| Game Search | ||
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 | Chapter 4. Chess Database |  |
| Game Search | ||
|---|---|---|
| | Chapter 4. Chess Database | |
Game search serves two purposes, it allows you to find games meeting a particular criteria, but it also allows you to control which games are processed when displaying the opening explorer stats.
The search results are displayed under the search filter. You can sort most of the columns by clicking on the column headings, the sort order can be reversed but clicking on the column header a second time. There are three icons shown in the first column:
Download PGNThe first icon on the left allows you to download the the PGN of the game.
Open Game in New WindowThe middle button allows you to open the game in a new pop-up window.
Open Game in Current WindowThe last button on the right allows you to load the game into the existing page.
If you click on any of the other links in the results list, they will take you to the relevant player or opening shown in the link.
Quick Search allows you to rapidly enter simple search criteria, without having to use the more complicated advanced search panel. Search criteria supported in quick search includes:
Any 4 digits e.g. 2007
Two years separated by a hyphen,
e.g. 2007-2009. All games played within the years will be matched.
Any ECO code, e.g. B52
Two ECO codes separated by a hyphen, e.g. B52-B56. This will search
for all games with openings within the ECO range.
A 4 digit number with a + at the end, e.g. 2500+, would match games where one of
the player's rating is 2500 or higher.
Any string preceded by the word event: will matches games in events
containing the following word. For example event:Corus. If you want to match more
than one word then you will need to put the words in quotes, for example: event:"World
Championship"
Any string preceded by the word site: will match all games played at sites
that match the following word, for example: site:London. Again, if you want to
match more than one word them quotes are required, for example: site:"New
York".
Any string preceded by the word opening: will match all games that used the
specified opening, for example: opening:Sicilian. Again, if you want to match
more than one word them quotes are required, for example: opening:"Sicilian
Dragon".
The name of a player, playing either white or black in a game. There is no special syntax
for player names, you can simply type them directly,
e.g. Kasparov.
The names of a pair of players playing each other. 'vs.', 'v' and 'vs' will also work as
replacements for 'versus'. Versus can also be left out, as long as the result is not a player name for
example Kasparov Karpov is equivalent to Kasparov versus
Karpov. Order of names is not important here, so Kasparov versus Karpov will return games
where both Karpov and Kasparov had the white pieces.
Advanced search allows more explicit control over search criteria than is provided under Quick Search, and also allows access to some search features not made available via Quick Search. When the database page is first loaded, the advanced search is hidden, to show the advanced search fields, click on the link.
Game Details Search allows you to specify criteria that are related to the game as a whole, currently the following criteria are supported:
Player
The name of the player. The more specific the name, the more specific the results, for example if you type 'Kasparov' will receive results from not only Garry Kasparov, but also Sergei Kasparov and Tatiana Kasparov. The name format is fairly flexible, so the following should all return the same results:
Garry Kasparov
G Kasparov
Kasparov, Garry
Kasparov, G
Some player names are given aliases, so for example 'Gary Kasparov' will be equivalent to 'Garry
Kasparov'. Several names can be added using semi-colons as separators for example:
Kasparov;Carlsen, will return games played by one of Kasparov and Carlsen
(but not necessarily against each other).
The rating range of the players to match. If no player names are specified, this will match all players with this rating range.
The colour of the pieces played by the player. There doesn't need to be a player name entered for this to apply, for example if a rating range is entered and 'white' is chosen as the piece colour, then it will apply the rating range to games where the white player had the rating range specified, instead of either player. Similarly, if a colour is selected here and an opponent player name is entered, then the opponent name will only be matched against games where the opponent played with the opposite colour to the one specified.
Specifies the outcome of the game from the first player's perspective. So for example if you enter Kasparov as the player name, and Karpov as the opponent player name and select 'Win' as the result, then you will search for all games where Kasparov beat Karpov. If you also select the piece colour , for example 'black' then you will return all games Kasparov beat Karpov where Kasparov played the black pieces. To search for any games where Kasparov won as black , you can select Kasparov as the player name, piece colour as 'black' and result as 'win', leaving the opponent name fields blank. Another example of a result based search is to look for games where Kasparov lost to players under 2500. This would require choosing Kasparov as the player name, choosing 'Loss' as the result and entering 0 and 2500 for the min/max rating for the opponent rating. Result's do not have to have player names entered, for example using setting result to 'Win' and piece colour 'Black' would return all games in the database where black won.
The name of the opponent. It is important to remember that player versus opponent name is not the same as white versus black player name. The player and opponent names are colour neutral unless the 'piece colour' option has been selected, so entering Kasparov as the player name and Karpov as the opponent name will return all games between Kasparov and Karpov, irrespective of which colour pieces each player had.
Rating range of the opponent. Like player rating range, this does not require an opponent name to have been entered, leaving opponent name blank and entering in values for the opponent rating will match all games with opponents within the rating range.
