ChessBase Reviews

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CDs, DVDs, Software Part 36

Mega Database 2009 By ChessBase

Some players think this is an expensive DVD but it represents great value for your money. You don’t get the errors I have seen in some other databases and the games are already organised for you so you can find what you want easily. You will now also get automatic updates over the internet so your database will remain up to date throughout 2009.

The exclusive annotated database contains more than 4 million games from 1560 to 2008 in the highest ChessBase quality standard. 62,000 games contain commentary from top players, with ChessBase opening classification with more than 100,000 key positions, direct access to players, tournaments, middlegame themes, endgames. The largest top class annotated database in the world. The most recent games of the database are from the middle of November 2008. Mega 2009 also features a new edition 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 player base which includes about 248,000 names. Doing this, the photo database was extended as well to contain 31,000 pictures now.

New: Online Mega-Update! With ChessBase 10 you can download games for Mega 2009 for the whole year, a total of approximately 200,000! That means your Mega 2009 will remain up to date from January to December.

System requirements: 1 GHz Pentium PC, Windows Vista/XP, 512 MB RAM, DVD-ROM drive, ChessBase 10, Internet. System requirements say that you need Chessbase 10 but the DVD has a reader program you can install and the database files are in the standard .cbh format so I don’t see any reason why anyone should have any problems accessing the data.

Corr Database 2009 By ChessBase

With this database and the one above our members should be able to locate all the games they need to research their moves against their opponents. This database is obviously dedicated to games played by correspondence so will feature many of the lines we favour. It also has the advantage that there is going to be a good chance that you will be able to see previous games played by your opponents, particularly if they are regular ICCF competitors.

Corr Database 2009 is an extensive collection of correspondence games, featuring classical correspondence games played by mail as well as email games. The CD contains 670,471 games from 1804 until 2008 including all games of the correspondence chess world championships 1-18, correspondence chess Olympics 1-15, correspondence chess european championships, national chamionships (AUS, CSR, DEN, GER, NED, USA) and memorials (1965 SUI jub75, 1991 FIN jub30, NED jub 25, NBC Millennium Email, ICCF 50th Jubilee Elite and ICCF 50th Jubilee World Champions). Corr 2009 also features a correspondence chess playerbase, which includes about 65,000 names. A must for every player of correspondence chess!

System requirements: Pentium PC, XP, 32 MB RAM, CD-ROM drive, ChessBase 10.0 or ChessBase 9.0, hard disk space requirements: 350 mb.

The ABC of the Leningrad Dutch By Andrew Martin

This is an ever popular opening in correspondence chess and should be studied by all players. You will have seen it pop up regularly over the years in our games column. I found this DVD both entertaining and educational, but then again I am a great fan of Andrew Martin’s teaching abilities.

The Leningrad System of the Dutch is characterized by an early fianchetto of Black’s King Bishop. Thanks to the uncompromising and controversial nature of Black´s first move, 1...f5, this will always lead to sharp and difficult play. On this ChessBase DVD, International Master Andrew Martin makes a compelling case for playing the Leningrad in competitive games and demonstrates that this is the ideal opening for players willing to embrace risk and who like to WIN. Bent Larsen once famously remarked that the Dutch Defence brings out "the chicken" in a lot of opponents. Time and again on this DVD we will see what he means. Maybe Petrosian rubbed his hands with glee at the thought of facing 1...f5, but for the average player the Dutch can be a nasty shock. Video running time: 4 h 10 min.

Endgame Fireworks By Alexei Shirov

On this DVD Alexei Shirov shows that also in the endgame, it is possible to keep struggling for the full point to the very last - if you are creative and ambitious. Because even in objectively quite balanced positions, you can frequently find ways to sharpen up or complicate the fight.

For the tournament player, often all that matters is to be able to pose practical problems which his or her opponent might finally fail to solve.

Thus Shirov sees himself rather as an endgame practitioner, putting down his successes in this phase of the game less to concrete knowledge about theoretical positions than to the understanding of general principles, good intuition and exact calculation of variations.

One main emphasis of the DVD is the endgame with rooks and different coloured bishops which Shirov finds particularly interesting, analysing five examples.

Another important feature is the very complex and difficult setting with four rooks (three examples), where he works out most helpful general principles.

All in all, Shirov examines 17 examples out of his own practice, among them his famous different coloured bishop ending versus Topalov which went around the whole world. Running time: 4,5 hours.

The seventeen endgame positions all taken from his own endgame experiences are handled well by Shirov and all will help develop our members' skills in finishing off their own games. Another DVD well worth spending your money on.

Powerplay 8 - Knights & Bishops By Daniel King

When we are starting out in chess we are told that knights and bishops both have a value of three points, but it is quite clear that in some positions a bishop is clearly superior to a knight - and vice versa. After watching this 8th Power Play DVD you’ll have a better idea of how to play positions with knights and bishops – what to look for, what to avoid, and how to place your pawns.

Throughout the DVD, specially selected positions will enable you to test your understanding of the subject. The Power Play series is suitable for anyone looking to improve their chess, but also provides ready-made lessons and exercises for a trainer.

"The PowerPlay DVD series by GM Daniel King is one of the most succesful chess instruction tools today." – New In Chess.