Happy New Year to all!
This week’s review involves a site where you can search a huge online database of games by player names, ratings, locations, dates, eco codes and more. There are over 2 million games in the database and it seems to be kept nicely up to date. For example, I found games from the very recent Nakamura/Karjakin match held in Mexico - which finished on 12/17/04. The site does require java but most internet surfers already have the necessary software for that. Once you find a game you can load it in the game window and play through the moves. You can even make a different move and have the site analyze what the response should be. I have no idea how powerful the analysis actually is but it is a nifty feature. Sometimes the games take a while to load into the game window but usually they are very fast, so don’t be put off if the first time you try it things seem a little slow.
In addition to searching games you can also load puzzles to solve by clicking on the appropriate tab. You can move the pieces on the board and ask for hints/solutions. Finally, if you go to the homepage of chesslab you can sign up to play various online games, obviously including chess. I don’t play on their service so I can’t vouch for the quality of play but it is free to register and play.
So go check it out at http://www.chesslab.com/PositionSearch.html and let me know what you think.
Until next time….
Tom Fleetwood
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