In practice, databases are used for two purposes. First, for a player to train his/her ability at specific openings. Second, to look up specific opponents to see what they play, and prepare against them beforehand.
The existence of chess databases is one way that young players can achieve mastery at an early age.
ChessBase is the biggest database, and widely used by masters. Although it can be used online, most users download the software and data onto their laptop. Then they take the laptop to tournaments, to help prepare for games. Players may not use computers or any other aid during games, but much preparation goes on behind the scenes. ChessBase has to be purchased, and it is not cheap.
This is a Dutch magazine for advanced players, which runs an on-line database called NicBase as part of its services. NicBase is free, and has over a million games.
Chessgames.com runs an on-line database of games. It is partly free, but requires registration. Full access to all its facilities is by a fairly modest subscription. It has over half a million games on its database.
There are websites which a player can join (for a fee) and play on line. In this case, the subscriber will play against other subscribers, not a computer. All standards of players are amongst the members, and various events are on offer at different rates of play. The two leaders in this market are:
Julio César Romero
Julio César Romero (born 28 August 1960) is a former Paraguayan football player. He has played for Paraguay national team.
99||34
78||19
7||1
13||2
197||57
!Total||34||13
Lee Jong-Min
Lee Jong-Min (born 21 May 1987) is a South Korean professional athlete. He is best known as an association football player.
|| || || || ||
Sin Byung-Ho
Sin Byung-Ho (born 26 April 1975) is a South Korean professional athlete. He is best known as an association football player. He was a member of the Korean national team.
28||11||3||2||0||0||31||13
114||30||9||5||36||5||159||40
142||41||12||7||36||5||190||53
!Total||2||0
Fernando Almeida de Oliveira
Fernando Almeida de Oliveira (born 18 June 1978) is a Brazilian football player.
77||12||||||||||||||77||12
102||19||9||1||16||5||3||2||130||27
179||31||9||1||16||5||3||2||207||39
Derlis Florentín
Derlis Florentín (9 January 1984 - 28 March 2010) was a former Paraguayan football player.
36||9||0||0||36||9
36||9||0||0||36||9
An Sun-Jin
An Sun-Jin (born 19 September 1975) is a South Korean professional athlete. He is best known as an association football player.
Joseph-Désiré Job
Joseph-Désiré Job (born 1 December 1977) is a Cameroonian football player. He plays for Lierse and Cameroon national team.
115||26
93||17
28||9
23||7
8||0
0||0
267||59
!Total||49||7
Terry Venables
Terry Venables (born 6 January 1943) is a former English football player. He has played for England national team.
508||50
508||50
!Total||2||0
Shingo Hyodo
Shingo Hyodo (born 29 July 1985) is a Japanese football player. He plays for Yokohama F. Marinos.
58||3||6||1||17||1||81||5
58||3||6||1||17||1||81||5
Takayuki Nishigaya
Takayuki Nishigaya (born 12 May 1973) is a former Japanese football player.
100||0||21||1||5||1||126||2
100||0||21||1||5||1||126||2
Chess notation
Chess notation is a method for writing down chess moves: after a player makes a move, both players write it down. This is compulsory in all organized chess events
The system must have these elements: the move number, the piece moved, the square it starts from (optional), the square it goes to, and other relevant information such as captures, and castles.<ref name="H/W">Hooper D. and Whyld K. 1992. "The Oxford companion to chess". 2nd ed, Oxford University Press.</ref> There are other notations for recording positions.
There have been ways of describing moves from quite early on. Manuscripts with move descriptions are known in Arabic (9th century) and from Europe (13th century). These early notations are usually quite cumbersome; "The pawn of the king forward two houses". This kind of notation is called "descriptive". In a descriptive notation each player describes squares from his own point of view, e.g. 1 P–K4 P–K4. A notation which uses labels for the ranks and files is called "algebraic". In this notation a square has only one label, e.g. 1 e4 e5.
The moves of a chess game are written down by using a special notation. Usually algebraic chess notation is used. In algebraic notation, each square has one and only one name (whether you are looking from White's side of the board or Black's). Here, moves are written in the format of: abbreviation of the piece moved – file where it moved – rank where it moved. For example, Qg5 means "queen moves to the g-file and 5th rank" (that is, to the square g5). If there are two pieces of the same type that can move to the same square, one more letter or number is added to show the file or rank from which the piece moved, e.g. Ngf3 means "knight from the g-file moves to the square f3". The letter P showing a pawn is not used, so that e4 means "pawn moves to the square "e4"".
If the piece makes a capture, "x" is written before the square in which the capturing piece lands on. Example: "Bxf3" means "bishop captures on f3". When a pawn makes a capture, the file from which the Pawn left is used in place of a piece initial. For example: exd5 means "pawn captures on d5."
If a pawn moves to its eighth rank, getting a promotion, the piece chosen is written after the move, for example e1Q or e1=Q. Castling is written by the special notations 0–0 for kingside castling and 0–0–0 for queenside. A move which places the opponent's king in check normally has the notation "+" added. Checkmate can be written as # or ++. At the end of the game, 1–0 means "White won", 0–1 means "Black won" and ½-½ is a draw.
Chess moves can also be shown with punctuation marks and other annotation symbols. For example: ! means a good move, !! means a very good move, ? means a bad move, ?? a very bad move (sometimes called a "blunder"), !? a creative move that may be good, and ?! a doubtful move. For example, one kind of a simple "trap" known as the Scholar's mate, as in the diagram to the right, may be recorded in full notation:
1. e2-e4 e7-e5<br>
2. Qd1-h5?! Nb8-c6<br>
3. Bf1-c4 Ng8-f6?? (3...Qe7 is better)<br>
4. Qh5xf7# 1–0
Here is a famous short game in the more usual short notation:
This is algebraic notation with little figurines instead of initial letters for the pieces. Figurine notation is used in print and computer chess. Since it avoids initial letters for pieces, it is more international.
In addition to the Forsyth notation, positions may be recorded in this simple fashion:
Akiba Rubinstein
Akiba Rubinstein (Stawiski, Poland, 12 December 1882 – 15 March 1961, Antwerp, Belgium) was a Polish chess Grandmaster in the first part of the 20th century. Around 1910 he was one of the three best players in the world.
Rubinstein was Jewish, and his family planned for him to become a rabbi. However, he did not finish his studies, and chose to devote himself to chess entirely. The decision came in 1903 after he won fifth place at a tournament in Kiev. He learned to play chess when he was 16,<ref name="H/W">Hooper D. and Whyld K. 1992. "The Oxford Companion to Chess". Oxford.</ref> and played with the strong master Gersz Salwe in Łódź.
Rubinstein's best period was from 1907 to 1912. It began with his win at Karlovy Vary in 1907, and a shared win at St. Petersburg in the same year. It closed in a string of wins in 1912. He won five consecutive major tournaments that year: San Sebastian, Piešťany, Breslau (the German championship), Warsaw and Vilnius (although none of these events included Lasker or Capablanca). Some believe that he was better than World Champion Emanuel Lasker at this time. Ratings from "Chessmetrics" support this conclusion, placing him as world #1 between mid 1912 and mid 1914. Others believe he was not quite so strong as Lasker, and was eclipsed by José Raúl Capablanca after 1911.