Chess Program Review Archive

I recently took a look at Chessbase's Opening Encyclopedia 2002. This electronic opening reference contains about 3300 theoretical articles, and a collection of about 1.2 million games, with it s accompanying statistical tree. The game collection on the CD is in CBH format.

People sometimes ask me what the difference is between this product and the Fritz Powerbook. The Powerbook is simply a collection of games, and a large tree that can be used for analysis purposes, or as an opening book in Fritz. The Openings Encyclopedia 2002 is meant as a sort of electronic ECO, and is for human use during game study.

The information on this CD can be used in a few ways. Fans of Chessbase products will get best results using either Chessbase 8 (CB 8) or Fritz 7. This is because previous versions cannot search through variations. And this feature is helpful for searching through the different opening surveys. The ability to have multiple databases open at a time is also nice to have, especially when looking through material of this type.

• Author - # Games
• Ftacnik - 863
• Schippel - 338
• Horvath - 282
• ChessBase - 213
• Bangiev - 179
• Konikowski - 170
• Jussupow - 169
• Glek/Golubev - 162
• Dautov - 135
• Ribli - 117
• Nunn - 113
• Stohl - 110
• Hansen - 56
• Hazai - 51
• Knaak - 45
• Zunke - 41
• Wedberg - 33
• Donev - 33
• Psakhis - 21
• Wahls - 18
• Costa - 12
• Anand - 10

The theoretical articles on this CD have been compiled over a number of years, from many sources. There are a variety of contributors to the surveys on the CD, and I have compiled a partial list of the most prolific ones, so that you can get an idea of the contents (see table on right)

It should be noted that while Chessbase regulars have done many of the theoretical articles, you still have examples where players that are experts in a particular opening are also the ones that do the surveys (for example, Ribli on the English, and Nunn on the Pirc). There are text notes in some of the theoretical articles, but the amount and quality varies as a function of the author of that particular survey. At times, the notes are in German, and at other times they are in English. Once again, what you get depends mostly on who is responsible for that survey.

The material is topical with many games from the 90 s, and a significant number from 2001. To my admittedly somewhat untrained eye, it appears as though there has been a fair amount of effort made to keep up with the latest developments in some of the more theoretical openings, like certain variations of the KID and Sicilian.

My verdict on this CD is that it makes a good adjunct for those that undertake serious game study, and that want some detailed theoretical analysis to consult. If you want more information on this product, I would also suggest that you take a look at Steve Lopez's review at the Chessbase t-notes page.

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