Chessbase: worth to purchase or not?

Playing almost only Daily Games I feel the need of a good database. I am using chessgames.com but I think I need more and more recent games. What you think about purchasing Chessbase?

Here is the description of Mega Database 2018:

"The exclusive annotated database. Contains more than 7.8 millions games from 1560 to 2017 in the highest ChessBase quality standard. 71,000 games contain commentary from top players, with ChessBase opening classification with more than 100,000 key positions, direct access to players, tournaments, middlegame themes, endgames. The largest topclass annotated database in the world. The most recent games of the database are from the middle of October 2017. Mega 2018 also features a new edition of the playerbase (requires ChessBase 14, 13 or 12). As usual, this is where most of the work was done. As the player index now contains already more than 330,000 entries, it made sense to use an adapted playerbase which includes about 430,000 names. Doing this, the photo database was extended as well to contain 37,000 pictures now."  Price: 159.90 Euro

Is this database something exaggerated for a guy with a rating around 1600?  Thank you very much for your opinion.

I have the Mega 2018. It's great for making your own thematic PGN/database collections. And for searching for game positions. But frankly I don't use it for much else. It's just nice to have and to have lots of games of my favourite players. It's really overkill for someone of my rating, but it might be of more use to you, as you are much higher-rated. I should warn you that many of the "annotated" games in Mega are just done with symbols, though there are also many verbally annotated games in English, German and French.  You will have to pay to keep your Mega fully up-to-date after the first 6 months of ownership (I believe it was). To run this DB, you will also need to buy CB 14 database program.

Thanks for the information. I have to check how much this CB 14 Database program costs.

Did you download or did you use a disk?

Download

I have and use Chessbase 14 on just about a daily basis. I find it extremely useful, despite my relatively low rating. I also have and use Fritz 16.

For daily chess, it is a GREAT tool if you know how to use some of its features. The obvious use is finding lines in the opening and then understanding what kinds of middlegames came out of it. A less obvious use is to use the pattern matching for when there is not an exact match.

But I also use it extensively for annotating my games and in my studying.

Personally I bought the disk rather than a download. I also got it with the Big Database 2018 (cheaper) instead of the Mega database. The games are the same. The difference is in the annotation, the big database has none. I already had lots of annotated games anyway from Fritz 16.

At least the version I bought, the database can be freely updated for a full year. After that, you can either subscribe for the next years update, or you can use TWIC (this week in chess).

I had really debated about whether this would be a worthwhile purchase for me since I'm only USCF 1437 (and that is a really old rating from back in the early 90s). I am very happy with the purchase. I suspect if you are heavy into daily games, you will find it very useful as well.

Chessbase 14 is quite good. Especially for post mortem analysis and maintaining a repertoire.

It's not worth the cost for club players. Just download a free and open source program such as SCID vs PC, ChessX, Tarrasch Chess GUI, etc. These free and open source programs have the same functions any ChessBase proprietary program has.  Also, ChessBase only permits three downloads with the software key given to you at the time of your purchase. If you do download a ChessBase product, be careful to deactivate the program before transferring it to another computer. Once you use all three "activations" without "deactivating" you'll have to purchase the software again. For these reasons, it's my opinion that communities should support and promote free and open source software.

By all means download one of the free ones like SCID vs PC and try it. I did. I didn't like it. YMMV.

There comes a point where adding more games to a database doesn't really make a difference.  Two million games vs four million games, the second is twice as big only a fraction more useful.  It's generally more important to have a current set of games rather than a large set of games.  That is, a 10 million game database that stops at year 2000 is much less useful than one that has only a million games but comes to the current year.

With all the free databases out there on the Internet, and virtually every modern game and major tournament being updated in real time, I don't know why a non-professional would ever pay money for a database, let alone what Chessbase charges.

Wait, Fritz 16 comes with annotated games? I hadn't noticed...

Nicely stated! I only download games of openings and positions I find relevant to my own games and playing style.

It sure does. Not as many as the Mega Database but still quite a few! If I have done this right there is something like 57820 of them!

OK, thanks madratter, I will see if I can find them in my Fritz. Most likely they are duplicates of the ones that come with Mega 2018 anyway. 

Btw guys, Chessmaster GM edition also comes with around 900 excellently annotated games.

The reason is simple. Some of us are willing to pay for a more professional product. If you like a free database, by all means use it. That certainly makes sense for you. But that doesn't mean everyone is going to like it and it doesn't mean it is silly for a non-professional to use something they actually paid for.

As stated, despite being anything but a professional chess-player, I use Chessbase 14 almost daily. I like it, it makes sense to me, the GUI is professionally done, and the cost of ownership, at least for me, was not that high. Why not?

To use an analogy from music, I play guitar. Can I play a cheap Fender Squire and make it sound good? Of course I can. But I own and use more expensive guitars. I enjoy playing them much more than I would a squire. I can afford it, so why not?

In my opinion, Chessbase is for players that really need a place to organize and look for the materials that they need. I think those players would probably be a bit stronger than you are, so you may not need it. But, of course, if you really do think it's necessary, by all means go for it.

Get Chessbase! It has so many purposes. 

In addition to the opening work already mentioned for daily games, this organization of materials thing is certainly true. I have quite a few databases I use. For example, I have a database for Yusupov that I am studying. I have a database for "The Amateurs Mind". I have a database for Bobby Fischer's 60 memorable games. I have a database for Fischer vs Spassky. I have a database for the London system and for the Black Lion openings. I have databases for my regular games and for my blitz games. And the list goes on. All of those are easily accessible.

I really think that databases are a great idea even for weaker players. Whether you want a professional product like Chessbase, or a free product like SCID vs PC is a decision each person will need to weigh on their own.

TBH I have bought chessbase but do not find myself using it that often.

Torru mentions Chessable quite a bit.  How much more benefit will Chessbase/Scid give to Torru above and beyond what he is already doing with Chessable?

Spongey is renowned for posting links to reviews of books.  I have some of those books.  It will take me "forever" to go over the games in those books (especially if I use the "cover up the moves and guess the move method").  What is the marginal value for Torru (or me, for that matter) to obtain a huge database of games above and beyond the books we already have?