Author: Komputer Korner
Date: 08:04:36 06/01/98
Go up one level in this thread
On June 01, 1998 at 07:35:40, Ed Schröder wrote:
>On June 01, 1998 at 01:54:32, Komputer Korner wrote:
>
>>On May 31, 1998 at 12:39:17, Eran wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Hi,
>>>
>>>Since I am a positional player favoring slow games in Rebel9, I do not
>>>know whether I need ChessBase or TascBase and why. In addition, I do
>>>not know exactly what the purpose of ChessBase or TascBase is. I never
>>>bought one of them before; I am not sure whether I will buy one until I
>>>fully understand why ChessBase or TascBase is so important to any strong
>>>positional player.
>>>
>>>What are the best benefits given by ChessBase, TascBase, or any other
>>>database software? Are they very helpful to any strong chess player?
>>>If so, how? Please give me several examples how any strong positional
>>>chess player manages ChessBase or TascBase to gain benefits in chess.
>>>
>>>Which is the best chess database software, ChessBase, TascBase, or any
>>>other one, and why?
>>>
>>>The reason I am considering very carefully about any other commercial
>>>database software is that they have several million games comparing to
>>>Rebel's Topbase database file that has only about 116,000 games and that
>>>is not enough. On the other hand, the commercial chess database
>>>software is quite expensive.
>>>
>>>Your help is greatly appreciated.
>>>
>>>Thank you,
>>>Eran
>>
>>Top of the line databases help the serious player study minute parts of
>>his games like studying the isolated d pawn, r vs b endgames, the 2
>>bishops,..... etc.
>>What you are really asking is what are the database features contained
>>in top of the line databases that Rebel doesn't have that will help you
>>do these? Rebel 9's database does not let you drag and drop games or
>>databases from one to the other. It is much more labour intensive to
>>collect new games from the internet and combine them into your Rebel 9
>>bases. Rebel 9 does not have theme keys which will provide instant
>>access to the above theme games in the database. You cannot search on
>>specific dynamic themes, nor can you combine different search types in
>>the same search. Rebel 9 doesn't allow direct printing of your games nor
>>allow diagrams to be inserted which can be useful if you want to take a
>>bunch of them to a chess tournament. As for opening book study, Rebel 9
>>does not allow the user to edit his opening book while in monitor mode.
>>in other words while in monitor mode you can't get Rebel analysis. Rebel
>>9 can't sort a database on anything other than the white player's name.
>>It cannot import a file from a floppy. It cannot import other user books
>>to its user book format. Rebel 9 does not have a Chesstree as
>>ChessAssistant and Fritz 5 have. Rebel 9 will sometimes crash running in
>>my Tecra notebook with a Logictech mouse. Rebel 9 has a 250 page limit
>>in scrolling back screens in it's database. You cannot import special
>>training multimedia files. Rebel 9 will not run in WIN NT 4. You can't
>>find a player's wins losses, draws with a specific colour. The post game
>>analysis feature is backward. It first analyzes the game's move and then
>>analyzes it's move. This wastes time because if it did it the other way
>>around, it would save time in not having to analyze the game move all
>>over again. Rebel 9 will analyze some of it's book moves. In a pgn game
>>if there are 2 or 3 promotion squares for the pawn, Rebel 9 will not
>>import the game. When you save a game to a textfile, it doesn't put the
>>txt extension on. You have to do it yourself. The move window does not
>>allow variations. Move comments don't show when Rebel is analyzing.
>>Selecting all the games after a search takes a horrendous amount of
>>time. Because Rebel 9 is a DOS program you cannot rearrange the window
>>sizes. No K best variation mode like Fritz or Tascbase engine has. No
>>contempt feature like the Tascbase engine. Menus could be larger
>>lettering. Any selection of certain menus stops Rebel's analysis. Rebel
>>does not have other external engines besides Rebel. Endgame databases
>>are not accessed. No email feature. No merging of games into one game.
>>No intelligent mouse feature. No game marking feature with medals as in
>>Chessbase. You cannot drag and drop engine analysis into game move list.
