John C. Knudsen is famous on the Internet for his excellent website The Correspondence Chess Place devoted to correspondence chess. Recently he has focused his attention on the production of high quality CD-ROMs for his fellow chess enthusiasts. He has been collecting correspondence chess games for a long time, making some of them available for downloading from his website. But now he has gone a giant step beyond this by creating a huge collection of cc games and packaging them on a CD-ROM. He advertises it as a collection of over 235,000 games, quite remarkable considering the minimal number of cc games available on most large commercial databases. In fact, the game count on my CD-ROM was 237,730. In addition, Knudsen promises future free games to add to this collection by downloading via the Internet. Since the CD-ROM was released he has made one of these additions available, so he's serious about his promised support. [Added note: as of 12/25/98 Knudsen has provided two updates downloadable via the Internet to Big CC Disk owners ... these two updates have provided over 13,000 additional cc games to this collection.]

The CD contains databases in three different formats to suit a variety of different users. Two versions are for the popular ChessBase database program, with both the old CBF format and the new CBH format provided. The third is the widely used PGN format supported by a growing number of database programs. You'll need either a version of ChessBase (or a database program that will read ChessBase format) or a PGN reader to use this database.

When my copy first arrived I took a quick look by accessing the database directly from the CD-ROM. When I was ready to make more serious use of it I copied the files to my hard drive. Not only is accessing much faster from the HD, but you can update the files as well. You may choose to annotate some games or add additional games. After you copy the files to your HD be sure to adjust the attributes to get rid of any settings such as "Read Only" or "Archive." In my old Windows 3.11 I go to my File Manager, copy the files to the HD, select the copied files and go to the "File" menu. Click on "Properties" and you'll see the flags set for these files under the label "Attributes." Just click on the X's to turn them off and you're ready to use your new database. This should be done with any database you copy from a CD-ROM or you'll have problems. The database will take about 25 megs of HD space for the CBF version (the one I used to write this review).

Repeating the approach taken by many reviewers, first I searched for my games. Searching large databases for "Campbell" can be frustrating, since mine is a common name. I found 147 games played by Campbell. This database suffers from a problem common with most databases I've seen. The original game files used to create it has various forms for names. Going by my middle name doesn't help, either. I found my games various labeled:

• Campbell
• Campbell,J
• Campbell,JF
• Campbell,JFranklin
• Campbell,Frank

Of course, many of the plain "Campbell" entries weren't my games. In a few cases the different forms of name made it impossible to completely eliminate doubles, though I know John Knudsen put a lot of effort into this task. Out of the approximately 40 games of mine that I found there were a few duplicates where the form of my name was different, the tournament designation was different and in some cases the year played was different. I don't see how this can be avoided in a really large collection of games such as this. Modifying names to be uniform would not only be difficult but impossible in the case of "Campbell" (who can tell which "Campbell" this refers to?). The games I checked appeared to be accurate, unlike the handful of games of mine I've found on other huge databases. Here's a little hint for CB users. Sort the games after the search to make duplicates and name variants easier to identify. In my old ChessBase for Windows I often sort by result (which also sorts by number of moves). Duplicates then usually stand out.

I also checked some other strong players. For Purdy I found 152 games, though a few were played by Warren instead of World Champion Cecil. Alex Dunne had 145 games and the elusive but very strong John Penquite was represented by 23 games. I decided to check out some U. S. Correspondence Chess Championship games. When I searched on "USCCC" I found 362 games, including all 105 games of the 1st USCCC Finals and all 105 games of the 7th USCCC Finals. There were many other USCCC games in the database identified with variants of the tournament name, so I wouldn't be surprised to find all the USCCC Finals games present. There were also many games from the preliminary rounds.

A database may be used to find the games played by specific players, something I seldom do. I normally use my databases to search for positions I reach in my cc games to see how these games progressed and to get ideas on the best and most effective plans used in the past. In some cases I believe the opening selections by strong cc players are quite different from OTB masters. After all, a cc competitor can thread his way through complicated positions which would terrify an OTB competitor. Sometimes you can grab the pawn, accept the sacrifice and face the terrific attack only to emerge from the complications with a won game. On the other hand, material sacrifices leading to intricate positions requiring extremely precise play to maintain your compensation are possible in cc. Openings leading to these positions could be common in cc praxis while strong OTB players never attempt such complex systems of play. More than once I've been led astray by my OTB databases. I'm extremely pleased to finally have a large cc database to work with in my search for important game positions. The only direct competition I can find is the ChessBase "Correspondence Chess" CD of 100,000 games which goes for US$99, which is beyond my budget at the moment. There is also the smaller collection of over 40,000 games on the "Correspondence Chess World" CD-ROM from Chess Mail. However, if you want a really big cc database, this appears to be the only choice.

In summary, if you are a serious cc competitor you'll want to have a copy of this important new resource. It is modestly priced at US$30 (including shipping). You'll be more successful locating games of potential cc oponents than with those other mega-databases and, as a cc competitor, you'll find this large collection of strictly correspondence chess games a joy. John Knudsen provides a description of this CD-ROM along with ordering information at: http://correspondencechess.com/ccdisk.htm . He even accepts credit cards. I strongly recommend this new product created specially for the cc enthusiast.

