A database with games annotated by members?

To analyze your own games is a great way to improve your chess. Also, to have your games analyzed by a stronger player is a great learning tool.

I would love to see a data base of annotated games at ! It would be excellent to be able to submit your self-annotated games to a database and to have those games re-analyzed by a stronger player.

Why on earth would anyone do the time consuming task to annotate games by other players? Well, perhaps to earn the right to have one of his or her games being analyzed by a stronger player.

Maybe a first step would be a database with games annotated by members?

The idea is very good – not sure it will be easy to implement though.

As you know, I recently started taking chess lessons: one of the things that stroke me the most is the difference between a game annotated by a computer, and a game annotated by a strong player. Whenever I lose a game, I annotate it thoroughly and I have it analyzed by my teacher, who uses my annotations to understand my way of reasoning and correct my flaws. Basically, the computer analysis does little more than spotting blunders and missed tactical opportunities (which, of course, is much better than nothing!). while a strong player can do much more than that: helping you to understand your weak points, giving strategic advise and so on.

Reason why I think it will be difficult to implement something like this is exactly what you said – motivating a strong player to spend time to analyze games.

I’m not sure a “laddered approach” (you are 1600, review the game of a 1300 to have a 1900 analyzing your game) will work, mainly because you need to be a strong player tout-court to analyze in a useful manner a game.

Agreed! Quality control is another issue.

Still, no harm in dreaming of new features. Erik is very good at making dreams come true.

True - in Erik we trust!

This said, in this case, the problem will be the user and not the system... 

From the low number of replies that this thread generated, I am afraid we can also infer the general interest on the topic - sad, but true, I fear!

It seems more than a bit redundant... there are already two forums devoted to annotated games, Games Showcase and Game Analysis... post a game with your own annotations... other players review it. (It's not "databased" and I've been disappointed sometimes, posting games that generated little interest -- but overall they seem to serve the purpose of providing commentary for member games) But maybe I don't understand? What are you looking for that the two forums don't provide? 

Basically the abillity to Search in the database and hopefully a system that encourages people to annotate games by other players.

That is an awesome idea.  Tie together game analysis and database.  Not only what move is right but why.  People would flock to such a database.

Farbror has another great idea. Add me to a list that would be glad to analyze games with comment to help.e-mail me games at [chesskia@bellsouth.net] add your e-mail address so i can sen it back completed.

From what I've seen with this site, all you have to do is post a game with comments and the people here will definitely throw their two-cents in.  If you post with a question towards the players (such as, "Where in the middle game did I lose this" or "Where did I mess up") I know I am not shy about telling you what my opinion is.  But if you want me to constantly analyze your games from beginning to end then I want some kind of compensation.  I charge for that service. 

If Erik feels up to it that's great.  Of course, that opening explorer isn't that bad either and it exists.  It isn't annotated, but a huge number of moves are considered for every possible move there is a little bar-type graph of whether a move is better for white, black or drawish. A huge number of continuations are considered.  If the move you are contemplating is not listed, I'll bet there is a blunder involved--figuring the puzzle is yours!  All positions are illustrated.  Check it out

I am willing to help !

Perhaps the idea would gain greater momentum if someone posted an example - preferably for a short game. Especially, if alternative annotations were provided for that single game: by players of different strengths and by computer analysis.

That would be most enlightning! To get a glimpse of the differences in chess vision between ordinary wood pushers and stronger players!

This may be a good idea in principle but it is utterly unworkable in fact.  At a wild guess, only 1 percent of the users are masters or GMs whose annotations would be semi-reliable and instructive, and why would they take the time to review patzer games?  I'm usually acutely aware of why I just lost a blitz game, without needing one of them to tell me.  You can learn way more studying annotated GM games than my own annotated games, unless you want to learn how to hang material and overlook hanging material.