Subject. I want a free DB (like commercial Megabase) that contains games of 2600+ players of at least last 30 years.

Does such DB exist?

chesslive.de is a free database of considerable quality.  Chess.com also has a database that I enjoy using.

Thanks but I would like offline DB that I could use in my software.

I use SCID: Shane's Chess Information Database. It is quite sophisticated and uses a number of integrated chess engines for analysis. You might try it... http://scid.sourceforge.net/

Good luck

2 cents...

LostCauseOne

I asked about base of games bot not about software.

http://chessdb.sourceforge.net is built on top of  SCID, it's essentially the same program with a few extra features.  It's the DB I use. The games DB is very close to the one on chess.com in the games explorer -- but there are several functions not available here, the interface is clunky and takes getting used to... the process of taking a new PGN from outside the program, loading the "huge" (that's its name)  database and searching for a selected position is needlessly multistep and sort of ticks me off the way bad design always ticks me off... but you can't beat the price.

I have a DB question of my own... does anyone have experience with the commercial, expensive, ChessBase database, and the free +3 million game DB used by ChessDB? Is the ChessBase database noticeably better (I'm not asking about the interface...)? Are there substantially more games, or more high-quality games in the ChessBase DB?

http://chessdb.sourceforge.net

I heard about it. So, it already included some games (not only soft for opening pgn's etc)?

And about Chessbase DB. As I know it is simply lager, much lager and it even includes some games of 2100 players.

Are you looking for the information or the program?  Last I saw SCID is a good, free, program but it does not come with game collection you mentioned.

BTW aren't we in the wrong forum for this thread?

 Try these links:

http://www.supreme-chess.com/chess-game-collection-a.html

http://www.chesszone.org/bases/bases.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_game_collection

(google is your friend)

Information. As program I use SCID and CB Light 2007.

Ralke

Thanks for the links.

Well, guys, what to say... Thare are some good sites with online DBs, but the other good way is to make weekly downloads form TWIC as I now realize.

There was a free million games database download called "million.pgn.7z", but I can't seem to find the link any more. I think it was hosted on this site:

http://homepages.tesco.net/henry.ablett/jims.html

I have the file and it is about 53MB big (300MB when unzipped and converted to chessbase format). If you are interested I can upload it somewhere.

Here you have also some high quality cleaned up and time sorted GM games:

http://www.hoflink.com/~npollock/chess.html

I also found this:

http://www.top-5000.nl/dl.htm?file=dl/Million%20Base%201.74.rar

Thanks very much! It's the thing that I was looking for! Also now will check another link by you...

Yes! This is it! Thank you! You helped me a lot.

I can't believe this site hasn't been mentioned yet:

http://www.pitt.edu/~schach/Archives/index2.html

Thank you all for all the links...just the thing I needed!

So, no one has used both the full ($) Chessbase Database (that's the Megabase, right?) and the free ChessDB and can compare the two?

By the way, Dmytro... the "huge" ChessDB database along with all the This Week In Chess updates is very close to 4 million games. (3.9 and counting).  It's not all super clean...there's some lower rated games in there to be sure. But if you want to clean it, you just filter your search (to +2600, or whatever) ... but I never even bother to filter because the "best games" function in the Games Tree window filters for me beautifully. You get an automatic list of the best (highest rated + most recent) games that ChessDB finds for whatever position you are searching. 

ChessDB is good and free, I'd really like to know if the +$100 dollar Chessbase program + DB is worth it. How good is their proprietary commercial DB?

Anyone want to do a comparision searches or two? You with Chessbase, me with ChessDB, and compare the best results?

Dmytro, want to do a comparision search between those PGN collections gardelin suggested and the "huge" DB from ChessDB? I think ChessDB will hold it's own.

FYI. The DataBase the Game Explorer uses here at Chess.com seems to me to be very similar, if not identical, to the "huge" DB used by ChessDB. The advantages of ChessDB are advanced searching, and integrated chess engines for analysis.

JG27Pyth

I didn't understand the thought of your post, but I know that SCID (or ChessDB, it's just the same soft) is not worse that Chessbase soft. I have even heard that Chessbase Light 2007 corrupts some bases so I don't want to use it for working with bases, for this purposes I use only SCID.

It's about software. But speaking about bases their Megabse is bigger but it is not free. I will use bases that I downloaded from the links given above.

JG27Pyth> So, no one has used both the full ($) Chessbase Database (that's the Megabase, right?) and the free ChessDB and can compare the two?

The "Big Database" costs $50 USD and contains about 4 million games (the MegaBase just annotates 60,000 of them for extra $$$). You don't need to buy Chessbase to use it... although if you do own Chessbase 10, you'll have more ways to search it and free games updates throughout the year beyond what This Week In Chess would provide.

I don't have time to do a head-to-head comparison, but I was a SCID user before I got Chessbase and I now use Chessbase for 99% of my work. Most things you can do in Chessbase, you could do with some combination of freeware programs (SCID + free database + Arena + Chess Position Trainer). But you can do it faster and more conveniently in Chessbase, which also means you'll sometimes learn things you otherwise wouldn't.

(Chessbase 10 + Big Database) = $140 in USA.

(Chess Assistant 10 + HugeBase + Rybka3) = $89 in USA.

Just a note on commericial DBs,  I have Chess assistant, really liked it, but my new computer has Vista and CA doesn't like it.  If you're thinking CA wait for the next edition if you have or are expecting to get Vista.