Shane's Chess Information Database
Encyclopedia
Shane's Chess Information Database (or Scid) is a popular free
UNIX
, Windows
, Linux
, and Mac
database application for viewing and maintaining databases of chess
games. Scid development has been resumed after it ceased in 2004.
There are multiple projects related to Scid, all using the Scid database format. ChessDB was the first Scid fork. Active projects include the attractive Scid vs. PC, and two wholly rewritten projects; ChessX (written in C and libQT), and the new, ambitious Scidb.
Scid supports portable game notation
and its own Scid database format.
It can be used with chess engines with support for Winboard such as Crafty
and GNU chess
, and with UCI
such as Fruit, Rybka
, Stockfish
and Shredder
to play chess against or to analyse games. Scid can be used as a graphical interface to connect to and play games on an internet chess server. Scid can use up to five piece endgame tablebases. Photographs of players may be stored in the database, so they are shown when a game is played.
Scid can classify games using the standard ECO
code, as well as its own extensions to the ECO system. One can search for specific endings, such as pawn vs. rook or rook vs. queen. Scid's search allows filtering by player, color, year, result, and ECO code.
Scid has a maintenance window where for example one can delete twin games. (It is frequent to have the same game in a database twice if the games are downloaded from multiple sources.) Scid can plot graphs of ratings vs. time.
Freeware
Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...
UNIX
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
, Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, and Mac
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
database application for viewing and maintaining databases of chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
games. Scid development has been resumed after it ceased in 2004.
There are multiple projects related to Scid, all using the Scid database format. ChessDB was the first Scid fork. Active projects include the attractive Scid vs. PC, and two wholly rewritten projects; ChessX (written in C and libQT), and the new, ambitious Scidb.
Scid supports portable game notation
Portable Game Notation
Portable Game Notation is a computer-processible format for recording chess games ; many chess programs recognize this extremely popular format due to its being stored in plain text.-History:...
and its own Scid database format.
It can be used with chess engines with support for Winboard such as Crafty
Crafty
Crafty is a chess program written by UAB professor Dr. Robert Hyatt. It is directly derived from Cray Blitz, winner of the 1983 and 1986 World Computer Chess Championships....
and GNU chess
GNU Chess
GNU Chess is a computer program which plays a full game of chess against a human or other computer program.GNU Chess is one of the oldest computer chess programs for Unix-based computers and one of the earliest available with full source code....
, and with UCI
Universal Chess Interface
The Universal Chess Interface is an open communication protocol that enables a chess program's engine to communicate with its user interface....
such as Fruit, Rybka
Rybka
Rybka is a computer chess engine designed by International Master Vasik Rajlich. , Rybka is one of the top-rated engines on chess engine rating lists and has won many computer chess tournaments...
, Stockfish
Stockfish (chess)
Stockfish is an open source chess engine, developed by Tord Romstad, Joona Kiiski and Marco Costalba and licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3. The current version 2.1.1 is available as C++ source code, and also has precompiled versions for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X Snow...
and Shredder
Shredder (chess)
Shredder is a commercial chess program developed in Germany by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen in 1993. Shredder won the World Microcomputer Chess Championship in 1996 and 2000, the World Computer Chess Championship in 1999 and 2003, the World Computer Speed Chess Championship in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and...
to play chess against or to analyse games. Scid can be used as a graphical interface to connect to and play games on an internet chess server. Scid can use up to five piece endgame tablebases. Photographs of players may be stored in the database, so they are shown when a game is played.
Overview
Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings
The Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings is a classification system for the opening moves in a game of chess. It is presented as a five volume book collection describing chess openings...
code, as well as its own extensions to the ECO system. One can search for specific endings, such as pawn vs. rook or rook vs. queen. Scid's search allows filtering by player, color, year, result, and ECO code.
Scid has a maintenance window where for example one can delete twin games. (It is frequent to have the same game in a database twice if the games are downloaded from multiple sources.) Scid can plot graphs of ratings vs. time.