Chessbase Complete: Chess in the Digital Age – 5 Useful Tips
ChessBase Complete: Chess in the Digital Age
What is ChessBase?
ChessBase is an amazing chess database software mainly used by top professionals and by amateurs. It has evolved constantly from a very basic chess data reference tool to a full-blown chess database software.
Much like the Swiss knife of Chess
What is the book about?
For those who have been using the ChessBase Software (and I am pretty sure at least 75% of chess players around the world have used it at one point in time or the other) for straight forward game collections and annotations or for mundane tasks like viewing a game or playing a game online, this book will show what ChessBase software is actually capable of doing.
Why this book?
In other words this book is like the hitch-hiker’s guide to the Chessbase galaxy!
How does the book deliver?
- Effective Opening preparation is de-mystified with suitable examples.
- How to get a collection of important games in any opening, middlegame position type, or even endgame positions
- How you can install and see what engines think about any given position.
- How you can perform an analysis and see where you and your opponents erred.
- How you can publish your games in a book or the web/Facebook
What about practical examples?
Do we need to have the Chessbase software?
The book is full of screenshots, which are helpful so that the program need not be open in front of you (though that would be highly recommended) and he does not miss anything major.
So is Chess in the Digital Age a complete reference manual?
Though every little function is explained to the point, I should add that this book is not a complete reference manual. The author merely elucidates how he uses the various features of Chessbase for his specific purposes (scenarios).
That said however if you are a serious chess player, this book should be in your collection of essentials. And although the book was written with Chessbase 12 in mind, it still works with the latest release of Chessbase 16.
Edit: The Author has released an updated version for ChessBase 15
Downsides if any?
The only sore point in Chessbase Complete Chess in the Digital Age is that the images used in the book could have been good quality color images to better illustrate and engage the reader’s eye. Hence my half-star less in the rating. It has nothing to do with the content – which is 5 star!
My rating of this book 4.5 out of 5.
Check out my other interesting suggestion – on what an intermediate level player needs to study.