I could use some help organizing my games and databases in SCID vs Pc

Ha ppl, I want tot start analysing and annotating my games. My question is how to organise my games. I’ll do it in ScidvsPC but I suppose Chessbase users can help me too.

What I did till now (open source, freeware… what a beautiful world we live in):

• watched Coffee with Teddy’s Scid vs PC: How to setup and use (Scid vs PC Tutorial Guide) - https://youtu.be/Zwy-pE54V9w and followed his steps while watching. He is slow, it’s a long vid and he is sometimes a bit boring but some coffee and two hours later you are good to go.
• made a reference database with http://caissabase.co.uk/
• installed Stockfish 14 https://stockfishchess.org/

Then I played around a bit and in the process I created a few databases with my chess.com games and here I feel I go wrong. What I have made is:

• a database with all of my rapid games
• a database with 200 blitz games (200)
• a database with me opening white in those 200 blitz games (102)
• a database with me opening black in those 200 blitz games (98)
• a database with me opening white black responding e6 in those 200 games (13)

This is done in two days... if i'll go on in a year from now I will have a shitload of databases, double games in multiple databases, annotations I can’t find because I don’t remember in which database I made them. This is clearly not the path to go.

But what then? How do you guys do this? Basically how do you treat a subset you want to keep, for example because you have been annotating games in the subset.

Help much appreciated!

Why to do several databases?

All games in one database only should be ok.

Then, set game informations (Menu Game - Set game information) as follows: in 'event' or 'site' section enter which are rapid and which are blitz.

Then  it would be easy to use filters (Menu Search - General) where you may always filter either blitz or rapid, white or black, by ECO code, won games, lost games, etc. and you may combine two or more filter settings.

 you 'll be dealing with few hundreds of games which is not large database, however Scid vs PC is very good choice,it is powerful and very fast in dealing with databases.

https://blog.dnevnik.hr/kristijanzd-chess/2021/10/1632348759/scid-vs-pc-powerful-database-handling-tool.html

Thx Kristijan and nice blog, the speed is amazing indeed! So one database with my own games, that sounds logical and it is how I am gonna do it. Two worries/things i am gonna find out today:

1. Do I have to make the filters every day again? I make a subset, me playing white, the London System, opponent plays Kings Indian Defence, rapid games only (10 games). Can I save this filter for the next day or week?

2. Will I be able to find my annotated games? In the 10 London vs KID games I annotated two games. I suppose I dont have to walk through the 10 games manually.

My solution was to make a new database London vs KID (10 games) and a new database annotated games (2 games). But that was before your reply :-).

I am gonna play around with Scid's set game information and search functions and I might even start reading the f manual. I'll post my finds here. Thx!

Getting there...

Do I have to make the filters every day again?

Nope. After making a filter in Search/General you have the option to save that search in .sso format (Scid Search Options). If you want to see the games with this filter the day after you open it with Search/Load search file.

Will I be able to find my annotated games?

Yes. As long as you write something in the comment section that you can recognise, like abm (annotated by me). General search has the option the filter for ‘pre game comment’ and/or ‘end game comment’. So if you write before or after the game any text will do.

Is it easy to separate bullit, blitz and rapid?

Yes and no. /search/general has no ready made filter box for time control. But you can use the boxes “extra tags” and “(value)”. Fill in TimeControl (case-sensitive, no space!) and the time for one side in seconds. I didn’t figure out how it works with increments because in never play them.  

Unsolved yet

What I still don’t understand are the ‘flags’. What the difference between a tag and a flag? Can I tag or flag an entire database? Flagging is done in the Maintenance Window, searching for flags is done in general search were I have to chose for yes/no/both. I would expect to find flagged games if I click on ‘yes’ but the seem to appear as I click on ‘no’.

Tags are extra data fields in the PGN header, such as Annotator, and TimeControl.

Flags are attributes that Scid can label games with , generally for finding games of a similar type fast. You can see them in the gamelist "flags" field, or in the statusbar for the current game.

So - once you have searched/found all your blitz games, use the Maintenance window to label a user flag as Blitz, then flag them all with that flag.

Afterwards, all you have to do is search for that flag... quicker and easier that reloading a search file and redoing the search (though more beneficial for large DBs).

for some reason i cant get \search\general working when it invloves flags.

Yesss, thx so much for your detailed desciption, it did the trick. I completely missed that drop down panel. It is well hidden. Not named 'flag' but named 'white openings' (after the first flag you can choose). I simply didn't realize that I could click on it.

Clicking the right buttons gives an indication in the gamelist indeed:

I agree and I am not planning to analyse my blitz games.

But I do keep some blitz games: if they have a specific theme or pattern that I want to remember. For example I often miss pinned pawns. Collecting a few games where I see missed pawns or dont see them, is a nice reminder of what i need to learn. One of the few real advantages of blitz is that stuff happen more frequently then in rapid.  

Till now i did this collecting by mailing the games to myself with the theme in the subject-line. From now on I'll do it in Scid.

So that chess.com panel is well hidden too :-)?

I think I personally really need to annotate, flag and filtering manually. I learn a lot better if I focus on one or two themes and look for those themes myself. Chunck analysing could be usefull for finding what themes to focus on, i think. But even then, if I cant flag, why annotate? 

More important for me: a chess.com feature would only be good if there will be an "export annotated games" button. I dont want to store my notes somewhere were I am not able to take them away.

A feature I like in Scid vs PC is the ability to adjust the blunder threshold. At my level I don't need an engine to tell me I went from -1.35 to -1.20. But being able to quickly find piece loosing/missed piece winning chances is very nice!

FWIW, I've been doing something like this.  I make flashcards for mistakes I've made in openings, tactics I've missed, easy strategy things I should have played, etc.  I use a the screen-snipper that Windows has (Shift-Window-S) and (after resizing) paste it into my Anki card collection (Anki software is free).  I also have (almost) all the Bain tactics as flashcards in there.  It's an awesome study tool for me.

Yeah, more flexibility in tags would be nice. A workaround is with  /Search/General->'pgn contains text'. You can write signalword in your annotations. For example i struggle with e3 or e4 in the London. The signalword I use is 'e4issue'.