Features of ChessBase 17 + Mega Database 2023

Shortcuts which will be generally helpful

1. Open a board and press S - will open setup position dialogue box
2. Ctrl+f will flip the board

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1. Creating a Database

• On the home screen of ChessBase go to new database and save it in the location where you want to create a new database
• You can create a cbh database and you can also create PGN database. But the ChessBase 17 comes with a new format as well - 2cbh.
• If you create 2cbh database, you get more features, and it creates lesser files than the earlier cbh format.
• If you create pgn files, you get limited features, but it can open on several different chess programs.
• If you want to mail a cbh database then you need to press ctrl+z and pack the database in order to email it.

2. Annotating and Saving a Game

• To write annotations (text): after the move Press Ctrl + A
• Annotations Before the move: Ctrl + Shift + A
• To give evaluations: press =
• To give symbols press: Shift+1
• To save a game press ctrl+S. Once the game is saved, ctrl+S will replace. In order to save as new, go to file and then click save as.
• To make a null move press ctrl+alt+0
• Alt + left click: green | Alt + right click: dark blue
• Ctrl+alt + left click: yellow | Ctrl + Alt + Right click = Orange
• Shift + alt + Left click: Red | Shift + alt + Right click = Light Blue

3. Reference and Live Database

• Go to mega database symbol on the main screen and right click – properties and make it reference database
• Open a chess board and click on reference
• In order to activate the live database, you need to open a board and press enter
• The difference in the game count between Mega Database and Live database is the correspondence games. Live database also includes some of the correspondence games.
• When you click enter and load live database and then you click on a game. If you would like to go back to your original board, you just have to find the “Restore Game” Button.

4. Mega Database 2023 – 9.8 million games

• It is world’s biggest high quality games database
• You can check games from 1400 AD to last week in it
• You can prepare against an opponent using Mega Database
• You can check out annotated games – more than 110,000 of them
• You get weekly updates for a year
• If you buy Mega Database 2023, then you get Mega 2024 at 2/5 the cost. If you had bought Mega 2022, you can buy Mega 2023 at ⅖ the cost.

5. How to search games of players

• Open Mega Database
• You go to Players tab
• Write the name of the player
• You can right click on the name and prepare against white or black
• If you want to get all the information about a player in one place, you right click on his name and create a dossier

6. How to prepare against an opponent

• Go to players tab in Mega Database 2023
• Type the name
• Right click and click prepare against white or black

7. How to create an opening report

• Open a new board
• Enter the moves
• Click on Report on the top ribbon
• Click on opening report
• And let the magic happen!

Surveys feature

• Opening new board
• Go to Surveys tab (next to replay training)
• Choose the depth at which you want the survey (Easy, Club, Tournament, Master)
• Choose the type of survey that you want (positional, Fashionable, Attacking)
• Choose the colour
• And let the magic happen!

8. Similar Endgames

• Open a board, set up the position of the endgame.
• Click on report
• Press similar endgames - you get all the similar endgames with the same material balance. This is very useful when you are trying to study some kind of an endgame. Let’s say you want to learn the Lucena position in rook endgames. You can set up a Lucena position and then click on similar endgames, which will give you more material to study.

9. Similar Structures

• Open a board, setup a position
• Click on report
• Similar structures and you will get all the games with similar structures.
• Let’s say you put in the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 d5 3.Bxf6 gxf6 and then click on similar structures, you will get similar structures that have arisen but they could also arise from different openings.
• One more thing you can do is just put the pawns and then click on similar structures. For eg. if you want to study 4+2 vs 3+3 structure, put the pawns and click similar structures.

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Interactive Position input (NEW!)

• Open a board
• Press S for setup position
• Now just put a few of the pieces on the board that you want
• As you put the pieces, you will see that the right column is updated real time with the full game.
• This is useful when you are studying a book and a diagram comes up and you want to analyze or save it on ChessBase. You will not need to put in all the pieces.