Year - Range of years in which matching games must have been played.
The total number of moves in the matching games. This value is in terms of half moves (also known as ply), so 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 would be 3 moves.
The name of the event that the matching games were played in. Multiple event names may be entered by separating them with the semi-colon character.
The name of the event that the matching games were played in, again a semi-colon can be used to separate multiple site names.
The name of the opening in each game to be matched, multiple openings can be entered by using a semi-colon to separate the names.
The ECO codes of matching games, multiple ECO codes can be separated with a
semi-colon, or eco ranges can be entered , for example E90-E92.
Material search allows you to search for particular material configurations on the board. This is especially useful for finding endgame positions to study, but can also be used for other purposes, such as using material value differences to find games involving sacrifices.
Material counts allow you to specify a position with a certain number of pieces of each type on the board. You can specify an exact number of pieces or a range of number of pieces. An exact count is specified by setting the minimum and maximum to the same value. Pieces types that don't have a count, or count range specified are treated as 'wildcards', that is any number of that piece type are allowed. Piece counts can be adjusted in several ways:
Directly entering the minimum or maximum values into the text box next to the piece.
Clicking the up or down arrows next to each minimum or maximum box will increase or decrease the count.
Clicking the piece icon either resets the min/max to 1, or if the min and max are already the same value it will increment them both. For example if a count range of 2-3 had been entered, then clicking on the piece icon will reset the count to exactly 1, subsequent clicks would increment both the min and max so the next click would create an exact count of 2, and the next 3 etc. If the count was already at an exact number (i.e. min/max the same value) then clicking will continue to increment both the min and max.
Clicking on the 
Zero Button
sets the count to zero, such that only positions with none
of that type of piece will be matched.
Clicking on the 
Cancel
Button will reset the count to the default. The default is the wildcard setting, which
will match any number of the piece.
In addition to each piece type there is also a 'Minor' piece type and a 'Value' type. 'Minor' pieces is a type which covers counts for both bishops and knights, so a count range of 1 to 2 here means you could have 1 bishop, 1 knight, 2 bishops , 2 knights, or just a bishop and a knight. The 'Value' count lets you search based on a count of material value, using the traditional values of:
Pawn - 1
Knight - 3
Bishop - 3
Rook - 5
Queen - 9
Kings are not counted in the 'Value' count, and therefore have effective value of zero for Value counts.
Material Difference ranges allow you to specify the material in relative difference to the opponent, rather than in absolute terms. So for example a material difference range of -2 for the pawns, means that the player is down 2 pawns compared to the opponent. This is often more flexible than using exact counts, as it covers all such situations rather than just one particular case, i.e. rather than just specifying a player pawn count of 6 and an opponent pawn count of 8, a pawn difference search of -2 includes all of player 0 pawns and opponent 2 pawns, player 1 pawn and opponent 3 pawns etc.
Material difference searches allow you to search for particular material inbalances on the board, for example by specifying an exact material difference in minor pieces of -1, and rooks +1 you can find positions where one side has won the exchange. You could also add a pawn difference range to this search of -2 to -1 to find won exchanges where the opponent was given 1 to 2 pawns in compensation.
Material differences can also be combined with exact material counts, so for example an exchange winning difference search could be combined with an exact count of zero for queens for both player and opponent , to find positions where the exchange was one and both queens are off the board.
Stability length specifies the number of ply (half moves) that the position must be stable for in order to match the search. The default value is two, which means the material situation must match the criteria and remain stable for at least the move on which the material balance occurred and after the subsequent opponent move.
The Bishop Square Colour option allows you to specify whether the bishops left on the board are on the same or different square colours.
It can sometimes be time consuming to set up a material search for a particular endgame type you are interested in. To make common endgame searches easier to perform, a quick endgame selector is provided at the top of the material search tab. The endgames are categorized using the same chapter and section divisions used in Reuben Fine's Basic Chess Endings.
All material search criteria are combined with the criteria from the game details tab, so for games to match the search, they must match both game details and material search criteria. The game details player and opponent criteria are especially relevant, as they dictate which colour pieces the player and opponent material is counting. By default the colour of the pieces is ignored during material matches so, for example a player material difference match of 'Minor -2 to -1' will match any position where either black or white was 1 or 2 minor pieces down. However, if you selected 'Piece Colour' white and did the same search you would only get positions where white was down 1 or 2 minor pieces.
Combining the game details 'Result' criteria allows for some interesting searches. For example specifying Result: 'Win' and a player 'Value' difference range of -38 to -5 and a longer stability length of say 4, you can see all the games where a player was down at least 5 points of material, for at least 4 moves, and still ended up winning the game. Particularly for high rated players' games, these positions are often going to be tactical sacrifices of a rook or queen.
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