>>There are other drawbacks as well but as a playing program Rebel 9, has
>>a lot of features that other playing programs don't have such as 4 board
>>simultaneous play. However as a full fledged database, opening book
>>editor chess tree, it has it's limitations.
>
>What a shit program :)
>
>>Rebel 10 will correct many
>>of these limitations. The best database software is Chess Assistant
>>3.02 if you don't mind that there is no find and delete doubles feature
>>and no compress base feature. If you do think these are important then
>>ChessBase 6.03 is best.
>
>IMO Tascbase 2.1 is the best database.
>
>- Ed -
It is one of the few that has everything built in, but it's opening book
editor is limited and the database cannot show all games of the database
on the screen at once. You have to cycle through another menu to pull up
the next batch of games. See below for everything you ever wanted to
know about Tascbase
This is a slightly corrected reprint of an old review of mine
Tascbase 2.0
by Komputer Korner
In a way, a review of Tascbase 2.0 shouldn't really be necessary. The
reason
is that this program is so good and has so many of the important
features,
that my advice is to go out and buy it right away if you are not
intimidated
by chess software that throws everything but the kitchen sink into the
program and you don't care about opening book editors. In the
individual categories it is not the best in
any one category, but when you take everything into consideration, it
scores
very highly in all of the 3 important categories of database, playing
engine and opening book editor. To detail all the features is a
monstrous task, so I will list the more
important and unique features that I found.
1)It is the only database that has a playing program that comes included
in the price of the program. The King program version 2.54 dated
(95-12-03)
by Johan de Konig is the same program that is found in CM5000, and tests
by
testers on the Internet have proved that it is one of the strongest
programs
on the market.
2) It has a built in chess tree that shows transpositions but also shows
the
whole tree in an ECO format that takes up one half of the tree and that
dynamically moves like 1 huge spreadsheet. You just have to see this
to believe it. What is actually happening is that the opening keys
actually
change depending on the database (dB) you have open at the time. Only
one dB
can be opened at a time and it's moves become the basis of the tree and
opening book editor. The user can add moves to this tree that will
recognize transpositions and that allow you to put 32 different symbols
beside each move in the tree and then print out the whole thing.
3) The playing program recognizes the tree/opening editor as an opening
book
but you can also download free from the Tascbase site the largest
commercially available opening book available at 15Mb in size.
4) The user defines how he/she wants the opening book to be used by the
program. The user clicks on one of several options. They are by user
repertoire, user defined frequency, weighted by subkey variations,
random or by score.
5) It has a scroll bar for quick moves of the whole game.
6) It's intelligent mouse entry (PAM) enables you to set the amount of
intelligence you want into it. The higher you set the intelligence the
slower the response is.
7) Whenever and wherever the mouse hovers, a one line help comment shows
you the meaning of each menu, submenu, screen, and screen item.
8) In the chesstree/opening book editor, you can jump to any move in the
variation tree and the board position will change. Chessbase (CB) has
this
feature but only because it's opening book is little more than a game
list
with variations. What makes TASCBASE 2.0 different is that not only the
transpositions are automatically shown and switched to but that the tree
structure for the next 8 ply is shown on the screen with each
alternative move listed at each move node. When one of the moves at that
node is chosen, the tree expands so that that move's branches are then
shown.
9) You can add new moves to the tree by playing the move on the board
and clicking on a menu item. In this way it becomes a tree/opening book
editor combined.
10) It has 4 clipboards that you can toggle to.
11) The thinking screen shows up to 5 Principal variations and it has up
to 4 K best move PV's with score shown for each.
12) You can customize the materiel evaluation function, as well as
tactical extensions, randomness, transpositional table size,
selectivity,
contempt factor, and 7 separate positional factors.
13) The contempt factor setting is unlimited.
14) There is a dynamic search feature that lets the user search for
anything that he can dream up and he can set a dynamic pattern such as
Bxh7 sacrifices. Each defined pattern can be saved. CB has this feature,
but the CB Motive program costs extra and is not built in.
15) ELO averages are included in all the Db statistics and chess tree.
16) Tascbase works with Smartboard and also the Chess Machine.
17) It has a player repertoire template Db that enables the user to
keep all his own games and can define a special join of an external
set of games so that only those games within the repertoire can be added
to the player repertoire database.
