ChessBase 9.0 Mega Package

ChessBase 9.0 is so HUGE it comes on DVD!

You will receive in your Mega Package:

• ChessBase 9.0 Program
• ChessBase Mega Database
• DVD Endgame Turbo
• Corr Database
• CBM subscription (6 issues)
• Fritz 5.32 Engine and Crafty Engine
• Player database with 180,000 names and 20,000 pictures
• Training lessons (Chess Media system)

Exclusive ChessCentral Bonus: With your purchase of ChessBase 9.0 you will receive FREE the classic E-book Common Sense in Chess by World Champion Emanuel Lasker.

About ChessBase 9.0

The ChessBase 9.0 chess software program is a personal, stand-alone chess database manager that has become the standard throughout the world. Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it. With ChessBase you can: enter, annotate, and save games - including variations, text commentary, spoken comments, embedded pictures, soundtracks and even video sequences; analyze positions with GM-strength modules Fritz and Crafty (both included); retrieve games according to openings, players and tournaments; generate tournament crosstables and full graphic statistics of players or openings; merge games on-the-fly into an opening tree; generate a player's dossier containing all available information from the database; find the new move in a game with one mouse click; generate a comprehensive openings report with main and critical lines, plans and most important games; search for material distribution, positions and maneuvers, search for mates and stalemates; classify games according to self-defined middle and endgame criteria; print games in superb DTP quality with diagrams and multiple columns...and much, much more. Supports the following languages: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

ChessBase 9.0 has an explorer-style database browser; easy and direct access to the comprehensive ChessBase online database (updated weekly); freely configurable board and list windows, new table notation for openings repertoire; virtual sorting of database lists; optimal integration of ChessBase analysis engines; larger players encyclopedia; print preview; automatic e-mail transmission of positions, games or databases; management of team championships; intelligent search for tactical themes; search in variations; improved search speed; automatic transmission of games to Fritz6 & higher.

• Fritz5.32 Engine & Crafty Engine
• Corr Database
• DVD Endgame Turbo
• ChessBase Mega Database
• CBM-subscription (6 issues)
• Two multimedia CD's & Player encyclopedia with over 13,000 pictures

ChessBase 9.0 New Features
and Improvements!

New Database Browser for ChessBase 9.0

The Database Window (containing the game list, player, tournament index, opening keys, etc.) has been rewritten from scratch. The lists are configurable, sortable and present more information than in previous versions.

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• Left-click on a column header (“White”) to sort the list by this attribute.
• Drag a column header left or right to change the order of columns.
• Right-click on a column header for a menu to hide or show individual columns.
• Right-click in the game list for predefined list formats and font choices.
• Point the mouse arrow at an arbitrary item to get extra (“Tool Tip”) information like first names, or explanation of abbreviated data like medals.
• Double-click a game to load.
• Hold the Ctrl-key to click and select several games.
• Drag one or several games with the mouse to another position in the list to reorder the list manually. Hint: use this to control printing and merging order.
• Drop the notation from a board window into the list to save a game.

Integrated Player, Tournament, Source, Annotator and Team Index for ChessBase 9.0

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• Click on the player tab of the database browser to see an index of all players in a database.
• Type the first letters of a name to jump to a player in the list. Hit F7 to set the cursor into the edit field (Type Here). Hit Tab to jump from the search edit field into the player (or tournament, team, etc.) list.
• Click on a player in the list to see his games and his tournaments.
• Click on a column to sort the player list by name, total number of games, recent Elo rating, Country, photo, etc.
• An improved index format (two additional files) yields this information without searches in the database as in ChessBase 6, 7, and 8.
• Click “Filter” to search for players by country, Elo, title, etc.

For Tournaments, Source, Annotator and Teams, you find similar browsers. For tournaments, the Full Text Search in the tournament filter is especially useful.

New Opening Key Layout for ChessBase 9.0

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In ChessBase 9, you navigate through opening keys in the way of the Windows File Explorer:

• Use Cursor Up/Down to move between variations. The games of the variation will be shown automatically in the games window below.
• Use Cursor Right to open a node with sub variations, and Cursor Left (or Backspace) to jump to the previous node.
• Click on the “Notation” column in the games list to sort the games by move order, beginning from the critical position. The moves leading to the classification position are shown as title at the top, together with classification code and traditional name of the opening line.

Automatic Opening Reference for ChessBase 9.0

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The board window introduces a fast background search automatically showing all moves and all games played in the current position from the reference database. The best players, the best Elo, the score and the latest date of a move played are shown. A couple of moves into a variation, the search responds instantaneously, even on slower computers. The background search profits from the Hyperthreading feature of modern Intel processors.

• Click on a move in the reference window to execute it on the board.
• Use Cursor Up/Down/Left/Right to navigate in the opening reference.
• Right-click on a game in the game list and select “Copy to notation” to create a comfortable opening annotation in your original game. If the selected games have variations, you will be prompted to include them or not.

New HEUMAS

HEUMAS, the Heuristic Move Assistant, has been rewritten from scratch. HEUMAS radically speeds up entering games. If you click on a square, the most plausible move to or from this square is marked and executed upon release of the mouse button. HEUMAS now contains its own embedded chess engine and openings book. If the board window for entering a game has an openings book loaded, this will be used additionally. The average hit rate for move suggestions is higher than 97%, if clicking on the target square in Grandmaster games.

HTML Support in Database Text

All texts by ChessBase 9.0 (Repertoire Scan, Player Dossier, Opening Report) are generated in HTML. Furthermore creating your own database text can be done in an HTML editor, providing all the compatibility advantages of this format.

