Author: Stephen Ham
Date: 15:31:09 02/23/06
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On February 23, 2006 at 17:28:18, Marc D wrote: >Has anybody yet tried Bookup 2000 (Pro) and/or Masterchess 5000? > >What makes it better or different comapared to other databases or progs? > >It seems to find more moves (because it finds more transpositions) than the CB >database thus finding more games. > >Is it worth the money? > >Hoping for a some comments and suggestions. > >Regards >Marc Hi Marc, I'm a huge advocate of Bookup. I've used it for over a decade and it's been a large help in organizing my opening theory and novelties for my correspondence chess games. However, your question, "What makes it better or different comapared to other databases or progs?" suggests that you don't know what Bookup is. Marc, it's not meant to be a games database, although you can turn it into one. Instead, it's a position database. A position database is ideal for storing opening theory and endgame analysis. And, it catches ALL transpositions. Part of what's attractive about Bookup is its Backsolving function. If you enter theory on the Sicelian Dragon to move 27, with an assessment of Black edge, then that means that the Dragon favors Black all the way back toward the start position until you find another subvariant with a different evaluation. The nice thing about this is that once you build a large enough database (the database comes largely empty, so you have to build it), you can look at entire openings (e.g. King's Indian) and/or subvariations (e.g. Breyer Ruy Lopez) and determine that White stands better, by how much, and why (seeing the specific variations that favor White). I upgraded to the latest version, Bookup 2000 Pro, a few months ago, but was dissapointed in it. While it has some new bells and whistles (e.g. Ruffian is the primary analysis engine), I see it as a regression backwards relative to earlier models. For example, the older version told the user how many moves of analysis followed a certain variation. For example, do you have 300,000 moves of supporting coverage, or 3,000, or only 3? But the new Bookup now only tracks how many subvariations exist, leaving you blind to how many moves of theory exist! I called Mike, the author of Bookup, to tell him these changes are idiotic. He said he's only doing what his customers want. I can't fault him for that. But, I did try to explain that I care less about how many subvariations Bookup contains after 21...Bh5, and a lot more about how many moves of theory support the evaluation that's backsolved to the present. After all, one could have 20-subvariants, but they're only 2-ply deep. So how meaningful is that? But, if I know that I've got 15,398-ply of analysis after 21...Bh5, then I can reasonably assume that this relatively large quantity also translates to a quality evaluation. But only knowing that X subvariations exist, then I'm forced to examine each and every one to see how deep they are. This defeats part of the purpose of having Bookup. I don't think Mike agreed with me. So, I asked that he supply a toggle switch for the next version to allow his end-users of Bookup to chose whether we want it to track moves or sub-variants. He said he'd "consider it." So I recommend Bookup if you're an active chess player, Marc. If you want to play correspondence chess against strong players, then it's almost mandatory. But, see if you can purchase an older version first. All the best, Steve
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