18) The program can interface with Ken Thompson's 5 man CDROM endgames.
These come on 3 CDROM's and the program asks you to insert the proper
CDROM whenever you activate the CDROM capability and the position on the
board is within the 5 man EG class.
19) The comments and annotations can be included within the score of
each
game.
20) The King can annotate a complete
gamefile. It's options are the most extensive. They are user defined
no. of moves and which range, depth of sub variation shown, amount of
time
that computer needs by ply depth or time, best move given, and score of
game
move.
21) Switching sides, or to monitor mode or auto mode is the most
straightforward I have seen.
22) The gamefile can be used to generate a tournament cross table.
23) Any player's repertoire can be viewed without having to define a
special search each time.
24) A game graph can be shown after a game has been analyzed by the
program.
25) In the show moves of Db/gamefile mode, the transposition order of a
game is shown instead of the actual order, if the position was reached
by a transposition in that particular game.
25) 276 different customizations are possible with 10 areas of the
program.
They are:
A) screen and move controls
B) opening book and sound controls
C) colors
D) PGN and text import
E) PGN and text export
F) Warnings
G) Evaluation function settings
H) Customize game
I) Customize line
J) Customize sort options
26) 24 different settings can be made in the TASCBASE.ini file.
27) There are 18 different sort options in ascending and descending
order.
28) Gamefiles are used for copying games from and to a database and are
used for deleting doubles or for correcting spelling mistakes and for
generating crosstables. They are also used for searching more than 1
gamefile at a time You cannot take advantage of the tree/opening book
editor in a gamefile.
29) DTP features except for DDE.
30) Backup and restore tools within the program
31) The last search mask definition is automatically defaulted to when
within the program.
32) A secondary search can be performed on the initial result and this
result can then be used in a 3rd search which can in turn be used on
a fourth ....etc.
The more features a program has, the easier it is to
pick out flaws. That is simply the reality of complex systems and
believe
me Tascbase 2.0 is as complex as chess software gets, but nevertheless
retains an easy user menu interface that is well organized.
Even the best program has flaws. It is important to remember the
above comments about complex systems when reading the list below and
that
some of the following are only further wish lists to already great
features.
Tascbase 2.0 suffers a little bit from being a DOS program. It may
not matter that playing engines don't really suffer from being DOS
programs
and some argue that playing engines that are DOS are at an advantage.
The
fact of the matter is that when it comes to database programs, a DOS
program is at a disadvantage for the following reasons.
1) You can't run the DOS program in the background while other programs
are
running.
2) You can't arrange all the windows on the screen the way you want to.
3) You can't combine 2 gamefiles or databases by dragging and dropping
one into the other.
4) You can't view multiple games from multiple databases on the screen
at the same time.
5) You can't generate 3D piece square table board diagrams.
6) No right mouse functions and the mouse movement is slower.
Other flaws or features of Tascbase 2.0 are:
7) You can turn the game list in the Db to a move list, but only the
first
fifteen ply of moves show. This isn't much of a fault, but only a wish
for
more.
8) Tascbase 2.0 does not have a pick list for header fields.
9) The ten button icons that duplicate some of the top menu items are
not
user recognizable enough. There is a learning curve in knowing what the
buttons are for, even though the help comment line is useful.
10) There is no alternative piece set to choose from.
11) The program doesn't keep automatically the active gamefile, the
board position,
and all the settings such as notation length and the active hashtable
amount
as defaults after exiting and reentering.
12) When you are listing all subkeys, there is nothing on the screen
telling you that the program is calculating and the user is left
thinking
that the program is hung if there are many subkeys.
13) There are some mistakes in the manual, no index, no limits are
indicated
in the manual, and there is no instructions in the manual on the proper
PGN
export.
14) There is no option to let the King program use the Ken Thompson EG
tablebases. Their use is a manual procedure.
15) There is no icon supplied for the program.
16) The 3rd endgame CDROM has the wrong readme file and there are
some duplicated EG files between the 2nd and 3rd CDROM's.The 2nd CDROM
readme file is missing NN vs N. What about the 4 man EG's?
