Originally posted by trallphazThe databases are just a collection of chess games. In some cases several million games. Depending on the software you have you can either view the games, or search the database for a certain position or a certain sequence of moves, games by certain players, games won by black/white, etc.
whats a database? (dont give me high tech stuff just tell me what it is and does)
There are also specialized databases for the opening. These can be simple things like the standard opening tree type databases that most good chess programs come with (most chess engines do not calculate the opening moves, they come from a database). Or they can be more user-friendly like what you can do with a program like Bookup.
And then there are the endgame tablebases that have perfect play for all endings of 5 or fewer pieces (and some 6 piece endings are finished as well).
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Originally posted by XanthosNZI miss my database, which is on my ruined computer.
I mainly use my filtered database of half a million games. All titled players playing under standard time controls in the last 5 years. The percentages in this database give a very good idea of the current state of theory in the opening. Of course when the games in the position get fewer you have to do some checking to ensure flawed games (games where whit as a human-human resource. They aim for positions heavy in tactics and avoid closed positions.
Game 1680986