500 Games on the Club Database

This week South Hams Chess Club passed the milestone of having 500 games submitted by members to the Games Database on the Club website. This is a remarkable indicator of the activity levels and enthusiasm in our relatively small club.

Once they have signed into the club website, members can submit their games to the database - either by copying and pasting the game in PGN format from a chess application like Fritz, Shredder, HIARCS or Stockfish, or else by creating the PGN from scratch, using graphical tools provided on the website. Members can play through one another's games on a graphical chessboard, experiment with alternative variations, have the posiitons analysed by a chess engine, and make comments and suggestions. More than 1,500 comments have been submitted since the database started in October 2013 - that's a lot of banter, but also a lot of commentary on the chess which has undoubtedly helped members to improve the standard of their play.

Additionally, in February 2016, a private Forum for members was added to the club website. Some statistics on the Forum:

• The Forun currently has 15 active users.
• Members have started more than 150 topics.
• More than 1,200 messages have been posted - that's even more banter, but also a lot of information exchange and plenty of interesting opinions.

South Hams is confounding the stereotypes and proving that membership of a chess club can be a lot of fun!