17) There is no internet capability.
18) When sorting database keys, there should be a work in process
thermometer.
19) The open database name should be shown in the database menu list.
20) The unclear/= symbol should have been replaced by the = symbol.
21) The evaluations of the moves in the database tree show up
in the opening book move window in the main screen only in a temporary
screen. To get these evaluations as a permanent manner, you must switch
to the keys screen.
22) When setting time controls, you have to set both sides.
23) You can't have the King think about the first move after a setup
position and then have it play it.
24) The analyze position process could have been made easier.
25) In the database game list, to continue the 2nd and beyond screen
lists
of games, the user should be able to click on the selection box instead
of having to click on "Continue search" in the top menu.
26) The games in the game list are not numbered.
27) The show names in index should be renamed to "Player Stats".
28) All sub screens should have the parent menu name shown.
29) The view database should be renamed "View tree structure".
30) The user can't keep the opening book move screen showing at the same
time as the game moves list. You have to click on which one you want to
show at any one time. However, it is an easy click back to the other
screen.
However one can't edit the openingbook on the same screen with the
engine analysis.
31) The openings name list does not have the ECO code as well, but the
ECO
code shows up in the other screens.
32) Converting a gamefile to a database took 6 seconds per game on a
80486-100Mhz computer. This is slow, but can't be helped because of the
way that the dB is being built. The tree structure is being added to
by each game.
33) Only 5 printer types are supported.
34 The search mask and view database will load only a set number of
games at a time.
You have to keep clicking on TASCBASE/CONTINUE SEARCH to obtain each set
of the next block of games in the database or game file.
35) It does not show backward transpositions nor unplayed forward
transpositions until you actually make the move to the transposition
node.
36)There are some differences between Ken Thompson's 3 CD set that come
with
TascBase, and the endgame databases that come on the Fritz 4 CD.
One difference is that Fritz will actually play the moves from the
endgame database while TascBase will only list the moves. It doesn't
allow you to practice against the endgame CDs. You can only use them as
a reference.
Another difference is that TascBase can only recognize winning lines,
not
drawing lines. For example, if there is no forced win in a R+P vs. R
ending, the first move on the Tascbase list may actually loose the rook
and the game. TascBase sees no difference between losing and drawing.
It only recognizes forced wins. Fritz 5 on the other hand doesn't have
this limitation. It will not play a loosing move in a drawn position.
I
don't know if this limitation is due to differences in the endgame
databases or the programs that access them. I do think this is a
significant limitation for TascBase because it doesn't allow you to
study
the technique for drawing difficult endings.
37) TascBase sometimes crashes when importing a game with incorrect
moves to the tree. But there is a command to fix incorrect moves (check
gamefile). This command is however rather laborious to run since you
sometimes have to start the program up again if you have several corrupt
games in the gamefile.
One of my responses to Mats Winther regarding TascBase 2 and Fritz 5
"I love Tascbase too but there are other programs that are better
opening book editors. The ECO style screen is fantastic to move around
in
except it has a habit of folding up the lines on you. Why is that ? I
call
it an ECO style screen because Informant who produce the ECO are world
famous for producing opening books in half move columns. Mats, do you
work
for TascBase or have any affiliation with them. You talk about them as
if
you do. Please once and for all answer that question. And why should I
have
to press CTRL -T when my hand is on the arrow buttons just to see a
transposition? In Fritz 5 you don't have to press anything to see
whether
there is a transposition forwards and backwards. As for your argument
about
backwards transpositions in Tascbase, you still don't understand My Tip
of
the Week # 36. I give up. Okay I don't. One last time. TascBase will
lead
you back through the sub lines and there will be transpositions shown
but
if you are in what is considered the main lines in Tascbase keys,
depending
on the order in which the lines are put in ,there may be no
transpositions
shown because there are no direct links FROM the main line back to the
sub
line. However there is a link the other way and that is what Tascbase
catches and shows. IT DOES NOT show the first scenario. Reread my
Komputer
Korner Tip of The Week # 36 and all will become clear eventually.
