ChessBase GmbH is a German company that markets chess software, maintains a chess news site, and operates a server for online chess. Set up in 1998, it maintains and sells massive databases, containing most historic games, that permit analysis that had not been possible prior to computing.[1][2] Databases organise data from prior games; engines show possibilities in new ones (and errors in human play), permitting, for example, definitive answers to certain endgame problems.[3][4]
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The company is located in Hamburg, Germany. ChessBaseUSA markets their products in the United States, and some products are released in partnership with Viva Media (USA).
The company hosts an extensive online database. As of 28 August 2010[update], this contained 5.2 million games.[5] This online database can be accessed directly through their database programs.
It used to be possible to utilise the functionality of this database from Chessbase's Pocket Fritz 2,[6] which runs on PDAs, but some of this functionality was reduced in early 2006. ChessBase is also the name of a popular commercial database program produced by the company for storing and searching records of games of chess which runs under Microsoft Windows. ChessBase uses a proprietary format for storing games, but can also handle games in portable game notation (PGN). The proprietary format uses less hard drive space and manages information that is not possible in PGN. The software converts files from PGN to ChessBase format, or from ChessBase to PGN.
The program permits searches for games, and positions in games, based on player names, openings, some tactical and strategic motifs, material imbalance, and features of the position. The ChessBase database software integrates chess analysis engines, such as Fritz, Junior, Shredder (all Chessbase products), and several non-commercial engines, including Crafty written by Professor Robert Hyatt, Comet, and Anaconda.
The current version of the ChessBase program is ChessBase 11, which was released in 2010. ChessBase also has a free version called ChessBase Light 2009.[7] The free version is a pared down version of ChessBase 9 that has a limit of 32,000 games per database. Chessbase Light includes Fritz 6 for analysis.
The ChessBase company produces or markets the Fritz family of chess engines (Rybka, Shredder, Junior, Chess Tiger, NIMZO, and Zap!Chess) along with their integrated graphic user interfaces (standard across the family). Some of these are sold (apart from ChessBase) in versions designed for Mac OS X. (See, for example, Rybka site.) Evgeny Bareev said, "I find the ideas? No. Fritz finds the ideas."[8]
Chessbase also maintains ChessBase News, a web site containing chess news, as well as information on their products. The site is available in English, German and Spanish.[9]
ChessBase produces many CDs and DVDs, including monographs on famous players, tactical training exercises, and training for specific opening systems. They publish ChessBase Magazine six times per year, which comes as a thin printed text and accompanying CD with multimedia chess news, as well as how to donate to ChessBase, articles on opening novelties, database updates (including annotated games), and other articles. All these are designed for viewing within their database software, but many have a more up-to-date version of ChessBase Light than the free version available from their web-page.