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ChessBase Cafe Steve Lopez
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Medal Searches in ChessBase 10 In this column we’re going to learn about medals in ChessBase 10. Medals are colored symbols that annotators can use to highlight points of interest in commented games. These colored bars will appear not only in the games themselves, but also in the game list for the database as a whole. Here’s an example. In a game from Mega Database 2009, GM Lubomir Ftacnik wanted to call the reader’s attention to the pawn structure in a particular position, so he added the medal for pawn structure as an annotation to that position. The medal then appears in the gamescore in the Notation pane:
The teal blue bar after the highlighted move is the medal for “Pawn structure.” It also appears in the game list for Mega Database 2009:
ChessBase 10 owners can add medals to games themselves, just by right-clicking on a move in the Notation pane, selecting “Special annotation” from the popup menu, and then selecting “Set medal.” This will produce the following dialogue:
This allows the annotator to select from a range of different medals to highlight various topics and motifs. For example, if one wished to point out the game’s opening as a paragon of proper play in that particular debut, the “Model game” medal might be chosen:
It’s also possible to choose more than one medal for a particular position:
In the example above, the annotator has selected both the “Model game” and “Novelty” medals to highlight a particular position. If more than one medal appears in a game (regardless of whether it’s on the same position or on different positions), this will be reflected in the listing for that game in the database’s game list:
In the above illustration, all of the games that contain medals have more than one of them. It’s important to note that one should always use “Replace game” after inserting a medal (or any other annotation form); otherwise the work will be lost when the game window is exited. In addition to calling the reader’s attention to important chess motifs in a game, medals also increase a game’s searchability. In fact, one of the tabs in ChessBase’s Search mask deals specifically with medals:
You simply select the medal or medals for which you want to search, click “OK,” and let ChessBase do the rest. For example, let’s select the medal for “Sacrifice”:
We click “OK” and the “Search results” window appears. After a few moments ChessBase provides us with a list of 1,767 games from Mega Database 2009 that contain the medal for “Sacrifice.” It’s important to note here that you can select more than one medal in your search criteria. However, if you do, you will receive a list of games in which all of the selected medals appear, not games in which any of the selected medals appear. For example, if we select the medals for both “Sacrifice” and “Defense” we’ll get a much shorter list of 128 games in which the annotators used both medals in the same game, not a longer list of games in which either of the two medals were used. Until next month, have fun! All the software described in this column, as well as many more programs, are available in the USCFSales Online Catalog. ChessBase Cafe welcomes readers’ questions. Send one along and perhaps it will be answered in an upcoming column. Please include your name and country of residence. Yes, I have a question for Steve! © 2009 Steve Lopez. All Rights Reserved. |
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