Similar Tactics and Pattern

• Enter moves on the board and go to an opening which you would like to study tactics in
• Go to Analysis tab
• Go to similar tactics
• And let it search

For similar patterns, you can put in a position and then go to analysis tab and click on similar patterns. It will look at a specific part of the position and then find similar positions with attackers and defenders at that specific point.

10. Mega Database 2023 filters

• Ctrl + f loads the filters
• Go to different tabs and use them
• The most important thing is to play around with the tabs on Mega Database filters
• My favourite tab is manoeuvres!
• The latest addition here is the new search filter which we will look at in the next slide.

Interactive search Mask (NEW!)

• Single click on Mega Database 2023. You can also open it. And then press Ctrl+F. It will open up a new dialog box.
• This box is for quick searches. Like names, year, openings, material, event, strength. You can also combine more than one parameter.
• If you want to use the good old filter, then click on advanced.

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11. Replay Training

• Open a game from Mega Database
• Click on replay training next to the Reference button
• Choose a side
• And guess the move and get points
• This is very useful when you want to study the games of some great masters of the past.

12. Cloud Databases

• Go to Cloud tab
• Click on new database
• For Database sharing right click on the database and click database sharing
• Enter the ChessBase Account name of your friend or practice partner to share the database

13. Using an Engine and Cloud Engines

• Ctrl+k loads an engine
• Choose your favourite engines
• To add an engine – go to home – click on create uci engine
• Cloud engines is renting a powerful machine on your computer from all across the world by paying a small fee via ducats

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14. Let’s Check

• This is a sharing feature where you get to know the evaluation of a position at a greater depth without having to wait, if someone else has already analyzed that position by keeping the Let’s Check feature on.
• The way to switch on the Let’s Check feature is to open a board, go to Analysis and click on Let’s Check.
• Note, the default engine will open when Let’s Check feature is clicked.
• If the Let’s Check feature is on, then whenever you open any engine, the let’s check pane will also automatically open below it.

15. Tactical Analysis and Deep analysis

• Open a database
• Right click on the game
• Click on Tactical analysis
• Give a time as per the depth of analysis you want.
• Deep analysis and analysis job are deeper analysis

16. Assisted analysis and Instant analysis

• Open a board
• Go to analysis
• Tick on assisted analysis
• Instant analysis is a graph that is given at the bottom right of your screen.
• For assisted analysis, this video can be useful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqenbfrz5Is

17. Three months of ChessBase Premium Account

• Free three months ChessBase Premium Account with ChessBase 17!
• To understand the features of ChessBase Account:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O5TpjQwzsA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WQT0vlrWWM

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18. Generate repertoire

• Click on report on the main screen and click on generate repertoire
• Navigate to your games database
• It will generate repertoire for white and black
• Open a database with cbh format and then click on report white
• It will give you all the games that are related to your openings

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New features in ChessBase 16

• Novelties feature
• The survey function
• Novelty Mining
• Ray Tracing
• Playchess Chat

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Novelties Feature (New!)

• Click on Live button on the left on the ChessBase main screen
• You will find games of the most recent tournaments
• You will also find games with opening novelties
• You will find tactics from recent games

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Novelty Mining (New!)

• Open a board, go to Livebook
• Click on Novelty Mining to find new ideas in well known positions

Ray Tracing (New!)

• High quality 3D boards

Playchess Chat (New!)

• New features on Playchess chat which can be accessed only via ChessBase 16

New features in ChessBase 17

• Apply text analysis and variants with a click
• Speak text annotations
• Automatically paste PGN and FEN
• Display percentage
• Evaluation History in the Search
• New Dialog for text input
• Menu Bands
• Annotation with colors and arrows
• Detect Sacrifices
• Optimized Interface
• Moves at the end of a game notation
• Save games as analysis.

• Beauty Medals
• New data format 2cbh
• Advanced Engine Analysis
• Buddy Engine
• Visual Evaluation
• Analysis with Comments
• Interactive Position Input
• Engine variant with language
• Display attack relations
• Classification scheme beauty
• Interactive search mask
• Style specifications

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