WML Software for Chess

A case for PosBase

In an article on ChessBase.com, Steve Lopez describes a problem when using position trees, where position/move statistics alone can give an unreliable indication of the actual value of the moves.

Indeed, beeing to see when particular moves were played, or who played the move can also give useful information helping you to make a better choice.

PosBase, a positional chess database, provides easy and quick access to exactly this information. It shows for any position in the database the list of all the games in which the position occurred, what move was played, and who played it. The list can be sorted on date as well as ELO.

Using PosBase, I was able to see that strong players were not playing 6. ... Ngxe5 anymore, but 6. ... O-O,

and that after 6. ... Ngxe5 7. Nxg5 Nxg5, strong players were very succesfully choosing 8.f4 (among them Smyslov).

Download PosBase and see for yourself!

I also have put up a pgn file with games that contain the variation under discussion as well.