Game History for ChessBase 9.0

All your loaded and saved games are stored automatically in the Game History. Day by Day, Month by Month, Year by Year, this creates a full record of your chess work, at a rate of one database per day:

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• In the board window, click the Back/Forward buttons to go back to games you used earlier this day. Alternatively, type Alt-Cursor Left/Right like in Internet Explorer.
• Click on Game History in the Database folder window, then on Search, to search in all databases of the history for a game, player, position, etc.
• While you are entering a game, it is stored automatically in the history every ten minutes as an automatic version backup.

You can switch off the history for security reasons if doing sensitive preparation work.

Fast Real 3D Board supported for ChessBase 9.0

ChessBase 9.0 contains the ultra fast DirectX-based 3D board (Modern) with a simple but aesthetic piece design. This beautiful board is not an aesthetic show piece but optimized for speed, contrast and thus optimal visualization for practical chess work. Initialization of the Modern board takes less than a second on a modern graphics adapter.

Best Practice for 3D Boards:

• Use Settings -> 3D Effects -> Shadows -> Rendered Shadow for a fast but realistic shadow effect.
• Experiment with Settings -> 3D Effects -> Animation to get a smooth move animation.
• Right Click and drag the board to change its orientation.
• Ctrl-Mousewheel to zoom.
• Ctrl-Right Click to change the view point.

Piece sets from other ChessBase programs like Fritz8 can also be used.

Threat Animation for ChessBase 9.0

The board window has an embedded chess engine which denotes the threat in the current position as orange arrow. It also optionally points out the move which creates the strongest threat. This is not necessarily the strongest move, but highlights possible tactics and will inspire your analysis.

Black can play 17…Ng4 to create a two-move threat, winning a piece: 18…Nxe3 and 19…Qxa5.

• Call Menu/Help/Threat as Arrow to show the current threat as orange arrow.
• Call Menu/Help/Create Threat as Arrow to show the move posing the strongest threat.

Improved Search for ChessBase 9.0

• Full text search in game headers
• Negated game header search (“NOT”).
• Search for number of pieces on the board (“6-men endgames”).
• Search for wins of a player.
• Improved entry on OR and NOT board in position search.

Various Improvements for ChessBase 9.0

1. Chess Media System (teaching videos with synchronized chess boards) integrated. Menu File -> Open -> Chess Media System.
2. Load a single annotated game as opening book. Right-click in game list -> Selection to tree.
3. Delete and replace games in PGN Databases. Hit Del.
4. Full integration of the DGT sensor board.
5. New notation “Score Sheet” including print functions.
6. Reordering of variations when annotating a game. Hit Ctrl-Arrow-Up/Down in the variation choice dialog to move a variation.
7. Integrated client to chess server playchess.com.
8. Classification of database in opening keys speeded up.
9. Mirror board in position setup on both axes. Useful to create “new” tactical puzzles.
10. Configure Windows Clipboard (e.g. type of PGN format): Menu Options -> Clipboard.
11. Drag & Drop from and to all lists.
12. Optional display of final material in all game lists. Menu Tools -> Classification -> Final Material in the Database Browser Window generates this information.
13. Save Games by Drag&Drop or Edit/Copy-Paste from a game notation to a database list. Hit Ctrl-C, then change to database list (or to database preview in main window), hit Ctrl-V to save.
14. Forfeit (win by default) as new game result.
15. Tool Tips explain notation symbols.
16. Text annotation entry dialog can be resized. Remembers last position and size.
17. Clean Up Variations.
18. Spoken notation.
19. Board sounds.
20. Changing of tournament, source, annotator, team for multiple game selections: Right-click on selection -> Edit -> More
21. Reset of Elo numbers for multiple games. Example: Internet tournament with inflated Elo: Open tournament index, click on the tournament, click in the game list, hit Ctrl-A, Right-Click -> Edit -> More -> Reset Elo numbers.
22. User defined shortcuts for all menu entries.
23. Improved handling of training questions, including new multiple choice training.
24. Improved presentation of game overview in multiple diagrams.
25. Shows Archives (.CBV-file) in database explorer window and file selector.
26. Correspondence notation (“1.5254 5755”) supported also for keyboard entering.
27. Correspondence management information visible in game lists.
28. Tournament Template with correspondence chess options like time control.
29. Improved correspondence chess management in printing, emailing, holiday, etc.
30. Improved match recognition in tournament cross tables.
31. Supports huge database with > 4G file size.
32. UCI Engine interface.
33. Engine parameters can be saved as individual files.
34. Tablebase directory configuration improved.
35. Multivariation analysis shows which lines have been verified at current search depth.
36. Improved graphics like transparent arrows on the board.
37. New size-optimized GIFs for Javascript-games. Right-click on game selection -> Output -> HTML + Javascript
38. Supports Windows ClearType font management in game lists and notation.
39. Improved cooperation with Outlook for emailing games.
40. Create a new database with Right-Click “New ChessBase Database” in Windows Explorer.
41. All file types registered in Windows.
42. Reacts without fuss to removal of a CD: Related database windows are closed automatically.
43. Evaluation column in repertoire print function. Menu Print/Repertoire for heavily annotated opening analysis.

System Recommendations

Windows XP or better, 256 MB RAM, 1 GHz or better. New Graphics adapter for a fast 3D board.
Required: Windows 98 at least, 64 MB RAM, 300 MHz.
ChessBase 9.0 does not support Win 95 or NT 3.