Since the late 1980s, Chessbase has been considered essential software for serious players. Using it, instead of books and magazines, took chess study and preparation to a whole new level. There have been alternatives, such as Chess Assistant and SCID vs PC, but they've never been considered quite as good.
Is Chessbase still so essential today? There are many players who would say that it is, but to my mind there are now some excellent alternative approaches. My favourite chess database is now HIARCS Chess Explorer Pro, which if used with its opening book and a good engine (for example a cloud engine from Chessify) is difficult to beat as far as working out opening lines is concerned. You don't need to include lots of games in your files, you just need to see what's been played and have a powerful engine running. This represents a fundament departure from the old method of studying openings, which was founded on copying the moves of strong players.
As far as preparation is concerned, Chessbase certain gives you access to a lot of games, though these tend to be the games of notable players. Here too there are alternatives such as Yotta Base and Opening Tree, the latter being particularly scary for anyone whose Lichess or Chess.com handles are known. Basically my advice would be to keep them private or have an alternative opening repertoire for your online games, you don't want people knowing exactly what you play, if this can possibly be avoided.
Training Tournaments
This week's training tournaments are in Queen's Pawn Games, the London System (1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.Bf4 c5) and Torre Attack (1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.Bg5 c5).
Sunday July 13th at 5pm UK Time: London System
Sunday July 13th at 6.15pm UK Time: Torre Attack
Video Discounts
This week's discount is on my Crafting Your Own Opening Repertoire series, you got 40% off its purchase (not rental) by using the code 'july11to19'. This series covers all aspects of creating an opening repertoire, from opening selection, to choosing sources and assembling your lines.
Last week's discount was for the Black Queen's Gambit Declined Repertoire, you got 40% off its purchase (not rental) by using the code 'july4to12'. Based around the Queen's Gambit Declined Tartakower Variation, and the Semi-Tarrasch, it represents a straightforward but high quality repertoire against 1.d4 and Flank Openings.
My Upcoming Events
There's still nothing new from last week and I have a new project that I'll start work on from September. I will keep playing, but it will move down my list of priorities for a while.
Here is how things look now:
July 31 - August 10 2025: British Championships
As mentioned I've gone for the Championship itself rather than one of the old folks sections. Obviously this will be full of underrated juniors, I'll just have to play better against them this time! You can find details here.
August 23 - 30 2025: San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Tenerife
This looks like a great event and I'm really looking forward to it. Travelling back is a bit tricky because the direct flights were very expensive, finally I found a flight back to Glasgow from where I can take a train!
September 5-7: Hull 4NCL Congress
I'm a big fan of 4NCL Congresses because they are played in nice venues, they're invariably well organized and they offer free entry and accommodation to GMs. You can find details here:
I'll be looking for things after September, not sure when or where!
Chess Questions Answered
I'll just be posting my Chess Questions Answered videos on Tigerchess from here on, though I might be putting some of them on Youtube in due course. I don't think I'm cut out to be a streamer, for one thing I don't have time and for another I'm not beautiful enough!
Have a good weekend.
Nigel
