Hello there

I'm preparing my opening's repertoire and I wonder why no one ever made a pgn (or whatever database format) version of Modern Chess Openings.

I have the book in "analogic format" (paper ), but it would be easier for me to have it in some digital format in order to import it in my openings database.

Does anyone know whether such a version is available?

If it is, it's illegal.

So stop looking.

Dear Nytik, if Random House or whoever else publishes it and I can buy it, it's not.

I repeat: I own the book and I just need the moves, even without annotations or evaluations.

Dear Kepler, I'm not asking for illegal items.

I just wonder if the "copyright owner" have published some digital version of his work, and if I can buy it somewhere.

There is ChessBase Opening Encyclopedia 2009 and an electronic versions of Sahovski's Encyclopedia of Chess Openings.

MCO through Random House does not have an electronic version--as mentioned Chess Informant and ChessBase have electronic versions of openings. I also think Convekta (Chess Assistant) has an electronic opening guide as well.

Thank you, guys!

They both look fine. Do you suggest either?

The early editions of ECO had top class GMs like Korchnoi and Keres doing the analysis.  The Informant magazine still has top of the line annotators, but it's mostly Yugoslav IMs and GMs writing ECO now.  It's still one of the largest encyclopedias, but I feel the quality has fallen a little compared to the earlier editions.

The Chessbase Encyclopedia incorporates articles written over the course of the last decade.  Many of the analysts are top class eg. Jussupow, but they don't always include the latest games, and quite a few lines have no evaluation.  Even so, I think I prefer Chessbase's Encyclopedia over ECO, and both of them over MCO.  The Informant magazine is also a valuable resource for keeping up to date, the best of its kind if you don't mind reading games annotated with symbols rather than words.

I don't think I've ever seen Convetka's encyclopedia although I'm sure they must have one.

Dear Rigamagician, thank you very much for the useful advice.

I was inclined to buy the ECO, expecially when I saw the annotators' names, but I think I'll go for the CB.

Printed publications are out of date almost as soon as they leave the publishers so I think the future will bring more digital publications since they're much cheaper to produce and update.

The CB Encyclopedia is very, very nice.  For the most part, it's compiled and updated each year with the excellent articles/surveys that appear in Chessbase Magazine.  Highly recommended.

I would suggest you look at something like chesspublishing.com as well(membership based site which is well worth the price imop).  They show theoretically important games, have downloadable ebooks and you can even ask masters questions on openings you have been having trouble with.   

I agree.  I started off with a subscription to the e4 e5 section primarily for access to the King's Gambit information but I've since upgraded to 3 sections and have seriously considered upgrading further.  It's says a lot that they're the first place I go when I need to check the status of an opening line.  I don't trust anything in print to be current....

WOW, this chesspublishing.com looks great!

Thank you very much, guys! Chess.com people are wonderful!