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Editor: Dr Tim Harding
   Dr. Tim Harding   J. H. Blackburne     Paul Morphy   Correspondence Chess history book   Captain W. D. Evans

UC 2023 will be ready soon

We expect to launch of our 2023 edition of the largest and best correspondence chess game database, UltraCorr, within the next two weeks.

Our target date for release is 21 January but there could be some slippage.

ICCF belatedly released today their file of games completed in December 2022 (nine days late) and still have not released their complete 2022 file. Another major correspondence tournament server, LSS, has not released its games from the second half of 2022, and we may have to go without those games if they do not become available this coming weekend.

Customers of the first release will receive a free upgrade if those games become available subsequently.

Another complication is the recent launch of ChessBase 17 (with a new file format), which means that compatibility will have to be checked. We are preparing UltraCorr2023 in ChessBase16 to ensure the database will work with CB16 and previous versions of this popular program.

Only when the editing of the games is complete, will we instal ChessBase17 on one of our computers and do a conversion if necessary. Perhaps we shall have to release the database in two versions, one for CB17 and one for users of the previous versions

We did a lot of work on both historic and recent games during the second half of last year but have been waiting for the ICCF release before doing the final game merge and edits. We only finished playing the Irish Seniors Championship on Sunday evening so our time since Christmas has been limited.

We are aware that ChessBase has released its 2022 correspondence CD at a shockingly high price for a smaller number of games than our collection. For three years we kept the price of UltraCorr at just 55 Euros but inflation means we must increase it this year to 60 Euro. However, as usual we shall offer it at half price to last year's customers for the first few weeks and we shall be emailing them as soon as the database is ready.

So please be patient and wait for our email (if you were a 2022 customer) or watch these pages. If your email address has changed since January 2022 you need to contact us soon.