I don't use it too often, but I owe some thanks for the Opening Explorer feature.

I normally tend to use SCID Tree Window feature, in conjunction with <MillBase>.

Lately, doing some opening studies, I've been comparing the two systems.

That's a long windup for the pitch - is it possible to just get an ECO code, or better yet, a position via a FEN to synch up Opening Explorer?

Newbie that I am, I've been just replaying all the moves via the OE movelists - which is a bit tedious.

SCID's Tree Window automatically works off any given position.

Another feature SCID Tree has is presenting the move occurrences not only with # games, but also with frequency as a percentage - which I find a better format to assimilate.

Also handy is <ELO> and <Year> (though I wish they also listed <Debut> with a link.

There is a comment section, for the openings, but sometimes the moves are not that deep. Example: Scotch Game (C45)

I saw, and tried that, but it didn't work.

Let me have another go...

I'm not sure all positions have kibitzing sections, I think only the major ECO code pages do.

Oops, right you are <WannaBe>, I didn't scroll down far enough, and was using the output FEN textbox and not the input search textbox.

That's better, thanks.

Here's a position where I was wanting to kibitz:

Opening Explorer

It should have been "Black is K.O.'d" but someone truncated it.

Karpov vs Adorjan, 1989

If you really wanted to discuss the position you showed, you could go to Sicilian, Najdorf (B96) and say something like

<Hey people, I've been studying the following position and want to know what you think about it:

click for larger view

>

About going from a FEN to an OE page, it's very easy, just go to the front page of the OE and you'll find a form used for exactly that with the title <OPENING EXPLORER » Search for Position by FEN String>

But creating the pages dynamically, that's a different model.

In other words, the page only gets created when someone tries to comment on a position. Easy enough to encode the unique FEN to tag the page, and you dynamically fill in the gamelist anyways.

Basically, some of the more interesting opening lines are very deep when the discussion about a new TN becomes relevant.

E.g. Najdorf (many lines), Marshall (Spanish), French Defense (Poisoned Pawn), etc., etc.

One could conceivably add a minimum number of games as a prerequisite.

In my case,

Opening Explorer

on Black's 11th move in the Najdorf, it's a position that maps into 11 games on <CG>. That's a goodly number.

And it's still a viable line, as it spans from 1980 to today, basically.

Next, I made a comment about the 11.Ndb5 TN on a game page, which is the earliest <CG> game. But, as I noted there, it's not the true debut, which <CG> is missing.

So, it would be nice for me to get ahead of the <CG> updating, (er, Junge comes to mind), to be able to comment on the position and not the game.

(And who knows if some corr game predates the 1979 game?)

* * * * *

One other nice SCID feature that I should mention here is that the list of games, sharing the same position, also lists the next move in a column on the table.

This is a nice feature that <CG> might consider adopting as well.

I'm kind of surprised you didn't get the pun at first. There are lots of other puns that have been used, that I have to google or read other posters to figure out.

But then this one comes along, based on a famous <chess> book, and you didn't know it right away.

I kept a paper trail, as always, for the next person who needs it.

EZ-Search question -

Shouldn't I be able to look up certain super famous games via their tag lines?

Specifically, I was thinking of these:

1) Evergreen Game

2) Immortal Game

3) Game of the Century

4) Immortal Zugzwang

etc., etc.

(There has to be a few more...)

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ches...

All fourteen games are from the same year.