As for the game Burg-Noble, it demonstrates how a good correspondence chess player can easily go wrong when not checking all the corr and OTB databases in a proper way. For example, the second player had to check out that his opponent had had an OTB experience in this variation even with the opposite colour. While in the corr databases the move [11...h6 12.Bxf6 Bxf6 13.Nf3 Be7 as shown in the game annotations at your blog] is the way to go. Precisely 11...h6 before the castling, because of that f4 & h4 idea with a bishop sac! And this move 11...h6 was played in 2 corr games in 2011 as per my private corr database, both finished with 0-1 result. 

Edit: Needless to say that the whole variation is already in my private electronic opening ctg-book! 

kylemeister wrote on 09/01/13 at 16:41:52:

I removed the information about the near-GM OTB to make the result more astonishing.
However I don't agree with you mentioning that the GM is a fide 2229 player. Do you  know that the reigning correspondence worldchampion doesn't have a fide or national rating at all? Check http://schaaksite.nl/page.php?al=ron-langeveld-wereldkampioen-correspondentiesch...
I mention this to point out that comparing OTB and correspondence ratings have very little sense. Exactly because of this I avoid an openingsbook to be built by a mix of correspondence and OTB games as the statistics would become rubbish.

Vass wrote on 09/01/13 at 15:08:13:

Personally I don't see much value to use an openingsbook in correspondence. There is plenty of time to check the keygames and make your own conclusions.
An openingsbook is interesting when there is little time to check variations which you don't know (well). In OTB it often happens that you don't have more than 1 hour to prepare. If so little time is available then you can't do more than just blindly trust the openingsbook. Exactly for this reason, I am searching for the best openingsbook (and not too expensive).

I also think that building an openingsbook to be used in OTB from correspondence games isn't the best idea. In OTB different variations are popular and also practice can give very different scores than what would be the score in correspondence chess.

Finally I also want to show a very recent correspondence game in which white (unrated player) wins directly in the opening from an experienced grandmaster (2502 elo).

For more information on this spectacular victory, read http://schaaksite.nl/page.php?al=winst-bij-correspondentieschaken

TalJechin wrote on 08/31/13 at 11:40:14:


No it doesn't have to be for free. In fact I even checked earlier on Chessbase the Hiarcs 13 Professional Openingsbook: http://www.chessbase-shop.com/en/products/5910 Price of 27,5 euro is fine but latest games inserted are from end of  2010 which is in today's chess against masters rather poor.

Now by coincidence I just found an alternative also from Hiarcs: 1 year Hiarcs Chess Opening Book Subscription: http://www.hiarcs.com/chess-opening-book.htm The latest games are very up to data (June 2013) with 858.231 variations covered so should be fine for any player (amateur or professional). In fact on the website is claimed that Anand used the Hiarcs book in his match against Topalov Only the price of 50 euro (tax still to be coming on top) I find rather expensive. As mentioned on my blog I was more thinking of something like 30 euro per year so if there would be a deal like 2 years paying and 3rd for free then I would bite.

Strange to see in the last 2 updates that the number of top quality games in the latest statistics went down. Likely some cleaning was done but it would be nice to hear from the author what exactly is going on.

Further i notice that on the website they claim that the book is the strongest around and yearly improving with 80 points. For me this is clear salestalk so before I believe this, I like to see proof of it. Anybody can help with this?

Anyway this book is certainly going in the direction what I am searching for so thanks for the hint.

Engine-optimized opening books (trees) are tuned for use in Engine vs. Engine tournaments.  Soundness is obviously mandatory for such competitions.  I would dig around for some opening books that are distributed with engines or distributed for use by engines.

The engine databases will be strictly more sound than human databases from "God's" point of view.  For example, Blackmar-Diemer is often 60%+ in many big databases built on human games...  However, with the engine trees, who knows whether such positions are fun to play, practical, or understandable from a human point of view.
So you might try searching <Houdini/stockfish opening book> and see what you find

brabo wrote on 08/30/13 at 05:19:36:

Generally, what you seem to miss is regional events organised by each chess federation (who seem to have some contract to provide this stuff to chessbase, or the CB guys just keep searching the net for it). Obviously, for my own region, I know where to get e.g. the Oberliga and Verbandsliga games of Baden-Würrtemberg, but if I prepare for some guy from further away in a tournament, then I've noticed differences between "Old database + TWIC" vs. the Chessbase online database with that kind of event.

If I understand the autotranslation of your article correctly, I just use a .ctg generated from the ChessBase Big Database (updated during the year) for this purpose. The downside is that it is not curated in any way, but I can often make up for that somewhat via ChessPublishing games, chesspub.com threads, and other searches on the net.

I don't know how well edited the ChessBase Opening Encyclopedia is but I agree that it is more money than I am interested in spending. Maybe the articles are really awesome and it is worth the price of three books, but I'd like to see the proof of that first.