TascBase
2 and Fritz 5 show forward transpositions (played and unplayed) and
CA
and Fritz 5 show all backward transpositions at each branch. To be able
to
show backward transpositions at all with TascBase, one must blindly back
up
the tree hoping for a transposition, all the while pressing your beloved
CTRL-T and even then all you ever get is the 1 move forward
transposition
at each branch. As I explained in the Tip of the WEEK # 36, if the line
you
are on has a transposition link to it but not from it, Tascbase will not
show any transpositions in that line. It will only show them in the sub
line that has a link to the main line. But this is not a fault of
TascBase.
You are thinking that it is a fault. NOT THE CASE. THE ECO style screen
with move keys was made so that you could navigate easier. That is it's
main purpose. You are trying to use it as an opening book editor which
it
can do to a point but is not it's strength. It's strength is in
importing
games which turns the moves into keys andthen navigating through those
keys
and adding to them as necessary. The Tascbase ECO style key screen is
not
designed to show backward transpositions and won't even show candidate
moves easily if your screen database contains lots of move keys. The
Fritz
5 and Tascbase 2 editors are different animals. "
This was my final response to Mats Winther regarding TascBase
" Calm down Mats, you will get a hernia. I answered your latest verbal
garbage in another post, but here is some more explanation. All your
TascBase gyrations are ingenious, but taken all together do you really
think that you can convince us that TascBase saves the user work and
time
in creating an opening repertoire and updating it? Your latest post of
having the computer analyze all the end positions is exactly the same as
a
program analyzing a Bookup epd file, and finally explains to me why you
think you can avoid human input at each branch of your opening
repertoire.
I for one won't trust a computer to decide all my lines based on an end
node calculation. You have to play out each line right to the endgame to
really see whether each position is playable. As I said in the other
post,
there is no magic bullet. It is you who are being dishonest in making
it
seem as if TascBase is God's creation for opening book editors. IT IS
NOT.
Sure it is an amazing non drag and drop database, but for opening study,
it
has it's limitations which you refuse to acknowledge. What you are
saying
to everybody is that Bookup is not needed and that Fritz 5 is worthless
for
opening study. Well, sales go against you Mats.
Users have come to realize that any time a user has to develop special
procedures to work around limitations, that it just isn't worth it for
the
most part. You have spent an awful amount of work learning all the
limits
and uses of TascBase and developing workarounds for those limits. I
congratulate you for being the world's expert on that program, but
please
don't underestimate our understanding of what a good opening book editor
should be. "
Finally my Komputer korner Tip of the Week # 36
The definition of a transposition:. In the Webster dictionary, it means
"
to change the usual or relative order or position of". NOTE: nowhere
in
the definition does it say "link". A transposition is more than a link.
Mats Winther is treating all transpositions as if they were only links.
That is why he thinks that only forward transpositions count because his
beloved TascBase shows only forward transpositions. Forward
transpositions
are shown with definite links and that is what the key tree screen in
TascBase does. It is an amazing concept but it doesn't solve the
complete
problem of transpositions. Do you think that the Fritz 5 and the Chess
Assistant programmers are idiots for including backward transpositions
in
their trees? If we had the time to study all the opening lines of every
possible variation in the whole openings tree and if we remembered every
one, then the links that Tascbase does would be enough. However we don't
have that time and even the top GMs sometimes get caught in a
transposition. How would that be possible if they had studied every
line?
The answer is even they don't have the time. So they study what they
know
a little deeper.
Backward transpositions are extremely important to them for the
following
reason. All you have to do is follow the path backwards and you will
see
the possible paths to the position. You can't do that in many situations
in
the keytree . I used the word MANY and not ALL because the situation
is
more complicated than that. See my separate response to Mats where I
give
examples of cases of the English opening leading to the same classical
Tarrasch position from 5 separate opening lines. When you are at
thatposition
to find some backward transpositions (Note that I said some and NOT
all) ,
you have to move back in the tree clicking CTRL-T each time to show any
forward transposition at each point. Eventually if you go back you will
discover some of the paths. However, because the key tree database does
not
actually store the move that transposes to another line, it is
impossible
to show all the backwards transpositions . A simple example to
explain:
Take the 2 lines that Mats gave us trying to show that he was right.
