HOW TO FIND GAMES IN CHESSMASTER 9000 DATABASES (File CMinstr3.txt)

1. Go to Database Room. A large window with chessboard and 3 smaller windows for data will show up.

2. Click on "File" in upper menu bar, then on "Open Database" in its pull-down menu. (You can skip down to step 5, if your database name shows in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.)

3. "File Open" window comes up with "Database" written in the "Look in" box, and in the bigger box below there should be a list of available databases.

4. Click on "cm9000.tbg" and see it come into the "File name" box below. Accept the remaining 2 entries and click "Load" button. This brings you back to the big database window. Check that the name of the desired database is written in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.

5. TO FIND GAMES BY THEIR DESCRIPTIVE DATA, click on "Data Query" in the top row (of 5 choices). An array of 12 blank narrow rectangular boxes shows up, with headings "White Player, Black Player, Event, and Date" and a number of "and" and "or" words are scattered around them. (Later, when we need to know about them, we'll have to learn a little about computer logic)

6. EXAMPLE OF SEARCH BY DATA QUERY: Let's say we wish to find all games in Chessmaster 9000's big data base that were played by Tal as White and that he won in fewer than 20 moves. Put the mouse pointer and click in the first blank box under "White Player" and type "Tal" in it. (Don't type the quotation marks!) Click on scroll button after "Event" and go and click on "Result" on the pull-down list. Observe how the heading "Event" changes to "Result." Put cursor on box below, and type "1:0" in it. Similarly to what you just did, go to "Date" box and change "Date" to "Moves." Type "<20" in "Moves" box. (Again, type only those three characters that I have enclosed in quotation marks! The computer isn't smart enough to disregard unwanted directions.)

7. Click on "Search" button and wait until the bottom information bar shows completion of the process. (In my CM9000 it showed "Games 504552 Found 9.) Now a list of games shows up in the middle box. (Note that "Tal" search also found "Talab," which we really did not want. Next time you can narrow the search by typing "Tal, Mikhail" instead of just "Tal."

8. EXAMPLE OF READING A GAME: Scroll to the game between Tal and Tringov. Click on it to select it, or double-click immediately to see its moves in the box above, next to the chess board. (If the three data boxes are not fully visible, you can enlarge or reduce them by using the Windows feature that changes the mouse pointer to what looks like an equal sign with arrows pointing up or down from it, and allows the stretching of the borders of the boxes.) Replay the game by clicking on the VCR buttons below the box with the game moves. Experiment with the 4 buttons, to see which ones make regular moves, forward and back, and which ones are fast-forward and back. (For a review of the Forsyth notation, see whether the final position of the game agrees with: r1b1k1nr/1p1n2bp/p1p1Q1p1/4p1N1/4PB2/2q5/P1P2PPP/1R1R2K1. In case you have forgotten, it is very simple: start at square a8, go down row-by-row, each one left to right, designating black pieces with lower-case letters, white pieces with capital letters, and counting the spaces between occupied squares by the numbers. If a row is completely empty, it would be represented by the number 8. If two successive rows are empty, it is clear enough to use 16, and so on.)

9. EXAMPLE OF SEARCH BY A GIVEN POSITION (We'll do this later, if the CM9000 manual is not clear enough.)