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Subject: Re: StarBase

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 01:52:37 01/11/01

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On January 11, 2001 at 01:06:46, Derek wrote:

>Has anyone purchased the Starbase 2.33 CD from Chessco.com?
>(http://www.chessco.com). It's reported to contain 2.33 million games,
>but it gives no indication of the quality of the games nor the
>percentage of duplicates. The price seems OK though. Any opinions?

If you just want a giant pile of games, you can get 2.3 million games for free
from my ftp site.  But compared to a commercial database, it is like comparing
Filet Mignon and Lafite Rothchild with the contents of a bedpan and Zima.

The commercial database systems have enormous hours of effort to clean the
names, event locations, etc. and to standardize everything.

I don't know if starbase has done this or not, but I recommend highly getting a
commercial database system if you are serious about chess.  I simply love Chess
Assistant and I am also fond of Bookup for openings.  People who use ChessBase
also like that database, but I have only used the demo version and so I can't
say much about it.

But in any case, the capabilities and quality of a commercial database are light
years ahead of your standard fare you get for next to nothing.

IOW:
YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.

Is anyone surprised?

If you want tons of stuff for free, have a look here:
ftp://cap.connx.com/pub

Chess games, chess engines, etc. and free-free-free-free-free....
But I will never imagine that any of it approaches the quality of a commercial
system such as Chess Assistant.




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