It's tiring how often this subject comes up, and it's usually from a lower rated player that acts like they're doing something noble by not using them.
1) It's allowed, as cmsMaster pointed out.
2) It does help with your OTB play. It's a good way to explore lines in actual games that you'd otherwise be unable to do OTB.
It's a tool, and you can use it to improve or you can keep making the same mistakes.
Originally posted by Chesswick It's tiring how often this subject comes up, and it's usually from a lower rated player that acts like they're doing something noble by not using them.
1) It's allowed, as cmsMaster pointed out.
2) It does help with your OTB play. It's a good way to explore lines in actual games that you'd otherwise be unable to do OTB.
It's a tool, and you can use it to improve or you can keep making the same mistakes.
Thank God...
Thank you, Chesswick, that's what I should have said from the start!
It's perfectly fine to use databases and books, both ethically and technically (according to the TOS). If you're a top player, they're critical. The lower your rating the less effective they become. At my rating, they give me a *slightly* better edge than if I didn't use them at all, so why do I bother at all? Because they help me learn. What better time is there to learn an opening than when you are playing it in correspondence? Since I started playing correspondence chess my knowledge that could be used in OTB thanks to databases and books -- mostly the latter -- has vastly improved. Of course, it means you must understand the moves rather than just blindly playing them.
By the way, you might want to check out http://www.redhotpawn.com/gamesexplorer if you don't know about it already.
Originally posted by likeforest why bother playing a game if you dont even think about the moves? this makes very little sense to me.
You make a good point that one should think about his or her moves. However, this is not an argument against databases, at least not against the way strong players use them. I use them in less than half of my games, and I generally work much harder in the games where I use them.
It is fairly easy to knock out the first 5-15 moves (depending on the opening) without a thought. But, to use databases and correspondence chess to find good positions in unfamiliar lines takes a lot of work. That extra time and hard work is a major part of the appeal of RHP, and CC generally.
Originally posted by Chesswick ...
2) It does help with your OTB play. It's a good way to explore lines in actual games that you'd otherwise be unable to do OTB.
It's a tool, and you can use it to improve or you can keep making the same mistakes.
I get your point... I have chessbase 9 and fritz 10. Which is a better database?
Originally posted by cmsMaster Make sure you know how to use all of the CB options, for example, I know it can give full readout reviews of (any?) opening.
RHP's Games Explorer and chessgames.com are the only db's I use on occasion.
At my rating level I usually depend on opening theory for the first few moves, but many times in the past I got opponents who sprang traps on me in the first few moves and I, being an uninformed noob, fell for them.
Thanks to db's I've learned not only how to spot these traps but how get them to backfire on their users 🙂
I am on this site for one reason and one reason alone. To improve my opening play. I do that by using books whenever I can. I will shortly be using a database also but I find books better as they tend to explain the ideas behind the opening in a way a database cannot. As time goes by my knowledge improves and I can play ever deeper into an opening without refering to the book thus my knowledge is transferred to OTB play.
This improvement in opening play translates to an improvement of about 100 rating points on my OTB play although I would expect my OTB rating to follow it up 6 months or so down the line.
11 Feb '07 04:29
Using opening database or book during rated pla...
Back to Top