Good databases

malinga

That would be me

Only Chess

08 Dec 06

malinga

That would be me

Behind the couch

Joined: 07 Oct 04
Moves: 51169

08 Dec 06

I'm sure this has been asked before so forgive me.

I want a cheap (free) database for my home PC. I would like one that I can paste all these RHP games into plus games from masters. Preferably it would have an analysis engine like Fritz to go through games pointing out better (missed) moves.

I am a computer idiot so the easier to use the better. Suggestions please...

Wulebgr

Angler

River City

Joined: 08 Dec 04
Moves: 16907

08 Dec 06

Originally posted by malinga
I'm sure this has been asked before so forgive me.

I want a cheap (free) database for my home PC. I would like one that I can paste all these RHP games into plus games from masters. Preferably it would have an analysis engine like Fritz to go through games pointing out better (missed) moves.

I am a computer idiot so the easier to use the better. Suggestions please...

Both ChessBase Light and Chess Assistant Light are free and adequate for saving your own games. Both come with engines.

In CB light, each database is limited to 8000 games; in CA light, 15000.

I prefer ChessBase, but CA has its advocates too.

DeepThought

Losing the Thread

Quarantined World

Joined: 27 Oct 04
Moves: 87415

08 Dec 06

1 edit

Originally posted by malinga
I'm sure this has been asked before so forgive me.

I want a cheap (free) database for my home PC. I would like one that I can paste all these RHP games into plus games from masters. Preferably it would have an analysis engine like Fritz to go through games pointing out better (missed) moves.

I am a computer idiot so the easier to use the better. Suggestions please...

The free one I have is SCID you can download it from scid.sourceforge.net this is the database reader. The way I got the actual database was to download the collection of games from ftp.cis.uab.edu/pub/hyatt/pgn/enormous.zip which is a database of over a million games. The problem is there are duplicates that you need to remove, and the spell check function doesn't work perfectly. The alternative is to download the pgn games from TWIC one at a time (I've done this it takes a couple of hours, but you'll get a better database), and start your database that way. It comes with a (rather poor) engine called scidlet, but there are plenty of free ones, you should be able to find a compiled version of Crafty somewhere (I think www.chessbase.com has one for free download).

Alternatively go to www.redhotpawn.com/gamesexplorer and use that.

prenshaw84

Launceston

Joined: 15 Nov 06
Moves: 679

08 Dec 06

Yes I can recommend Scid as well. Great piece of software is that. As for where I got my collection of master games from, I downloaded them at http://www.chesscollect.com/PGNDownloads.html and then combined them into one big database using Scid.