Chess Opening Statistics, where to get them

Where to get more resources which gives you opening statistics?

I'm after statistics that show which openings (or positions) are performing well in serious tournaments or correspondence chess from year 2005.

The Game Explorer feature here at chess.com gives some of that information with only a few clicks of your mouse. Premium membership is needed to access ALL the info there.

A more flexible and powerful method (but one requiring an additional investment) would be to acquire software such as ChessBase, with it's massive database of master games. Presuming you have to games to analyze from either ChessBase or another source, ChessBase can give you the statistics. Another way to get great games is at TWIC. My collection of games from that source over the past 5 or so years numbers >700,000 high-level games. Using ChessBase and appropriate menu selections, I can determine those stats.

here is a good source"

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/adam.bozon/stats.htm

Thank you guys. Really appreciate your contribution to this topic. Cheers!

Would you like to tell us more why?

365chess is good.

It only takes one game to bust a line that has been popular for years.  You may have to look at the actual games, and see why they were won or lost before you can draw conclusions about the playability of particular moves.  Aggregate win/draw/loss stats tell you what moves have been popular in a given time period, but they tell you less about whether a move is good or bad.

I agree, lines can be bust. But does it really render the line unplayable forever?

Can anybody be expected to know every refutation of everything? Say some line of the French was busted in the 1940's, does every French player today KNOW that refutation? If he doesn't, can he be expected to find OTB in a limited time what took the best players on earth a hundred years the first time around?

Just thinking out load, please ignore.....

I think I agree with you, rooperi, in a way.  If you know a sharp line better than your opponent, you are likely to win with it as both white and black, to some extent regardless of the line's ultimate soundness.

My point is a bit different though.  What I am trying to say is that instead of putting blind faith in a database, it is better to get to know the ins and outs of your favourite lines, so you don't end up falling into a trap that other players have already fallen for.  There's no sense in repeating other people's mistakes just because they were at one time popular in the database.

Buy a book.  That seems to help.

Very good points everyone. So from what I can get from your comments is the thought of disregarding past games and focus more on the latest games or database.

So which source is always recent with their database?

Actually, I think what we are all trying to say is that relying too much on a database can be dangerous.  As Rooperi says, some busts might be found in very old games, and you would need to sort through to figure out what line was the bust.

Latvianfan is probably right that books and magazine articles on particular openings will probably help you more than looking at database stats.  A good book can point out why certain moves are considered good or bad rather than just what is or was popular at any given time.

As Drawmaster says, if you just want a source for recent GM games to analyze, TWIC is pretty good.  You'll need to play through the games though to figure out which ones were lost by errors late in the game, and which ones were decided in the opening.

www.365chess.com