Questions for someone who uses the latest ChessBase

Hi,

I was trying to avoid having to buy the expensive ChessBase software (I'm using Scid at the moment). Also because I don't like the default look/theme of the app.

But I because I want to do certain things, I may be forced to buy it if CB can do these things. So my questions are:

1) Is it possible to search databases for particular positions for one side only, e.g. out of an opening, you can search for a particular position for White and effectively ignore what Black has played?

2) Is it now possible to make a lot more different appearance themes in the latest CB and do things like import your own piece sets? 

3) Will CB handle the import of a multi-million game PGN into CB format? (My PGN is 7.8 million games).

Thanks to anyone who can answer my questions.

no, yes, yes, it handles my megadatabase easily, you can import your own piece designs should you not like theirs but I don't think you can do the first one

Thanks Cheesy!

1. you can search only position , and you can search position move by move 

2.yes it is possible

3. yes , you can convert from pgn to cb file.

Thanks, Stevan, I think I will buy it now

So I went ahead and bought CB14.

- But I don't see a way to import your own chess sets - can you explain

- It wouldn't import my PGN of 7.8 million games - it would only import 2.1 million games - I am thinking of asking for my money back

that's strange, my 6.9 million game database loads quikly and the filter is rather quick, is your computer good?

you should be able to change to design for pieces somewhere in the files by importing new files, I haven't done it yet though

Thanks, Cheesy. My PC is an i7 so it ought to be good enough to do this. 

I have discovered that it *is* possible to search for just White's side of a game in a database. I managed to search for this White position no matter what black played:

Finally solved the problem with the giant PGN database. I used a powerful text editor which could open the 5.36 GB text file, split it into 4 PGN parts, then saved each PGN as a CBH file. Then combined the CBH files into one, large CBH database. Took some time but was worth it.

However, I still have some other issues with the app, and their customer service seems - so far - non-existent. 

There is another chess playing site that offers about 12 million games for download monthly.

I ran into the pgn import issue and used pgnsplit  (https://github.com/cyanfish/pgnsplit/releases/download/v1.0/PgnSplit.exe ) which automates splitting the pgn file.  Then You can import the x2 pgn files into CB14.    You can then convert them to the regular .cbh Chessbase format.

The issue for me (I believe, I can't find the link right now) was that these pgn files break the limit of CB because every game has a different site link (Each has a link pointing to the specific game).   After converting them I just left them "As is" because you can select multiple databases for searching at the same time in CB.  

The link you've given is broken.

just download twics lol

DrChesspain:

The main page that includes the link above is:  https://github.com/cyanfish/pgnsplit/

It seems the link is down now/ not working.   I uploaded it to my site until they get it fixed I guess: http://cwebpro.com/PgnSplit.zip        I just split the august download for another chess site (about 13 million games).   For some reason it wants to split the pgn file into 1 GB files.  I  drag them into CB and after creating a cbh file in CB format drag the PGN files all at one time into the cbh.  

How much did you pay?  What was included in your purchase?

Just CB14 - I paid EUR 99. I'm gradually getting on top of the software with people helping me. But there remain some outstanding issues and CB themselves are ignoring my requests for help.