database size

i was bored at work again today, so i decided to download games from almost every big name chess player that i know. i compiled them all into one database. now i have over 67,000 games.

just out of curiousity, is this considered a big database? do other's have more than this? are there any drawbacks that i'm ignoring?

67,000 is quite small, actually.

1,500,000 to 2,000,000 is decent size.

wow. i better get on it then.

Free to register and use, with 3,500,000 games:

http://www.365chess.com/

Why store stuff like this, when it is freely available on the net?

i'm assuming because i can analyze the positions and such with my software easier, and such things like that.

but thanks for the great link.

SCID (http://scid.sourceforge.net/) is a very fine tool. It is freeware. Chessbase 10 is probably better but expensive.  Check for "SCID workshop" on google to learn the basics.

With SCID you could start with the "million base" from http://www.top-5000.nl/pgn.htm . The base has all the material from http://www.chess.co.uk/twic/twic (until #719 i think). If you add all the following TWICs (one new each week) you'll have an actual and quite good database for free.

I keep mine updated weekly. the latest updade is #826. It is around 2M games now

It's a very good idea to update from TWICS every week.

You can also find about 2M games here:

http://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html

Sorted by player, opening or event.

thanks BigAlex and rooperi. i already have the free scid program. and i will definitely look into getting all those pgn games.

btw, that "million base" was NOT pgn games. it was something different altogether.

I think I also had problems with that, can't remember

trigs I think what you're doing is a good idea because this way you only have quality players in your database, as opposed to having your database filled with substandard games.

I know some people filter their searches to, for example, +2500 rating, but then why have all those extra games in the databse if you're not going to use them? They just slow down the search process and take up space.

yeah, that's exactly why i was doing it that way. i think i'll keep them separate and just have two databases (well, actually three including my own games).

Icofy Base has somewhere in the neighbourhood of 4 million games, and is free.

that's awesome riga. thanks.