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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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© Dr Tim Harding
Last modified:
7 Febuary 2025
Our UltraCorr correspondence chess database is now on sale, even bigger and better than before. Please download the database from this website and pay securely via PayPal. You can pay first or download first.
UltraCorr2025 is a ChessBase-format database available in both the long-standard CBH format and the 2CBH format introduced with ChessBase17 and continued in ChessBase18 that was launched in late 2024.
We updated our database using ChessBase18 but working in the older format to guarantee backwards compatibility for people using earlier versions (back as far as CB10 at least and probably to CB8) as well as other programs such as Fritz which use the same file format. We have not, however, tested for compatibility with older programs.
There is a separate download page for the 2CBH format which you shpould only use if you have CB17 or CB18. One payment will cover using both versions but they have different passwords.
Below is some further information about the contents of the database. Even more information about how we process metadata (player and tournament names) has also now been added.
Now also including games played with Chess-960 (the randomised back-row variant), our database includes all recently played games from the servers of ICCF, and FICGS (all to end-2024), and from LSS to the end of June 2024.
The much-improved Lechenicher Schachserver (LSS) has clearly now become the main free alternative to ICCF for CC players of all strengths, and there has been a consequent reduction in the amount of CC on the Free Internet Computer Game Server (FICGS) although some very strong players are still active there. Unfortunately LSS are always slow to update their archive so their games finished in the July-December 2024 period were not included in the main database.
However, these were released a few days ago although we had to do some editing to make them compatible with our database. Now as a free bonus, here is a file of over 8,000 more games that were completed on LSS between July and December 2024 (and a few older games that they included). Just download the (CBV format) file, open it within ChessBase and then append these games to your copy of UltraCorr.
During 2022, 2023 and 2024 Tim continued to spend much time on reviewing historical CC games from the 19th and 20th centuries. In 2022 he completed the input of games that were in the late Professor Carlo Pagni's books about correspondence matches between clubs in the 19th century. Games from British postal events in the second half of the 20th century received special attention in 2023 and last year we concentrated on the 1930s.
Among other improvements, we have added many games played under the auspices of the Internationaler Fernschachbund which was the pre-WW2 precursor of ICCF. This also involved correcting events and dates for several games that were already in the database but with incomplete or inaccurate information
We are also grateful to some readers who have in the past sent in corrections or other games for inclusion. We are happy to receive corrections or games at any time though there may not be another edition of UltraCorr, given that our editor is now in his 77th year.
We have continued to improve player and event identification generally and eliminated thousands of bad quality doubles and fragments which were not easy to detect previously.
It is virtually impossible to eliminate all duplicates, especially as certain players seem happy to repeat drawn games they have played previously against the same opponent when they meet again. In some popular sharp openings such as the Najdorf Sicilian whole games sometimes just repeat known theory, but from time to time important innovations come to light (thanks to new computer engines) which alter assessments.
In 2022 we had to complain about the large number of "mirror games" we detected and we sent an evidence-based report to the ICCF executive. They would not tell us what action they have taken, but it appears that the worst offender has been sanctioned and probably others have been warned to cease this form of cheating. However we did detect some cases of this dubious practice while editing games from 2024.
Games played under Chess-960 (also known as Fischer-Random) rules were not previously included because in the past some readers using earlier versions of ChessBase had problems with the database. They are included now because the recent versions of ChessBase have no problems with Chess960. We have still excluded Russian tournaments played with the bizarre "King" variant.
If you do not like games in your database that were played using pseudonyms and internet handles, you can go to the Sources tab in the indexes and delete tens of thousands of games that were run on the playchess.de server. If you want to retain those games, you should note that the HCL games were "human chess league" (computer engines not allowed) while their ACL games were computer-assisted ("active chess league").
Back to the UltraCorr2025 introduction page.