Some questions on ChessBase 12 Mega package

I've watched a Youtube video that said I had to do this:
File > New > Database > Choose the Book .ctg format > Right click on any game of the Mega Database > Edit > Select All > Right click on any game again > Clip or unclip > Drag the "Clip Database" to the Database you have created > Wait while it loads
And I was very brave: I waited for 6 entire hours. Then obviously since it was still loading I guessed that there was just a problem so I stopped the loading...
Guess what: in the database with a tree icon (which looks exactly like something like that: http://www.365chess.com/opening.php), 4 million games have been copied. So the loading was actually almost over! But now I have to do it all over again... Are they serious?? Why was there no loading clock displaying something like "X hours left..."?

Originally posted by Marc Benford
I've watched a Youtube video that said I had to do this:
File > New > Database > Choose the Book .ctg format > Right click on any game of the Mega Database > Edit > Select All > Right click on any game again > Clip or unclip > Drag the "Clip Database" to the Database you have created > Wait while it loads
And I was very brave: I waited for 6 entire ho ...[text shortened]... . Are they serious?? Why was there no loading clock displaying something like "X hours left..."?

I thought there was a progress bar that showed how far along it was, but it's been a bit since I have done one that was so large.

It also depends on your computer hardware, the details of which are somewhat beyond my amateur expertise.

It is worthwhile considering the philosophical side of making opening reference databases (.ctg) in that more does not always equal better.

If you use the entire database, it will include lower level games, and in those games the result is even less dependent on the opening than higher-rated games, which will skew the results.

I myself use a big one, but I use the reference pane to screen the results further by rating and player to get a better feel for the "chess truth".

Okay, I've started the loading, went to sleep, and apparently when I woke up the loading was over. And all the games have been succesfully put in the Opening Tree. Well, almost all the games: the Mega Database has 5792434 games while there is only 5791571 games in my Opening Tree, so weirdly 0.01% of the games are missing.

So I did the exact same thing for the Correspondence Database which has 1 million games. Strangely it took only 60 seconds this time! (and there's also 0.01% of the games that are missing there too) This makes no sense...

Now I would like to create an Opening Tree with only games were both players had a rating between X and Y Elo.
And I don't want games were at least one of the players had no rating. And I think I heard somewhere that players who had no rating are given a rating by default (but I don't know what the default rating precisely is), so I want to exclude these.
So, how do I do that?
When I click on "Hard Disk" it opens a window where I can apparently search for games where both players were between X and Y Elo, but I don't know how to exclude games with at least one unrated player so...

Originally posted by Marc Benford
Okay, I've started the loading, went to sleep, and apparently when I woke up the loading was over. And all the games have been succesfully put in the Opening Tree. Well, almost all the games: the Mega Database has 5792434 games while there is only 5791571 games in my Opening Tree, so weirdly 0.01% of the games are missing.

So I did the exact same thi ...[text shortened]... etween X and Y Elo, but I don't know how to exclude games with at least one unrated player so...

Go to "filter list" after you open a database, and you will be able to do what you want.

Please note also that your opening tree database should not load identical games played by different players- there are many instances of GM draws where two players copied a line and agreed to a draw, but there is no value to having that same line in the opening book twice or more. That could account for the discrepancy.

Okay I succeded, but I think it still takes into account games where at least one player was unrated..

I just have three last questions:

1. Is there a way to put a column which displays "Perf" minus "Av"? Because it takes a lot of time to use a calculator each time to calculate this for every move...

2. Is there a way to put a column which displays the percent of time each move is played?
Example: For the starting position, I would like to have a column that displays for each first move something like that: 1.e4: 51.3% ; 1.d4: 31.7% ; 1.Nf3: 7.7% ; 1.c4: 6.7%

3. Is there a way not to display transpositions?
Example: After 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 Bf5 5. Nc3 dxc4 my opening tree displays that the weird 6.a4 is then played 10312 times while the obvious 6.Bxc4 is only played 288 times. It's probably because it's a transposition to the Slav Accepted (1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. a4 Bf5 6. e3) So the statistics are completely false...

Originally posted by Marc Benford



So the statistics are completely false...

I'm sorry, but when I read this I realized you haved embedded suppositions about things that go beyond the program, and I won't be of any help with those.

I recommend going to chessbase.com and also to sites such as chesscafe.com, where there are a large number of tutorials which are very helpful- it's what I used to learn the program, so you can go straight to the source. Good luck.