Board window: Right-click the chessboard

 

Menu Report - Opening report

 

 

This is one of the most powerful instruments for openings study available today – and it is very easy to use. Before trying it out you must make sure that a reference database has been defined, so that ChessBase will know which material to use for its openings report.

 

Now let us assume you are interested in a particular openings line. With the critical position on the board click Openings report. With no pre-stored information ChessBase will go through the million or so games in your reference database and generates a comprehensive report on what it finds (this is known as “data mining”).

 

 

This is what it contains:

 

The historical development of the variation

This includes the earliest and latest games. Click any of the entries on the top to load the game. The “fashion index” gives the percentage of games relative to the entire database.

 

Notable players

Lists the players who have used the line, and their success rates. You can click the game links, or on any of the players' namesfor information on the player.

 

Statistics

This shows you how each side is scoring, the percentage of decisive games, the average length, etc.

 

 

Best moves

Tells you which moves which are scoring best. This is computed on the basis of the number of games, success rates, Elo performance, Elo average of the opponents, number of players with Elo > 2550, results in recent games and the popularity of each move in recent years. The most interesting games are listed, and you can click them to load and study.

 

Main and critical lines, repertoire and plans

ChessBase shows you the main lines and the critical line. The latter is the one in which both White and Black make the statistically most promising moves. Once again you can click the games to load and replay. ChessBase also tells you what you should play and shows which plans are involved.

 

The openings report is a database text in HTML format.

 

In addition to the report ChessBase also generates an Opening Reference for the variation you are studying.