--- J. Franklin Campbell (December 1998)

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There are currently several large chess databases available containing approximately one million games. John Knudsen's Bestbase CD-ROM presents another such database, since it contains over 1,050,000 games. Bestbase may be unique in that it contains a large number of correspondence chess games. The games are provided in two formats, the old ChessBase CBF format and the new ChessBase CBH format. I believe this is a good choice for your giant database, particularly if you are a cc competitor. The game collection appears to be reasonably high quality and well organized by date.

Of course, any database with this number of games will contain games played by lesser players, since top GM's simply haven't played this number of games. Is it better to limit your database to a smaller, higher quality collection played only by the best players in the world or should you go for numbers? I think there is a place for both. Though I would prefer to follow the recommendations of the highest rated GM's I also find the play of lower rated players educational. In a collection of this size you'll find many moves not normally made by the GM's. Have you ever wondered what would happen if a certain move were made, but none of the games you have show this move? The move may be inferior but without examples from play you may have a hard time seeing why it is bad. "Master vs. Amateur" type games can be particularly educational as the master demonstrates why a plan in faulty or a move is inferior. Fans of many popular gambit openings may have trouble finding samples from GM play as well. How many BDG's involving Grandmasters have you seen? If you have a specific position you want to find samples of, having huge numbers of games will certainly increase your chances of finding some.

While examining this CD-ROM I was particularly impressed by the number of games from 1998. I counted almost 33,000 games, including many cc games. Only 8% of the games are dated earlier than 1960, so you have a good sample of older games but a heavy emphasis on modern play, half of them played since 1990. You'll find games played via ICCF, IECG, IECC and Compuserve along with other cc sources. I noted some Pelikan Memorial games, which involve some of the strongest cc competitors. Of course, you'll get all the major GM tournaments here as well.

I also performed the exercize of checking for my own games. I found 24 of them, all cc games (naturally). There was only one duplicate and I saw no problems with the game scores. Then I checked for games by the popular and active GM V. Anand. I found 101 games played by Anand during 1998. There wasn't a single duplicate game. I appreciate John Knudsen's efforts to eliminate duplicates. Another wonderful feature is the careful assignment of accurate ECO codes to every game, a most useful feature for anyone seeking information on a specific opening.

In summary, if you are looking for a giant database you can't go wrong by choosing Knudsen's Bestbase. It is modestly priced at US$ 40 (including shipping). This database is a nice mix of thorough Grandmaster coverage, wide-ranging coverage of other OTB events and extensive incorporation of correspondence chess games. John Knudsen provides a description of this CD-ROM along with ordering information at: http://correspondencechess.com/bestbase.htm . I recommend this product without hesitation to every chess competitior with a desire to have a giant chess database.

--- J. Franklin Campbell (December 1998)

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Chessmail editor Tim Harding was kind enough to send a copy of his new CD-ROM to CCLA for review, and Herb Hickman asked me to undertake the task. What a welcome assignment! My problem is that the CD contains so much of interest to correspondence players that it is difficult to do it justice in a single review.

The games files included on the CD include over 39,000 corr. games from the period 1804-1998, though the distribution of the games is heavily skewed towards the 90's. In addition, more than 11,000 games played on the Internet, and over 6,000 games played in IECC, all of these being recent games.

Harding has wisely provided the games in multiple formats for those PC users who do not own a chess database. Files are provided in "old" chessbase format, "new" chessbase format and PGN notation. "Old" chessbase refers to releases prior to 6.0, and "new" to releases 6.0 and 7.0. As Harding points out in a recent article in Chessmail, Chessbase has become the de facto standard PC chess database. However, for those who do not own CB software, the CD includes a PGN reader which allows one to play thru the games, with a on-screen board displayed, without the necessity of owning any software other than a web browser.

The CD also includes 12 complete issues of Chessmail magazine, which can be viewed using the Adobe Acrobat Reader. The free Acrobat reader is included on the CD. Also included is chess-related software, including a demo of the Chess Mentor tuition program, and PGN-based programs that may be used for organizing email correspondence play. Two full pages of instructions for using all the items on the CD are available for printing.

For those who care little about the extra included software, I can honestly say that the collection of correspondence games alone is worth the price (US $40) of the CD. I browsed the large databases and found: The 1st National Team Championship, all 50 boards; 102 Games of Walter Muir, over 100 early corr. games of Paul Keres, around 50 games by Curtis Carlson, a number of Soviet corr. Championships, around 70 of Harding's games, a large selection of games from the Baltic Area Team tournaments, and on and on. Frankly, there is more material here than I could digest in a lifetime, even if I limited myself to studying the games of a few top correspondence players.

One could say that the "drawback" of the CD is that it has a European slant in that there are relatively few "American" games. To me, this is a distinct advantage, since domestic correspondence games are far easier to obtain than the European games he provides. Although I own some large chess databases, the games on this CD duplicated rather few games I already had, and many are likely to be virtually unobtainable elsewhere.

In summary, if you would like a huge selection of top-class correspondence games, some annotated, you will not go wrong with Harding's offering. The CD may be ordered from: Chess Mail Limited, 26 Coolamber Park, Dublin 16, Ireland. For those with Internet access, credit card orders may be placed at: http://www.chessmail.com/cd_form.html

--- Roy E. DeVault (November 1998)

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