Chess Database: Over Half a Million Chess Games

Chess Database: Over Half a Million Chess Games (URL opens iTunes) is a new chess app available for the iPhone. Check out the developers web site.

From the developer's description:

Chess Database is an application developed for iPhone users who are serious chess players. It contains over half a million games played throughout the history. This pocket data base is fully equipped with a strong search engine. The search engine provides various filters or combinations of filters such as white player(s), black player(s), are white and black opponents, ECO, date, result. These filters allow the user to comfortably search the games they want to view. The game can be viewed in a game viewer that is easy to use with forward, backwords, start, end, flip board options. Chess database also keeps record of your recently viewed games. No matter if you are at home or traveling, chess database will take you in the astonishing world of chess where you can watch the greatest tacticians in the history of chess at work.

The program is $4.99.

You beat me to this one, OG!  I can't decide whether or not it's worth $5 to check this out..  If I can't turn on analysis or enter variations, I don't know how much I'd use this.  It might be good for following through a game in a book - assuming the game is also in the database.  Maybe playing guess-the-next-move?

Anyone tried it?

I will be trying it today and will report back what I find.

I bought the software and find it pretty good. I like the ability to search for ECO's and such. One problem I found is that the Dbase is not compacted. If you search of Karpov it gives you...

1. Karpov Anatoly  UNK
2. Karpov              UNK
3. Karpov              URS
4. Karpov Anatoly  UNK

and more. I tried it with Kasparov and found the same problem. So do not expect the search to give you a very accurate return. I also tried B21 = Grand Prix Attack. Which goes 1. 1. e4 c5 2. f4... The games that were returned came back 1. e4 c5. 2. d4 which is partly correct as it is a variation but the main line is f4.

I would like to see a position search and a move input. Overall it is worth the money but still needs work.

Thanks, Keyif!

Given my current habits, I think I'll hold off for now, but please keep us up to date if things improve.

Thank you very much for the review Keyif! I think I will wait for your app ;)

Hi, we are the developers of this application. The names appear with multiple labels in the search results because the games we added contained different names of different players. We did not enter games by player names. We entered games from PGNs into a compact database through a database creation tool that we built. So, many games contain different names of the same player. That is why we have given the user to select multiple players in the player search. So the user can check mark all these players

1. Karpov Anatoly  UNK
2. Karpov              UNK
3. Karpov              URS
4. Karpov Anatoly  UNK

the returned set of games will contain a list of games played by these players.

There is also a comprehensive advanced search section where you have options of further nailing down the games you want to search for.

Position search is on its way. We are looking into different implementation options. We have a limited memory in iphone, so we have limited the database to 500,000 games. We will see how this can be implemented in a memory/time efficient way. So, we will keep you posted about the update on position search.

Cool.  :-)  Thanks for the info!

Thanks for contacting us about this, trustedapps. If you'd like to use this group to promote any updates or future chess products, please don't hesitate to contact me or another admin. (sorry for the delayed response... things have been busy for me =) )

OK thanks, will do.

TrustedApps