Daily Opening Book - What??

So, I'm playing white in a Daily tournament against a player rated about 600 Elo lower than me.

We just started, I have a few games on-going and I'm not paying much attention for the first few moves. I mess up my opening quite early so I check the Opening book and I see we are headed down a line that is winning for white so I just follow it, and clearly my opponent is too, obviously waiting for somewhere to deviate away from the losing line he knows he is on.

All standard Daily stuff, right? Playing cat and mouse with the Openings book, knowing that you can't go far wrong because you are playing a line that masters played previously. Right?

Or so I thought.

As the game goes on, it doesn't feel like I'm winning at all. I'm far from a chess expert but I just can't see how I'm going to be better after the next sequence of captures has played out.

So, I switch into explorer to check on the game line we're following - maybe it was blitz or something, maybe black just blundered a winning position...

No, it is a game from this year's Junior Polish Rapid championship, played between an unrated player and an 1100. I wont reveal the actual game because my own game is still on-going.

So the question is this.

WHY is such a game finding its way into the chess.com Openings book?

I know there are some pretty dubious blitz games in there and more than once I've followed a supposedly winning line only to realise that it was winning because the opponent flagged while a piece up!

Even so, it was still a game where two titled players were facing off. This game in the database was so bad even I could pick up on dubious moves within the first 10 moves or so.

Previously I described to friends the Openings database as being all master player's games so Daily tournaments are a good way to train on new Openings by using the book.

Am I wrong? Was I always wrong? Like I say, this specific game was only played a couple of months ago. Has something changed only recently with the Opening book database?

Does anyone have any info for me on this?

I always used Explorer and as far as I'm aware, that only includes master games. Of course, blindly following that's not a great idea in all cases

I even found some masters' games with ridiculous moves, so just go through the whole game to look if it makes sense to you. Before you play that line.

This was also my understanding, so this is obviously an error then and the integrity of the 'masters database' concept has been compromised.

My game has deviated enough now it doesn't matter if I reveal which game line we were following in the https://www.chess.com/games/view/16629541

Take a look. I've checked the names, these are not FIDE masters who have been accidentally rated 1100 in the database, one is 8 years old and doesn't have a standard rating at all, the other isn't in the FIDE database.

So maybe you could take this a bit further and get some answers, @Martin_stahl?

And yes, I know I was using the Openings book lazily in this case, I'm not looking for any excuses (I still intend to win the game anyway!). But I do think it is important to know for sure if this is supposed to be 'The Masters Database' I always thought it was ... indeed, I spoke to a GM recently who said only very few of his games ever got into that database.

There are a number of people who I have advocated the use of this Openings database too who I need to go back to and warn, and they're gonna have some questions. I'd like some answers when they come!

Another example. "Blindly follow" this line as black and you lose in 7 moves.

The question remains. Why are these openings in the database?

It's a database of master games, which can include games that are lost to blunders.

And you think those juniors were masters do you?

I know for a fact the previous game I showed neither of the 8 year olds were masters. One was unrated and the other was 1100, according to the FIDE website.

I find checking opening books or database moves while playing daily a form of cheating. Don't use it. If you are going to play, use your nogging, not the other's ideas, nor the engine moves. If you want to prepare, do it before playing. Otherwise, you are not really winning. And chess is not for you.

You simply don't understand the ideas behind correspondence chess.

If I want to play my own prep (which I learn from Daily game study, including the opening book), then I play live chess.

I wouldn't use legal external references, say a book, written by an 8 year old, and I don't expect to find such games in "the masters database" either.

I do. It is YOU who don't understand correspondance chess as it was designed originally. And even beyond that, chess was not created to use someone else's ideas. It was design to use your own ideas, your own brain. But I guess technology has kept you blind. I don't blame you.

That game you linked was from 1977 and not 800 rated 8 year old players.

https://www.365chess.com/tournaments/Pan_American-chJ_1977/24230

So, they don't appear to have been master level players, there were masters in that event and the others were likely very strong players.

The FIRST game I linked to was between two polish players aged 8 years old, one rated 1100 and the other unrated. As I thought I had clearly stated.

