TWIC 1500!

Yesterday, Mark Crowther released the 1500th issue of The Week in Chess. His database now contains 3,581,971 games. Kudos to Crowther for dedication and consistency for 29 years! A couple of years ago, I filled in gaps in my own collection through a donation to TWIC. Crowther sent a link to download his personal copy. Now is a good time to do this if you have not already.

My copy exceeds Crowther's number by almost 3000 because I do a poor job of clearing duplicates. If my settings are wrong in the "find duplicates" feature of ChessBase, I could lose some of the sixteen games mentioned in "A Glass of Scotch". The moves may be the same, but the players, dates, and a events differ. Duplication is part of the historical record. I've also corrupted enough databases to be wary of changing large databases beyond simply adding more games.

I've been using The Week in Chess since I first discovered it twenty years ago. Crowther gathers all the games from the most important tournaments. These are then made available free. Someone who purchases ChessBase and pays an annual fee for updates should be able to get the same games. ChessBase is getting them from Crowther, I suspect.

I prefer keeping ChessBase Mega as it came from ChessBase without modification, and then use TWIC for games played in the past few years.