Using Databases and Fair Play
ChessCom Rule says:
In Daily Chess (turn-based games with several days per move), you may consult books or databases (including the Chess.com Explorer) for opening moves. “Tablebases” – which are specialized databases of particular endgame positions – may NOT be used at any time. Further, you may not consult an engine to provide an opinion on your opening database, self-preparation or analysis that would relate to a particular game-in-progress on Chess.com.
I was interested what ChessCom says about the most widespread databases as ChessAssistant or ChessBase, where are moves evaluations as +1,18 or pluses/minuses as +-= part of databases.
Here is their answer:
AUG 07, 2018 | 08:27PM PDT
Shaun replied:
I know that’s a bit weird for you, but in the end, it does make sense.
If engine evaluations are in the database, it’s against the rules. We don’t specifically call out competitors databases, but yes, the ones you mention have engine evaluations in them, so they are against the rules. Percentages of wins and losses we considered okay.
AUG 07, 2018 | 03:22PM PDT
Shaun replied:
The plus minuses are also disallowed if they are referring to engine evaluations. In the event that someone creates those to refer to percentage of wins in a database, then that would be acceptable.