He didn't actually show anything but here is what you see in the tree. I
am
going from memory here as to the lines that Mats gave us but if the
following 2 lines are in different move orders that does not matter
because
there is still a transposition at the end.
1st line is 1.e4e5 2.Nf3Nc6 3.Nc3Nf6 4.Bb5
2nd line is 1.e4Nf6 2.Nc3Nc6 3.Bb5e5 and now Tascbase will not let you
enter 4.Nf3 into the key tree even though it shows it as a
transposition.
This is not a bug as that is the way that the key tree is designed. It
automatically takes you to the transposed variation position that is
already in the tree as the 1st line. If you examine the 1st line in the
tree you will see as you go backwards in it and check for
transpositions
at each point, you will see that there are none shown. That is because
you
cannot directly transpose to the 2nd line from the 1st line. You can
only
go the other way around from the 2nd to the 1st. However that is looking
at
transpositions as if they were only links. Don't you think that it is
important to know that the 2nd line will lead to the first even if you
hadn't specifically examined the 2nd line and didn't know that it
existed
as a transposition. If the line is in the key tree and you have 1000's
of
lines in there you may not specifically look at this line. Then if you
decide to play 1...Nf6 on a whim over the board or if you had studied
1...Nf6 a little but not extensively looked at every possible line, you
could end up exactly in the above position at the end of line 1. If
you
had beforehand decided that you never wanted to play that line 1 end
position as black, you would have been tricked. Mats will argue that he
will beforehand carefully study every line in his repertoire key tree
before deciding what to play. That is all well and good but the fact
remains that Tascbase gives you the power to import into the tree
thousands
and thousands of games so that you will build up your repertoire. And in
fact unless you play an extremely narrow repertoire, there will be
1000's
of games to look at in your repertoire. Nobody has the time to look at
them
all. Nobody has the time to look at all the variations in one part of
your
repertoire. Therefore it would be a good idea to know beforehand what
are
the possible backward transpositions in the positions that you have
studied
so that you can be prevented from being tricked. Mats will argue that he
will make sure that he only puts the lines in his key tree that he has
time
to study and that is he will look at every one. Therefore he won't be
able
to import all the relevant games for his repertoire because there will
be
too many. Fine, then he is using his tree like a limited repertoire
keeper
and in that respect Tascbase is superior to Bookup because Bookup does
not
point out any transpositions at all. But using his tree this way is
fraught with difficulties because then Mats can't be sure of catching
all
the transpositions of the lines he knows best because he has a very
limited
number of lines to look at. However if Mats imports 1000's of games so
that
more transpositions will show up, he doesn't have the time to look at
them
all anyway. So Mats is caught in a conundrum. He is damned if he does
and
damned if he doesn't. The last way is the best of a bad choice, but
Chess
Assistant and Fritz 5 users don't have to worry about this. All they
have
to do is import lots of games and then look at positions they know.
They
will be assured that every transposition (backwards and forwards) will
be
caught and especially they will be able to discover in the above example
that there is a transposition even if they only examine line 1. Of
course
with Fritz 5 or Chess Assistant they can look at either line to catch
the
transposition. .
With Tascbase you either have to investigate both or either make sure
that
you investigate the 2nd line. If however you don't know that the 2nd
line
is in your database, then you are out of luck unless you look at every
last
line in your database. So readers, I put it to you. Which opening book
editor would you rather have?. One that may cause you to miss the
transposition or one that will show you any possible backward or forward
transposition that the tree contains. If Mats doesn't understand this,
then I give up on him.
TascBase is a great program but it is NOT the world's best opening book
editor and My NAKED TRUTH article stands as written.
You all have seen the amount of invective and garbage that Mats has
thrown
my way. I have tried to restrain myself in my responses to him, but I
must
admit that I lost my temper too. Please forgive me for any insults I may
have hurled his way, but if you have read all of his posts against me
you
will have realized that he was VERY OBJECTIONABLE. Mats if you
understand
what I have read here, perhaps we can get on with discussing what
TascBase
does well, since I have said many times it is a great program and you
are
probably the most knowledgeable user of it. Don't forget that I had
listed
it for over a year at the Gambit Soft site as the best all around
program
for the average user until FRITZ 5 came along.
