ChessBase 11: Statistics in the Player Key

Previously we discovered how to use a ChessBase 11 database’s Player Key to ensure that we’re finding only the games of a particular player (without accidentally getting extra unwanted games by players who have a similar name). But there are other useful functions available in the ChessBase 11 Player Key as well.

Using ChessBase 11 Player Keys

If you’ve been a user of electronic chess databases for more than a decade I don’t need to tell you of the huge proliferation of chess data which has occurred during that time. When I got my start with ChessBase (back in 1992), a huge “master” database contained less than a quarter-million games. Today’s Mega Database 2011 contains nearly five million games.

Graphic statistic displays in ChessBase 11

You’ll recall that in the last blog post we were performing ChessBase 11 searches for Magnus Carlsen’s games, then looking at his results as White and Black as separate pie charts. This time around we’re going to look at other statistical displays available in the ChessBase software.

ChessBase 11 Player Statistics – Magnus Carlsen

The ChessBase 11 chess database program makes it easy for users to pull up game statistics on their favorite players in just seconds. We’ll demonstrate this today by searching for Magnus Carlsen’s games and generating some statistical displays.

Fixing ChessBase and Fritz database errors – Conclusion

In the last few posts we’ve looked at ways to try to correct database errors caused by corrupted data in both ChessBase 11 and Fritz 12. None of these corrective measures are guaranteed to be effective in 100% of cases, though; sometimes a database is so badly damaged that it just can’t be fixed.

Consequently the most effective measure in combating data corruption and damage is

Fixing ChessBase and Fritz database errors – Part Three

We’ve considered some fairly minor mishaps involving ChessBase & Fritz databases in the past couple of blog posts. Today we’re going to look at the type of database error which no chess database user ever wants to see: the major catastrophe caused by a seriously damaged database file.

Another Wednesday, another ChessBase “how to” video

Yesterday was Wednesday and you know what that means: we’ve posted another ChessBase “how to” video on our YouTube chess video channel. This week’s topic is

Fixing ChessBase and Fritz database errors – Part Two

In the last blog post we talked about data loss and data corruption, two problems that can (and do) happen eventually to nearly everyone who uses a computer. With ChessBase and Fritz, the best remedy for the problem is to remember to always back up your work; when problems arise, you can simply replace the corrupted database with an uncorrupted backup.

Fixing ChessBase and Fritz database errors – Part One

The availability and portability of digital data are wonderful aspects of modern life. In my work as a historian I carry literally a complete library around with me on my laptop: scores of period books, newspapers, maps, and military manuals from the nineteenth century. I do much the same thing in my chess work (both technical and historical); both of the 2011 editions of ChessBase’s master database (the unannotated Big Database and the annotated Mega Database) contain more than four million games from throughout chess history. Assuming that a typical print volume of chess games (such as Chess Informant) contains about a thousand games, that’s the equivalent of more than 4,000 printed books – quite literally a complete chess library on a single DVD. All of that data is fully searchable and that search requires just the tiniest fraction of the time it would take to find the same information stored in endless bookshelves of a paper format.

New ChessBase “how to” video today on USCFSales’ YouTube channel

A new ChessBase “how to” video has been uploaded today to USCF Sales’ YouTube channel.

Globally editing player names using ChessBase 11

I was recently reading an old science fiction novel in which everyone in the galaxy spoke a single “universal” language. It’s a neat concept, but when I thought of present-day Earth, I had to laugh: not only do we not speak the same “universal” language, there isn’t even a “universal” alphabet. Quite a few languages utilize their own specific set of alphabetical characters; for example, there’s Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Greek, and Cyrillic. Some languages utilize characters which are primarily identical to those of the English alphabet with a few exceptions (French is an example) or which make extensive use of accenting and diacritical marks (such as Spanish).