BASIC GAME SEARCHES
Chess programs which provide large game databases will also provide you with tools to search that database( some people like to call it“ mining the database” or“ data mining”. I ' m not a huge fan of data“ mining”, because wearing that hardhat with the flashlight interferes with the headset I wear to block out the noise from the family watching television. I don ' t“ mine” my databases; I search them). The specific tools you ' ll use, in this case the variety of searches you can perform, will vary from program to program. At the minimum you should be able to search a database ' s games for players and chess openings.
Your chess program ' s help file or manual will provide specific details on the type of searches you can perform and the method for using the search tools. But there tend to be some common features which will apply to all programs. The most common database searches many players perform are searches by player name and chess opening.
When you search a database for a player ' s name, type his or her last name first, followed by the first name ' s initial or the entire first name. Think of it like using a telephone book – if you ' re looking for“ John Smith”, you ' d look under“ S”( not“ J”) for“ Smith, John”. Chess databases work the same way. Type the last name first. As far as the entry method for a first name or initial, different programs do this different ways; I ' ve seen programs which provide a separate box in which you ' d type the first name, others which require a comma followed by the first name in the same box as the last name, and still others which provide a drop-down menu of first name choices based on what ' s in the database.
You ' ll also typically see two fields in which you can type a player ' s name, one field for White and one for Black, with a separate toggle for turning the“ color specific” feature on and off. With the feature turned on, you ' d type a player ' s name in the box beside“ White” or“ Black” to get only the games in which the player had that color; with it turned off, you can type a player ' s name in either box to get all of that player ' s games, regardless of what color he or she played.
After you enter a player ' s name, you ' ll click a button to start the search. Chess playing programs( as opposed to the more sophisticated chess database applications) generally don ' t display the search results in a new window, but will“ mask” games which don ' t meet your search criteria, showing you just the games which do match what you searched for. The length of time this will take depends on the size of the database, the speed of your computer ' s processor, and the manner in which the data is encoded, but generally shouldn ' t be more than a few seconds for simple searches. You can then load a game from the list( usually by doubleclicking on it) and replay it on the program ' s chess board.
121 chessking. com