Hello Chess Friend,
As an avid chess player, I know how valuable a comprehensive and well-maintained chess database can be. It is an indispensable tool for studying openings, analyzing grandmaster games, and improving your own play.
It was precisely this motivation that led me to create this database. My goal was to compile a reliable and high-quality collection of chess games that is useful for both computer study and preparation for online or OTB games. I have invested a lot of time in preparing and cleaning the data to provide you with a tool that truly helps you.
I hope this database supports you on your journey to becoming a better chess player.
I have created this chess database for Scid vs. PC/MAC and Scid 5.x. It is divided into two sections:
- OTB Database: Contains over 9.5 million games.
- Online Database: Contains over 7.1 million games.
- In total, over 700,000 players are included.
Database Details
Current version:
Databases: 2025-07-01 (includes the following incremental update)
Incremental update: Online 2025-07
Opening Books Time Ranges: 2025-02-06
Opening Books ECO: 2025-02-06
Opening Books NIC-Codes: 2025-07-13
During the creation and maintenance of the database, I paid attention to several points:
- Duplicates: A specially developed script helps to identify and remove duplicate games.
- Game Quality: Games with fewer than 10 half-moves or by players with an ELO rating below 1800 were not included.
- Sources: Every game is tagged with a SOURCE tag indicating the origin of the data. You can use these tags in Scid for searches (Menu Search -> Game Data -> Extra Tags).
- Updates: The database is usually updated on the first Tuesday of each month. It is sufficient to import the new PGN files; a complete re-download is generally not necessary.
Data Sources
The data comes from various sources, including existing databases and PGN files. To track the origin of individual games, all entries have been tagged with a SOURCE tag. These tags allow you to filter and search the database in Scid vs. PC/MAC or Scid 5.x by specific sources.
| Tag | Description | Database |
|---|---|---|
| AjedrezCorr | Correspondence chess database from https://ajedrezdata.com/databases/ | OTB |
| AjedrezOTB | OTB database from https://ajedrezdata.com/databases/ | both |
| Britbase | For all games from the British Chess Game Archive | both |
| Caissabase | Database that apparently no longer exists. | both |
| Canada | Canadian Chess Federation | both |
| ChessNostalgia | Nothing else to be found on this page. | OTB |
| ChessOK | chessok.com still offers free PGNs. (Until end of 2020) | both |
| Chessopolis | PGNs can still be offered, but behind a paywall. | OTB |
| ChessScotland | Scottish Chess Federation | OTB |
| Convekta | A Russian software developer who sells software like Chessbase. Mainly used in Russia. | OTB |
| Danbase | Game database of the Danish Chess Federation https://danbase.skak.dk/ Thanks @Hans Jørgen Lassen | OTB |
| Federscacchi | Italian Chess Federation | OTB |
| FICGS | Free Internet Chess & Go Server (Correspondence Chess Games) | OTB |
| Finland | Finnish Chess Federation | both |
| GamesOfGMs | A database containing only OTB games by grandmasters | OTB |
| GreekBase | Greek Chess Federation | both |
| IECG | International Email Chess Group | OTB |
| Kingbase | A database containing only OTB games by mostly grandmasters | OTB |
| LichessBroadcast | For games drawn via the Lichess broadcast system | both |
| LichessEliteDatabase | All (standard) Lichess games, to keep only games by players with a rating of 2400+ against players with a rating of 2200+, excluding bullet games. Source: https://database.nikonoel.fr/ All classical, rapid, and blitz games where both players have over 2550 Lichess ELO are added. | Online |
| LumbrasGigaBase | All games from existing databases whose origin cannot be clarified have been marked with this tag. | both |
| Masters | A database containing games by titled players | both |
| Millionbase | Another old database | both |
| PGNMentor | Extensive archive with individual files for players, openings, opening variations, and various tournaments. | both |
| Slovakia | Slovak Chess Federation | OTB |
| TWIC | For all games from the TWIC download. | both |
The Data Preparation Process
After merging the databases, a series of measures were taken to compress the database and eliminate duplicates. The exact procedure for this is described on the Duplicate Search page. The development of the script used for this took about a month.
Separation of Databases
To separate the contents of the databases into online and offline games, the following search terms (for both tournament and location) were used:
- chess.com
- lichess.org
- chess24.com
- online
- internet
- titled arena
- titled tue
If you have any further suggestions for search terms, please share them with me via email or in a comment.
Future Updates
The database is usually updated on the first Tuesday of each month. The database file in si4 and si5 format, as well as an update file in PGN format containing the new games since the last update, will be provided. If you have already downloaded a database version, it is usually sufficient to import the new games in PGN format into the database. This saves you from re-downloading the entire chess database.
Support for this Project
The operation of this website and the ongoing maintenance of the database incur costs. If you find my work useful and would like to contribute, you are welcome to support me on Buy Me A Coffee. This would help me to continue the project.
I hope the database is useful for you.
35 responses to “Free chess game database for Scid”
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When I try to do that scid says it has reached its maximum numbers of games that it can copy before it copies the entire games. And I want to have both database as a single database because it will be easier for me to work with one tree window rather than having two different tree windows for each of them what to do?
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You‘ll need to use Scid 5.x. Scid vs. PC can only handle 16.777.216 games. Scid 5.x can handle over 4 billion games. It’s important in that case, that you will use the si5 database version.
There are a lot of YouTube videos out there helping with Scid. Please search there, too.
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Does the new database 01-07-25 comes with pre-removed duplicate games or I have to remove it manual. Please reply
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Almost all of the duplicate games should be removed. You don’t need to remove them by yourself.
