ChessBase is a personal, stand-alone chess database that has become the standard throughout the world. Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it.
The clip database is part of the programm
The clip database is modelled on the old-fashioned clipboard. With the clipboard you went round to colleagues, clients or other experts who might have something to contribute on a particular subject. With the clipboard in ChessBase you also make the rounds. You can search in different databases, do different searches first, collect the material first and then, when the searching is done, look through it at your leisure and sort out which games are really important. Let's look over the shoulder of a coach/team manager:
The specific task is to create a database of games for the members of the team who are expected to play for the opposing team. Only games from the last ten years should be taken into account.
First, I create a database for the opposing team. This is still empty. In the graphic above this would be SK Himmelpfad.
Then I check the state of the clip database. For the following steps, the clip database should ideally be empty, but it will also work if there are games in the clip database from previous work.
Emptying the clip database
Emptying the clip database is easy. Select it with a mouse click, then right-click and use the Empty Clip Database command - or shortcut - to empty the clip database.
Now I look in the list of players in my database, my databases, for the opponents for the upcoming team match. I mark the players in question by clicking on them with the mouse and then pressing the F5 key.
Find players in the player list and press F5.
Pressing F5 copies the selected matches to the clip database. Typically, you'll search Megabase for this, but often, especially for teams that don't play at a high level, you'll repeat this search in local or club databases.
Games in the clip database
When I have finished searching for all the players of the opposing team, I drag and drop the contents of the clip database into my target database, the one for the upcoming opponent. When all the matches have been copied, I use the Extras -> Duplicate Search function to delete duplicate matches from the database.
Delete duplicated games
It will always happen that games appear twice in such a database. For example, because individual team members have played for other teams in the past, have played against club mates in a national or district championship, and so on. The 'Delete duplicate games' tool can be used to clean up a database accordingly. The user can vary the requirements for the similarity of the games.
The next step is to use the search mask to find all games older than about six years. To do this I enter the date 1753 (the date of the oldest known chess game) and 2017. This search lists all games played in 2017 and earlier. I select all of them and click on Remove -> Tools -> Remove deleted games permanently.
Now the database with the games of the expected opponents for the team match is ready. I copy it to CBV format and send it to the other team members (or the team captain) by e-mail.
Create an archive.file (0 CBV file)
Of course, this kind of approach is not limited to saving time when preparing for a team match. If you are looking for training material, it can also be helpful to use the clip database and a manoeuvre trial to pre-sort material, if necessary searching in several databases (Megabase, correspondence database, private databases) and only then, when you have found suitable candidates, to go through them for really suitable material (for training purposes).
ChessBase is a personal, stand-alone chess database that has become the standard throughout the world. Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it.