So we are left with analyzing just where does TASCBASE stand overall. It
is 2nd
to Fritz 5 as the most important chess software. It has better database
capabilities but worse opening book editor capabilities. The Fritz 5
engine is stronger at short time controls and because Fritz 5 is a
windows program Fritz has analyzing advantages in screen output and OLE
features. The tree in Fritz 5 is better and the Fritz 5 GUI is more
colourful and easier to use. As for a database only TascBase can't
quite match Chess Assistant or ChessBase ( it comes close). However
because it has a playing engine built in it has this advantage over
those 2.
TascBase's price makes it a real bargain however. Probably the real
disadvantage of TascBase is that it is a DOS program. I think I have
given enough information for the user to make up his own mind. I love to
build opening book repertoires and look at all the transpositions,
forward and backward. In this respect Fritz 5 is best for me, but not
everybody likes to do this, so TascBase may fit the bill for manu users.
I haven't received TascBase 2.1 yet but here are the
new features :
There is no restriction on the number of times this
program can be installed. At run time it will ask for
the PerfectBase 98-CD to be inserted periodically.
DATA COLLECTIONS
When installing TasBase 2.1 you are asked which database
to install to your harddisk. The options are:
-No database
-The standard database with appr. 27 000 games
-PerfectBase 98 with appr. 400 000 games
The database selected will be opened automatically when
starting TascBase. You can always use the PerfectBase 98
database directly from CDROM, without installing it on
harddisk. Just select (Database/Open database) and go to
the TBDATA directory on the CDROM. There you find the
PB98 database, which is short for PerfectBase '98.
WINDOWS 95
This program has been tested with Windows 95. However, if
you experience problems during the installation of TascBase
under Windows 95, try selecting "Shut Down" and then
"Restart in MS-DOS mode" before installing this program.
New in TascBase 2.1:
-Fischerandom chess (Game\Fischer random chess...)
You can now play (and store) games with alternative initial
positions. These are the 960 so called "Fischer positions".
The pawns are placed as usual (on the second and seventh
row) but the major pieces are shuffled. =20
A few conditions apply:
1. The king must be between the rooks and
2. The bishops must be on different colours
Castling in Fischerandom chess:
In every Fischerandom game it is possible to castle to both
sides, provided the king and rook haven't moved yet and the
king is not in check. The final position of king and rook
directly after castling is the same as in normal chess: Kc1
and Rd1 (Kc8 and Rd8) for "a-side castling", Kg1 and Rf1 (Kg8
and Rg8) for "h-side castling". Castling is done by moving
the king onto one of the rooks. TascBase 2.1 is equiped with
a 'Random King' chess program that knows the special castling
rules, so you can analyze, play against it etc.
Fischerandom games can be stored in gamefiles and databases.
They can be exported to PGN, but not to CB format.
- Comparing the moves of two games in detail
In the game list environment you can now compare two games
in detail. This is useful when two games are similar and you
suspect them to be a "double", but they are not exactly the
same. The (Selections\Compare 2 selected games) menu option
will compare the two games that were selected first. You wil
get a report of the differences found and the possibility to
delete the one you think is wrong.
- Transpositions viewer
By selecting (Book\Calculate Transpositions) in the (Database
\View database) environment you can calculate all keys that
either contain transpositions (displayed gray) or can be
reached by transposition (displayed white).=20
An example of the latter is 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3. The move 2. Nf3=20
will be displayed in white because 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. d4 will lead
to the same position.
At the same time in the line 1. Nf3 Nf6, the move Nf6 will be
displayed gray, to put your attention to the fact that it
contains a transposition. One or more moves (in this case
2. d4) are not displayed directly after Nf6, but still lead
to a key-position; the position after 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3.=20
Calculating the transpositions should be done once after
making any changes to the key structure. It is automatically
done as part of the database optimizing process as well.
- PGNTOOL =20
A separate utility is included to convert PGN files to
TascBase gamefiles keeping comments and sublines. TascBase
itself can read these PGN files but skips all comments and
sublines.
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Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.