Position Search Function.

Originally posted by !~TONY~!
A little wrong are we? What the hell difference is there if I searched for a response to 1. e4 as opposed to the endgame that resulted in Kasparov-Karpov? Nothing. When you look up the variations on move 3 after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6. 3.? , are you searching for what GM's and theoreticians regard as the BEST MOVE. I consider looking for what RHPers sought as ...[text shortened]... GM's did. I don't really know what your problem is. I am glad someone agrees with me though.

Can you try to keep this civil, please.

Even though you didn't really answer my question, I'll take What the hell difference is there if I searched for a response to 1. e4 as opposed to the endgame that resulted in Kasparov-Karpov? Nothing. to be saying that you concur with what I said, ie: You want to lay out the pieces (for say the position after move 30) on a search board, and you want all games which had that exact position to be returned?

Ok, I know databases are allowed in CC. I'm not sure if you know this, but there are more possible games of chess than there are grains of sand on every beach in the world. IE: A LOT!!! Now, you want to search through every beach in the world to find the maybe 10 grains of sand that would match up with your grain of sand. Are you going to be able to do this by yourself? Or are you going to need a program to find this chess needle in a haystack?

There is a big difference between looking for a good response to the position after 1. e4 and the position after 30. Nf3. Opening books are an area of study in chess due to the relatively few possibilities. Exact move 30 positions are not (unless of course you are in the endgame, which is also an area of study due to fewer options).

After writing all that, I read about Chessbase which Tovmauser mentions. I didn't realise you could already do positional searches. I still think its wrong though. When were the rules for correspondence chess written? I'm sure it was b4 you could buy software to search hundreds of thousands of games in seconds. Luckily, due to the large number of possible chess games, this feature is pretty useless after move 10-12 anyway.

D

rhp database is simply a bad idea. it would result in multiple occurences of the same game. however, since databases are already out there that far outnumber the amount of games that could be in an rhp database, it would matter not. databases are allowed, and this would just force people to think out their own moves and not rely on databases to play.

Originally posted by Zumdahl
rhp database is simply a bad idea. it would result in multiple occurences of the same game. however, since databases are already out there that far outnumber the amount of games that could be in an rhp database, it would matter not. databases are allowed, and this would just force people to think out their own moves and not rely on databases to play.

It doesn't really matter if there are multiple occurences of the same game. I am sure most will only use it for openings, and since statistics for white/black results don't really need to be included, it doesn't really matter. And you're right, there are other databases out there, I just thought that it would vastly improve the site and make it much more interesting if noone had to use those sites.

Originally posted by Ragnorak
Can you try to keep this civil, please.

Even though you didn't really answer my question, I'll take What the hell difference is there if I searched for a response to 1. e4 as opposed to the endgame that resulted in Kasparov-Karpov? Nothing. to be saying that you concur with what I said, ie: [i]You want to lay out the pieces (for say the positi ...[text shortened]... er of possible chess games, this feature is pretty useless after move 10-12 anyway.

D

You provoked me first off. Second, don't you think they would have changed the rules after all of this time to take into account the fact that databases could be used if it was a problem? That's why correspondence is so great. You have the time to look up moves, see how it should be played, and do it yourself. It helps my game immensely. I can play whatever opening I want because I know I can consult opening books, unlike in tournies. I think it's the best learning tool possible, you just neglect to see that!

I don't see how this would lead to multiple occurrences of the same game, I suppose nobody wants to follow a lost game to the bitter end even if the loser was Kramnik or Ironman31. So, sooner or later at least one of the players wants to deviate. (Ok, there are drawn games, but also then at least other player probably wants to win and thus deviates from drawn database games. And if both are happy with a draw, they might as well agree draw on move 1)

My view on this is that part of the idea of following a previous game is to have an improvement in mind. But you have to bear in mind the amount of calculation needed to sift through a database and compare the posistions. In your own database it isn't a problem, but for the site as a whole you could be looking at several hundred database requests at once. If they did it they might need to put our subscriptions up by a factor of 10. I suspect that the databases will stay private.
What would be useful though is a way of searching your own games by opening, I've only completed 14 so it is not really an issue forme yet, but in a few months when that's up into the hundreds it'll be handy to be able to answer the two questions 'have I seen this before?' and the follow up 'did something go wrong?' :-)

Originally posted by DeepThought
My view on this is that part of the idea of following a previous game is to have an improvement in mind. But you have to bear in mind the amount of calculation needed to sift through a database and compare the posistions. In your own database it isn't a problem, but for the site as a whole you could be looking at several hundred database requests at once.

Perhaps a downloadable PGN file of all finished games on an FTP site somewhere would be better. That way people could import the games into their own private database and not degrade the performance of RHP.