Use of Databases

What's your own opinion in the use of databases, like the Game Explorer - while playing the Opening of your game? 

If we use databases, do we cheat ourselves of the value of learning the game?

Or do the databases enhance the learning process?

I think they can be helpful if used properly. That means not just blindly following the most popular moves if you don't understand why they were made. It's better to make a sub-optimal move you can at least grasp the ideas behind.

A good thing to do I think is to try and analyze the position just by yourself 1st and come up with a move before comparing your move with the choices from the database you're using. Also, if there are several good choices to choose from it may be a good idea to search deeply into all of them to get a better understanding of which one you prefer.

It's very helpful. A useful thing to do is to look through several recent games with your opening played. If you use the game explorer enough, eventually you'll memorize the lines and that will improve your otb play (or live chess).

I prefer using the NIC online database, my own filtered bases, or Chess Informants. There's too much junk in the Game Explorer base, although it is handy and I'll sometimes employ it as a quick data check concerning a candidate move, especially if it is one I've not played before, or not often, or only in blitz.

Access to such resources whilst playing is a central appeal of correspondence (turn-based) chess, and has contributed in no small measure to my 300+ OTB Elo rise over the past five years.

I find that such resources are most helpful for identifying GM games to target for study.

Good points, thanks...

but after thinking about the next move, then checking the database,

doesn't it seem like we're cheating ourselves of the value of learning the game?

Or do the databases enhance the learning process?

It depends on your motivation. You can blindly follow a database and reach a middlegame with no idea how you got there or you can take a database move and research what makes it a prefered move. I have always used opening books in conjunction with an opening database. I've always wanted to know why a particular move is made.

Databases render it possible to learn certain things that most of us cannot learn without. Yes, they enhance the learning process.

Of course, some folks are able to use them without learning, just as some folks grow more ignorant when they read. Don't blame the form of books when some writers and readers use them to cultivate stupidity.

You know, that's really not the worst thing in the world. I'm currently 10 moves deep as White in a QID, having never played 1.d4 in my life, due to a db. So I get what I know is a solid middlegame and maybe I'll learn something from having to orientate myself in a totally new environment.

 I've actually been using databases to play random openings. I use the counts for the top few moves to create a random table and roll dice to decide my first few moves. I'm trying to get a feel for a broader range of possibilities in the opening to help my Chess960 play. Then I look over some of the games from that position to try and see what the strategic implications of the position are.

True. Things are not good or bad, but it is the use we make of them that it can be better or worse...

Some people say that tools like Chessbase are not useful for players below 1800 elo. Well... I certainly do not reach 1800 and ChessBase Light seems to me a very useful tool.

I believe that correspondance chess is good to learn something, just because databases are allowed. If you use the database just to choose your following move in the opening and then you play it and forget it, you are not going to learn much (so in a way, database is playing for you!). But the database can serve you to study the basics (and maybe the secrets?) of different openings and variations, helping to build your own repertoire.

Notice that you can not do it while playing blitz, just because you are not allowed to use databases! (well, actually you can, but after the game is finished, so playing and study are more separated).

So yes, databases help you learn, if you make good use of them. I have described just one of (probably) many.

I think that computers generally have damaged chess, I wont go into all the ways rather stick to ths point of learning.

in the old days we had adjournments, you would take the position down, stick it in an envelope with a sealed move and then resume the game later, often matches swung on these adjourned games.

The strong players would then start work on it with you, I learned masses of endgame technique in this way as a teen, from strong players and about how to analyse a position. I mean my crumby game was getting picked over by an IM.

Phrases like

Queen and knight are alright 

Shoulder charge that King ( a soccer term)

A lot of stuff I learned years ago still stays with me all these years later.

Now adjournments are dead and allegro is in.

 Sad really I have seen 20 people round a board all going at the position encouraged great club nights, that is the price of compter aided chess.

Since 1998, I've played over 45,000 blitz games on ICC, Playchess, Live Chess.com, and a handful of other sites. I've even played eight games on Yahoo (all wins).

I play OTB as often as I can, and am president of my local chess club. My OTB rating has gone up 400 points since I began active use of databases for turn-based chess.

I no longer buy chess books on openings.

I use the Fritz Megabase and check lines just for ideas, I have never been known to have an original Chess idea myself you see.

i've actually found myself using the games explorer less and less now that i'm learning the openings more. i only really consult it when i'm in an opening i don't know anything about. therefore, it was instrumental to me learning proper and solid openings and reaching strong middle games.

in my opinion, it's a great tool..if used correctly and not over-used.

In order to come up with intelligent novelties, you need a working knowledge of what moves have been played before, what the main lines are, etc.  Game Explorer might not be the best source for that - there are chesspub, specialist monographs, encyclopedias like ECO/NCO/Chessbase, etc. which explain more of the ideas or help you decide which lines are stronger - but Game Explorer does at least, give you some idea of the state of grandmaster theory.  Game Explorer is also useful if you know that your opponent is married to his database, because you can look for one-off fluke games where the result did not match the strength of the line, once popular lines that have been refuted or lines that are strong but neglected, and then use these to try to catch your opponent in a trap.

Using a games database is like consulting a recipe book while baking a cake: if you don't make it from scratch using only what you remember in your head, the cake will turn out perfectly the same every time.

You can't consider something cheating on your own. It's defined by the rules of the community, to which all of us have agreed. You can't call anyone cheater for using databases for example, it wouldn't mean anything. You just have the choice to not use one yourself.

While there is nothing wrong with not using a database, it IS a valuable learning tool when used properly.  Using it properly is NOT to have it "tell you what the next move is or even to confirm what you think it is."  With proper use, you're still doing all of the thinking.

Let's say I'm playing a game, and I reach an opening with which I am not familiar.  I would look and create my list of candidate moves.  Then, I go to the database and compare.  Say I have 5 candidate moves.  Maybe 4 of them are in the top 5 choices and all have reasonable percentages.  I've already done all the thinking for all of those moves that I need to do. 

Now, say my fifth candidate scores poorly or isn't played often enough to be notable.  Then, I'll go back and try to figure out why.  I may look through a sample game to help with this.  Maybe the move really is bad, and this further thinking will tell me something I didn't know about the opening or about chess in general.  Maybe the move is good, but not many people have played it because more common moves seem to be better or seem to be more obvious.  In this case, I may have discovered a TN, and further research and/or play with this move is suggested.

Finally, there was a move that scored decently which I had not considered.  This will prompt me to go back and try to figure out why it works.  Maybe I discounted it as a candidate because I saw a tactic for the other side.  In this case, if the move is played a lot and works out mostly, then perhaps there is a counter-tactic for my side.  I just need to look further into the position to find it.  Maybe I simply never considered it as an option (say it moves a piece to a seemingly poor square or backtracks a piece's movements).  This, then, tells me something about my own thought processes that needs adjustment - a blind spot that I need to work on.

See, when used properly, a database does SO much more than simply tell you what moves are statistically best.  Used properly, they can help you learn more about specific openings, they can help improve your board vision, they can help you to strengthen your thought processes, and they can help you to remove some of the blind spots that may be tripping you up.

Does anyone find openings fun? Genuine question.

My main goal is to get out of the opening as fast as I can and hope I can paper over deficiencies in my position in the middlegame!

I find it difficult to study openings or retain much information on them.

Were do the chess.com opening databases come from, anyway?