Where the games and openings on these pages come from.
Source of the games
A single large PGN file with the games of many players – the basis of the players’ collections on this site.
View on Figshare Licence CC BY 4.0 Credit in the legal notice
Besides: recent tournament games
Tournament games of the years 2012–2022 complete the collections – we show them on this website with the permission of TWIC.
Whoever chooses a player at the books icon in the bar (on a phone in the menu) sees tree, net, diagrams, book, statistics and games from the games of this collection. For this there are 1,149,391 games in the collections of 1,509 players: 18 world champions and 1,491 other players. The games come from the “Chess Database” by Ana Schaigorodsky, a single large PGN file, published in 2016 on Figshare under the licence CC BY 4.0; for this site we cut it into one file per player and selected players and games (see legal notice).
Of these, 103,010 games come from TWIC (The Week in Chess), from the years 2012–2022: they add to 138 collections, 25 players have games from TWIC only. The pages mark this share.
Every collection contains the games the player played themselves, with White and with Black. Games without moves and games from a handicap position (say with a knight less) are not included; for the trees and nets the first 15 moves of every game count.
Data as of December 30, 2022 – the date of the newest game in the collections.
| # | Player | Games | Period |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Wilhelm Steinitz | 669 | 1859–1899 |
| 02 | Emanuel Lasker | 1,047 | 1889–1940 |
| 03 | José Raúl Capablanca | 1,192 | 1901–1941 |
| 04 | Alexander Alekhine | 2,136 | 1907–1946 |
| 05 | Max Euwe | 1,360 | 1919–1980 |
| 06 | Mikhail Botvinnik | 978 | 1925–1977 |
| 07 | Vasily Smyslov | 2,717 | 1939–2001 |
| 08 | Mikhail Tal | 2,595 | 1949–1992 |
| 09 | Tigran Petrosian | 2,092 | 1942–1983 |
| 10 | Boris Spassky | 2,393 | 1952–2006 |
| 11 | Robert Fischer | 954 | 1955–1992 |
| 12 | Anatoly Karpov | 3,644 | 1961–2022 |
| 13 | Garry Kasparov | 2,563 | 1973–2021 |
| 14 | Vladimir Kramnik | 2,586 | 1988–2022 |
| 15 | Viswanathan Anand | 3,488 | 1984–2022 |
| 16 | Magnus Carlsen | 2,119 | 2000–2022 |
| 17 | Ding Liren | 1,152 | 2001–2022 |
| 18 | Dommaraju Gukesh | 821 | 2015–2022 |
A click on a name opens the games of this player.
Opening tree, opening net, diagrams and book are based on 3,815 openings with their codes from the ECO classification (Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings): five volumes A to E with 100 codes each, among them named openings and variations.
Every game of a collection is assigned to the opening of its last named position. The position on the board is compared, not the move order – so a game with a different move order (transposition) also ends up at the right opening.
Colour view, structure formula, maths diagram and reaction scheme only calculate with the pieces on the board; their numbers are a look at the position, not a verdict on it. There is an engine evaluation only if you switch it on: Stockfish can be switched on on many pages and then calculates in your browser.
Origin and licences of pictures and chess pieces: see legal notice – picture credits and licences.