ChessBase is a German company that develops and sells chess software, maintains a chess news site, and operates an internet chess server for online chess. Founded in 1986, it maintains and sells large-scale databases containing the moves of recorded chess games. The databases contain data from prior games and provide engine analyses of games, while endgame tablebases offer optimal play in some endgames.
ChessBase's Indian YouTube channel ChessBase India has amassed more than a million YouTube subscribers and more than 671 million total views as of November 2022.
Starting in 1983, Frederic Friedel and his colleagues put out a magazine Computer-schach und Spiele covering the emerging hobby of computer chess. In 1985, Friedel invited then world chess champion Garry Kasparov to his house. Kasparov mused about how a chess database would make it easier for him to prepare for specific opponents. Friedel began working with Bonn physicist Matthias Wüllenweber who created the first such database, ChessBase 1.0, as software for the Atari ST. The February 1987 issue of Computer-schach und Spiele introduced the database program as well as the ChessBase magazine, a floppy disk containing chess games edited by chess grandmaster John Nunn.
The August 1991 issue of Computer-schach und Spiele announced that Dutch programmer Frans Morsch's Fritz program would soon be available for purchase as software for PCs. This method of software sale was unlike all the dedicated chess computers which at the time dominated the ratings lists. This program was marketed initially as Knightstalker in the U.S., while it was marketed as Fritz in the rest of the world. Mathias Feist joined ChessBase, and ported Fritz to DOS and then Microsoft Windows.
In 1994, German chess grandmaster Rainer Knaak joined ChessBase as a full-time employee, annotating games for the ChessBase magazine, and soon authoring game database CD-ROMs on topics such as the Trompowsky Attack or Mating Attacks against 0-0.
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An endgame tablebase is a computerized database that contains precalculated exhaustive analysis of chess endgame positions. It is typically used by a computer chess engine during play, or by a human or computer that is retrospectively analysing a game that has already been played. The tablebase contains the game-theoretical value (win, loss, or draw) in each possible position, and how many moves it would take to achieve that result with perfect play. Thus, the tablebase acts as an oracle, always providing the optimal moves.
Chess.com is an internet chess server and social networking website. The site has a freemium model in which some features are available for free, and others are available for accounts with subscriptions. Live online chess can be played against other users in daily, rapid, blitz or bullet time controls, with a number of chess variants also available. Chess versus a chess engine, computer analysis, chess puzzles and teaching resources are also offered.
In computer chess, a chess engine is a computer program that analyzes chess or chess variant positions, and generates a move or list of moves that it regards as strongest. A chess engine is usually a back end with a command-line interface with no graphics or windowing. Engines are usually used with a front end, a windowed graphical user interface such as Chessbase or WinBoard that the user can interact with via a keyboard, mouse or touchscreen.