I am trying to create my own tactics "book" that I can use to emphasize
areas I need to work on. Sort of like the Reinfeld 1001 .pgn file except
personalized.

For instance, say I need to work on knight forks. I want to create a .pgn
file of 100 positions where there is an immediate knight fork that will lead
to a gain of material.

Can Chessbase, or Chess Assistant, or SCID, or any database filter a
database based on imminent knight fork? If so, I could open up each game
and copy the FEN positions to a pgn file, then work through them one by one
on my computer.

Alternatively, can any of the databases filter for all games that have a
forced mate in X moves or less? That way I could create my own Checkmates
workbook.

Thanks.

"Mr. Plow" wrote in
rec.games.chess.computer:

I am trying to create my own tactics "book" that I can use to
emphasize areas I need to work on. Sort of like the Reinfeld 1001 .pgn
file except personalized.

For instance, say I need to work on knight forks. I want to create a
.pgn file of 100 positions where there is an immediate knight fork
that will lead to a gain of material.

Can Chessbase, or Chess Assistant, or SCID, or any database filter a
database based on imminent knight fork? If so, I could open up each
game and copy the FEN positions to a pgn file, then work through them
one by one on my computer.

Alternatively, can any of the databases filter for all games that have
a forced mate in X moves or less? That way I could create my own
Checkmates workbook.



For ChessBase it's a good idea to get familiar with the manual,
especially about filtering games. Use "manoeuvers" and if necessary
"material", especially material "difference" to look for such positions.

If you look for a fork with a check and a win of say a queen against the
knight, specifiy the move sequence in "manoeuvers" (say wN????+ followed
by bK????, wN????xQ b????xN).

If the difference has to be permanent, use the material difference
filter and take care the difference is one queen plus for white and one
knight less for white.

Looking for a forced mate in CB8 can be done in the same manner.




--
CeeBee


Uxbridge: "By God, sir, I've lost my leg!"
Wellington: "By God, sir, so you have!"


Google CeeBee @ www.geocities.com/ceebee_2

The short answer is that there is no way to say "Look for a knight fork", and
have any program find it.

You could specify it exhaustively via the creation of a number of maneuver
searches (combined possibly with material imbalance search in CA), but this
would be much more time than it is worth.

On the other hand, if you want to look for a specific knight fork, as the
previous poster has pointed out, it is easy enough to do.

But to look for all knight forks - in theory, it can be done, but it is not
worth the effort.

As for forced mates in X moves or less, that is not possible with any database
program. You could analyze each game in a database with a chess engine, but
that would take a long time for any significantly sized database. Then you
would have to devise a means for filtering the results.

Take a look at some of the tutorial programs that are available (like CT-ART
and Chess Tactics for Beginners). They are a better match for you than a
database program.









Bob Pawlak (remove 1et.tw to e-mail)
Chess Assistance
http://www.chessassistance.com
Chess Reviews
http://www.chessreviews.com

(Robert Pawlak) wrote in
rec.games.chess.computer:


As for forced mates in X moves or less, that is not possible with any
database program. You could analyze each game in a database with a
chess engine, but that would take a long time for any significantly
sized database. Then you would have to devise a means for filtering
the results.

You are right that it's not possible to ask ChessBase 8 to search for
"mate in four" or "mate in five", but the mate search of ChessBase is not
confined to games that actually ended in a mate, but also would have
experienced mate in a few moves, mostly not more than three, because of
the limitations of the heumas search.

I also guess that the original poster wanted a complete routine of finding
out tactical manoeuvres, find them, "hide" them for you, export a position
a few moves earlier into FEN, and collect them in a database. This is
quite a specialized routine, and not the basic goal of a database.

However finding a few games, saving them, letting them being analyzed by a
program in the Fritz GUI and use the "training question" analysis feature
might come close.

I'd rather go for the numerous excellent and thematically much better
didactics of ready-to-buy training CD's like from Convekta or ChessBase,
but each to his own.

--
CeeBee


Uxbridge: "By God, sir, I've lost my leg!"
Wellington: "By God, sir, so you have!"


Google CeeBee @ www.geocities.com/ceebee_2

chessbase has alot of built in filters for tactics that are customizable
as well. But they are largely thematic, like what piece is sacc'd
against square f7 etc.
When you raise the issue of 'forcing lines' like when mate is forced in
two moves, you might be confusing analysis with searching. If the
determination of a forcing variation has not been done, one cannot
search for the results of a labor which has not been performed.

One can analyze games for such matters with other (chesbase and
competitors) products. then a search of results is fruitful.



Mr. Plow wrote:
I am trying to create my own tactics "book" that I can use to emphasize
areas I need to work on. Sort of like the Reinfeld 1001 .pgn file except
personalized.

For instance, say I need to work on knight forks. I want to create a .pgn
file of 100 positions where there is an immediate knight fork that will lead
to a gain of material.

Can Chessbase, or Chess Assistant, or SCID, or any database filter a
database based on imminent knight fork? If so, I could open up each game
and copy the FEN positions to a pgn file, then work through them one by one
on my computer.

Alternatively, can any of the databases filter for all games that have a
forced mate in X moves or less? That way I could create my own Checkmates
workbook.

Thanks.

Thanks for the responses. I figured it was a bit ambitious, but you never
know.

I thought chessbase used to have a program called (Moto or something ) that
allowed you to create your own keys to do searches similar to what you are
requesting. But I could be wrong!


"Mr. Plow" wrote in message
...
I am trying to create my own tactics "book" that I can use to emphasize
areas I need to work on. Sort of like the Reinfeld 1001 .pgn file except
personalized.

For instance, say I need to work on knight forks. I want to create a .pgn
file of 100 positions where there is an immediate knight fork that will
lead
to a gain of material.

Can Chessbase, or Chess Assistant, or SCID, or any database filter a
database based on imminent knight fork? If so, I could open up each game
and copy the FEN positions to a pgn file, then work through them one by
one
on my computer.

Alternatively, can any of the databases filter for all games that have a
forced mate in X moves or less? That way I could create my own Checkmates
workbook.

Thanks.