Chess Database

On 17 - 18th July, 2009 I went to Johor Bahru and Singapore to attend my friend's wedding ceremony. At Johor Bahru, I went to a shopping complex and found a shop which sold various types of CD, VCD, and DVD. I had a look for its products and found two (2) PC DVD ROM for Chess as follows:

i. Chessbase Mega Database 2009

This DVD contains more than 4,000,000 games from 1560 to 2008 in the highest ChessBase quality standard. 62,000 games contain commentary from top players, and all games are grouped in ChessBase opening classification key, containing more than 100,000 key positions. Ohter keys give direct access to players, tournaments, middlegame themes, and endgames. Here you get the largest top class annotated database in the world, with games up to date through the middle of November 2008.

Mega 2009 also features a new editon of the player-base. As usual, this is where most of the work was done. As the player index now contains already more than 220,000 entries, it made sense to use an adapted playerbase which includes about 248,000 names. Doing this, the photo database was extended as well to currently contain 31,000 pictures.

ii. ChessBase 10

New in ChessBase 10.0. New integrated online database with millions of games, kept topical and up-to-date by ChessBase; split-second online search results (DSL); automatic update of your local reference database (Big or Mega) with the weekly instalments of games; display of games in all searches; openings references include an overview of common variations; new search booster for super-fast results; opening books with instantaneous display of replies; fast-and-easy preparation for any specific players. with tree display and games; player dossier with improved openings references; direct access to the ICCF server for correspondence chess games; new engine functions, e.g. online database accessible for kibitzers, ECO codes in the games lists, tactics training, full Chess 960 support. In addition: new look with high-resolution pieces, improved window management.