This screen allows you to search for all the chess games in the database. Only the games that had the position set on the chessboard will be returned . In other words, you will find all the chess games where the given position had occurred. To search without setting additional search criteria, press "search games" button (it is called "new search" button on the subsequent screens). Please note that there ChessLab has 2 separate chess databases to search from, selectable via Date range parameter.
You can also add extra search parameters to restrict you search and limit the number of returned games. Your search will be much faster if you could specify a concrete 4-digit year and other search criteria.
Search form fields
White Player, Black Player
These are the names or partial names of players. You can enter either several first letters of the player's name or even some letters from the middle of a player name, if option "Full scan" is turned on. The search is not case sensitive. For example, you will get "Karpov,…." while searching on "Kar" or "kar". See also "advanced search" (default - empty)
Both Colors
Select this check box if you wish to find all of the games (irrespective of color of the pieces) that the player listed as White Player had played. (Default - not selected)
City/Town
This is the location where the game took place (default - any location). For example, you can enter Isle of Man for all the games played there. CAUTION: As of now, only post-1997 games have their location information enabled. You can search for full or partial City/Town and your spelling will be corrected automatically. For example, for the chess games of 1999 Hoogeven tournament in Wejk aan Zee, Netherlands, you can just enter Weik or Wejk in the City/Town field.
Game result (White won, Black won, Draw)
This option will check any combination of the checkboxes shown - the returned set will contain only the games with checked results (default - all).
Date range
For your convenience and for speed there are two game ranges - all games played before 1991 (so called "historical archive") and games played in 1991 and after it (Latest games). You can search only in one range. If you enter a year in the field below, the range will be switched automatically during search (default is "Latest games").
Year
When this option is set, only the games played in the entered year will be searched. Please input a 4-digit year (default -clear).
Rating
select the minimum rating of one of the players (default - any rating). CAUTION: As of now, only most but not all of post-1997 games have their ratings enabled.
Advanced options
set rarely used options.
Openings
This button allows you to view and set any chess opening by name or one of the standard 500 ECO codes (A00-A99 ... C00-C99) into the ChessLab board. The move sequence corresponding to the particular selected opening or ECO will be loaded. Upon loading, the ECO code together with the main opening name will be also displayed in the bottom of the ChessLab board.
Position stats
This button allows you to look up the statistics of any position that is currently loaded into the ChessLab board. Please note that for certain frequently occuring positions, the calculation of the statistics may take a long time (up to 2 minutes) to complete.
Download
This button allows you to download games to your local computer in standard PGN format. Upon pressing this button, the pop-up window would appear, and it would allow you to download either the game loaded in the ChessLab board or the game(s) from the search results (up to 50 games). Please note that multiple games take longer to download.
List of games
returned games will be placed in this list. There are player names, result and the year the game was played. Select a game by highlighting it and pressing "select game" button (or by two clicks on the highlighted game - may not work under all browsers).
Next, Prev buttons
when there are more games returned that can be placed in the list of games (see number of hits in advanced options), the search can be continued with the same conditions by pressing the "next" button, or you can go back by pressing "prev" button. If all games can be placed within the games list, these buttons do not appear.
Messages
There are no games found
Either your position is not found in the database, or you have applied some tough restrictions to the search. You may want also to uncheck castling status and en-passant captures
see also: