Databases

I would be interested to find out what databases people use to search for different positions. I have already been guided to one at chesslab.com but wonder what else is available.

Chessbase, chesslab, or chessgames.com

Corsair,

I don't know if you're still checking this thread, since it's more than a month old,..

Anyways, if you are, I just thought I'd mentione my favorite Chess Database, SCID. It's free, there are versions for Linux or Windows, It will read PGN files, although it saves games in its own DB format wich is much smaller than pgn. I think the newer version includes an analysis engine.

After you download and install it, you can also download a reference database (links at the bottom of the page) with 500,000+ games. Very good program. Here's the link:

http://scid.sourceforge.net

What's a Database & what does one do with it ? Thanks

A database is a large collection of chess games stored on a computer. Generally you can use it to sort games by opening, by result, or by player, (or by event, or by date or by any number of the above) You can also search for games that featured a certain board position.

So, for example, you could see how often a certain variation led to a win for white or black, or to a draw. Or you could find all the games between Karpov and Kasparov which featured a certain opening. And so on and so forth...