praised the new feature yet no one explained as to how exactly it could be used and put into practice.
I worked with the cloud functions of ChessBase 13 for the past few days and would like to share with you some of my experience of this unique feature. Before I take you on this cloudy journey I would like to mention that this cloud function will prove useful if you fall into one of the following categories:
Cloud technology is now in the hands of a chess player!
Put it simply, cloud is a space on the ChessBase servers that helps you to store your chess data. So, when you work with Cloud Databases you are not only saving these databases in your computer but also on ChessBase servers. These Cloud Databases are something which can never be affected even if your computer crashes! Talk about immortality!
There are software packages like Dropbox or Microsoft’s OneDrive that let you save your data on the cloud, but ChessBase 13’s Cloud function gives you (as a chess player) many more options to work with your databases. Let me explain to you step by step the way in which you can use the Cloud Databases and how it can be beneficial to you.
On the home ribbon you have the feature Cloud Databases on which you can click to gain a quick access the Cloud Databases…
... or you can click on the “Cloud” tab on the top of the window to get all the features related to the Cloud Databases. The first step would be to create your own cloud account. On the right you can see the “login” tab. When you click on it, the following dialogue box appears.
If you are already a Playchess member, you can use the same username and password to login. But if you are not then you will have to create a new account. Clicking on the “Create Account” will take you to a web browser where you will have to enter a few details:
You will then be sent the confirmation link to your e-mail account. After clicking on the link, your account for the cloud databases is ready to be used!
The account that you have created can be used for a variety of purposes, e.g. to play games on Playchess.com:
You can also use it to leave comments on the ChessBase news page and for functions like Let’s Check, Engine Cloud and the Online Chessbase Database.
Now let’s go back to ChessBase 13 and log into the Cloud Databases by entering your user name and password.
As a free unregistered ChessBase user you will have 20 MB space available on the cloud server. That is quite a bit and allows you to save nearly 10,000 games. There are also three readily made databases for you as you can see.
If you are a Premium Playchess.com member you get 200 MB of cloud space for storage and a basic membership of Playchess.com gives you 100 MB space.
The first thing I did was to copy all my games to the cloud database called “My Games”. I then closed ChessBase 13 and reopened my account. The first question it asked me was whether I would like to store my repertoire to the cloud. Of course I accepted it!
The Repertoire White and Black are created on the basis of the 708 games that I have stored in “My Games” database. As you can see, only 7% (1.59 MB) of the space has been used even after I have added all my games with some huge analysis.
After safeguarding my games against any potential harm in the future I now decided to have a look at the most important function of the Cloud Databases and that was sharing the databases with others.
– Part two of this primer on the Cloud functions of ChessBase 13 will follow shortly –
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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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