Chess.com does indeed refer to the 8 year old with the 1100 rating as "one of the top players in the world", so I suppose that is why they included the game in the Masters database.

https://www.chess.com/players/maciej-branecki

There were some masters at the Polish Junior Rapid this year, but none playing in the game I linked.

I met a chess master once. Should my games go in the Masters Database too?

I was replying to a specific game Link you provided in the message chain I was quoting. I made the assumption, since you quoted that post and made the claim of 8 year olds low rated players, that was the game you were referencing in that specific post.

My guess is that championship events, such a youth championships are included in the database as well, if that game is in the DB.

As a moderator, why do you have to guess, @Martin_Stahl? Couldn't you ask someone on my behalf? That IS why I posted in Help and Support in the first place. To try and get an answer from someone who actually knows.

As it stands the answer to my original question is that when previously referring to it as 'The Masters Database' we have indeed been using a misleading misnomer.

That has taken 30 days and some random abuse for playing Daily chess and I still don't have a definitive answer.

It might seem like a small thing to the handful of people who bothered reading my original post, but I suspect that this inclusion is an indicator of a bigger issue.

The sole game listed for the junior player under the heading 'one of the top players in the world' is NOT his game that I linked to in the original post which is in the openings database.

I suspect this may be an indication, previously alluded to by some other posters who also have database experience, that the indexing of the openings database is corrupted.

If we can never get a definition for the criteria for game inclusion, I suppose we'll always be guessing in the dark. Fruitlessly.

Honestly, it's a great topic, and it would be awesome to see a definitive answer as to why it was in the opening database of Master's games -- because that is really how it is labeled, Master's Games, and then My Games... So, we do have, appaerently, a master's game erroneously entered...

To confirm this, I went to the Opening Explorer and slowly played out all the moves and saw it right there under Master's games:

Do note that this was added relatively recently - just this last August - and, indeed, it's from an 1175 versus an unranked player...

I would say that this does indicate some kind of error - likely it is the case that it was mixed in on some collection of games of the Polish Chess Champions of 2023 in general, and somehow every youth championship game was included, and so other people playing through some of the London system like this may have actually had some of their choices influenced by this game being included...

This brings back a memory of how there are actual Master games in the database with a series of very weird, nonsense moves in them that were pre-arranged draws... Which also can corrupt the system even though someone just looking itno it might say "Oh, two masters were here and it ws a draw; not interested, not suspicious; not clicking on game..."

Obviously I am sympathetic with the idea that the game database should be cleaned up and games like this should be removed when found but I think it's an understandable error since it is unlikely that someone is sitting around manually entering these.

Nonetheless, I think... the tone got a bit more combative than is merited, and I would also point out that following the opening database out a while is fine & dandy but the more one follows any single game... IDK. It's nice to make informed decisions on the next move but at some point the game is meant to be taken off of the book, even if, incidentally, there are games following this exact line going into the middle game.

Good OP and good topic and perhaps more response is merited but yeah I see how this is also maybe on the backburner while Daily Leagues is experiencing hiccups.

@interpenetration Thanks for your response.

All I can say is I'm glad that someone has grasped that this recent addition might be an indication of an error in the procedure to add games to 'the Master's database'.

That is what I was attempting to bring attention to, not the way I personally chose to use the Opening book in this example. That is an entirely different topic.

I recently witnessed a Grandmaster being mystified by the inclusion of a game that he was led to through analysis of an Opening position. It was another example of a low rated player's game being included in the database and that player was also cross-listed as "one of the top players in the world". It was also a relatively recent game.

I didn't take a specific note to give it as another example, but it seems clear to me that some low level games are filtering into the database.

In itself there is no problem with that, if it is intentional, but labelling the database as 'the master's database' is potentially misleading and, it seems, increasingly so.

To complete his analysis the GM mentioned above switched to another site which allowed games to be filtered by rating. He did this on stream with hundreds of people watching him abandon the chess.com Openings database for something more reliable. If I were chess.com I'd be concerned about that scenario.

@16

"games to be filtered by rating"

++ And by time control...
beware of bullet & blitz games by the world's top grandmasters