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I have to download OTB and online databases separately? Does both databases dated 01/07/25 contains entire games oldest to newest or monthly games only
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Yes, you have to download the OTB and Online databases separately. The si4/5 versions for Scid are containing all games, no additional dowload required. The PGN files for online and OTB are only containing selected timespans. But if you don’t have Scid and want to use the complete databse, you have to download all the PGN file for OTB-, respectivly Online database.
The next update will be provided as a separate PGN file, which can be used to update the si4/5 databases, or you can download the si4/5 files again, which also will be updated.
All files have a specific version number. Usually YYYY-MM-DD. If you have the version 2025-07-01 and you want to update in August, you will need to download the cumulative update with the version number 205-08-dd.
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Hi, there used to be a monthly database updates in PGN format, but I couldn’t find it anymore. Could you point me to where I can download it? Thanks.
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I recently released a new version of the database with a lot of new sources. So I decided to remove all cumulative files and export all PGN’s once again as they were a lot of changes. The next cumulative file will be most likely released in August, as I’m currently working on an sophisticated deduplication script, to remove as many duplicates as possible. Sadly the Scid versions aren’t doing a very good job in finding duplicates.
The next full release is planned, as usual, for the 1st of July and will be – again – a full release, due to the removed duplicate games.
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Congratulations on your great work!
I have noticed that the elo cleaning under 1800 hasn’t been applied to the greekbase db-
Thanks for the hint, I will check ;)
Sadly, it seems, that this has happend to all the new added sources. I will remove those games, as soon as I managed to remove another set of duplicates.
Right now, if you want to remove them by yourself try to search for ELO ranges form 1-1799 for each player. To set the lower value to 0 ist not recommended, as there are a lot of (historical) games, that would be removed, as there is no ELO value set.
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I am using your database of chess games to construct a database of chess positions. I have written the code to read your files and play the games therein. I still have code to write to sort the positions and save them into files. The code I have written is still being debugged. Nevertheless, I have found a game that contains an impossible move. I am working with the 2025-01-07 version of your files, with no updates. In the file of undated games, game three (Radeva vs Wagner) starts with the moves
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.g3 b5 4.Bg2 Bb7 5.a4 b4 6.c4 bxc3 7.Nxc3 Bb4 8.O-O a5
9.Bg5 d6 10.Qc2 Nbd7 11.Nb5 Rc8 12.Na7 Rb8 13.Nc6 Bxc6 14.Qxc6 Rb6 15.Qc2The queen move Qxc6 at move 14 would have the Q at c2 (from move 10) capture the B at c6 (from move 13). But there is a white pawn at c4 (from move 6) that is blocking this move.
I fully expect that with such a large database there will be some mistaken moves, though I am surprised to have found a error in the third game. I hope soon to have played all the games. I will certainly let you know what I find.
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Hi Richard,
I looked at the game and your moves and found no mistakes. The pawn you mentioned was taken en passant (6.c4 bxc3). I would guess that your code is not quite correct in this case.
Regards,
Michael-
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I want to say how much I appreciate your help with debugging my code. I did indeed have a problem in my EP detection routine. Now I have come upon another problem, an ambiguous move. In game 7 in the same file, at move 7 Black plays Ne7 (line 143). But both black knights can reach e7. The variant Nce7 runs into trouble when the white bishop tries to capture the black night at c6 in move 15, while the variant Nge7 successfully runs to conclusion. I suspect ambiguous moves might be quite common. For now I will just keep a list of those I find, but it might be worthwhile to try to resolve the ambiguity by running all the possibilities and seeing which actually work.
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I have once again missed the point, there is no ambiguity because the c N is pinned on the king. I will have to add checks and pins to my code as well. LOL
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Excellent job!!
I combed through the ‘no date’ database, and found dates for the games. For the London Blitz games in that file, I had to match by name. So I know that every player played in that tournament, but I didn’t have time to confirm all the games.Webmaster, send me an email if you want me to share this with you.
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Best database ever. It would be really nice to release a lite version with only the important games above 2200 elo.
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Many thanks for the praise. Feel free to email me with some suggestions of what you’d like to see in the lite version. I can’t promise that I’ll make the effort to implement this, as it’s just a “side project” of mine!
Regards, Michael
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I’m a EnCroissant (http://www.encroissant.org) contributor and just discovered your amazing work. I could regularly convert the updated database to EC format to be available to download.
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Hi William,
You are welcome to convert the database, but please also refer to my website, as described in the license ;)
Regards, Michael
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I don’t have an idea, if the developers have included my database until now. But if they haven’t the likely should wait until next release, as there are most likely coming some structural changes.
As of right now, I plan to split the database in two, one containing OTB games, the other one containing Blitz and rapid, mostly online.
This is due to space problems with the SI4 database as this type of DB can “only” contain a maximum of 16.777.216 games..
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Most of the games were already in the database. However, I was able to add almost 30.000 games.
Regards, Michael
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Hi, do you have a strategy to clear up the “Events” field? Problem: Scid does have a limit on # of events, but in the Lichess database, every match is a unique event (the games URL). So, import of the really big pgns of the Lichess database is not possible even in SCID5.
Solution: Regex search/replace. But how? I tried many tools, but it all fails. E.g., last I tried was fnr – it succeeds until Lichess 2014 files, but then fails on my machine, memory out of range exception, something like this. Not easy!
Do you have an idea? It’s Windows here.
What I do is create polyglot books with weak players.
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Thank you so much for all your hard work. I have been using SCID for many years, but now have a great database to go with it. I’m going to share this with all my students. Now, to work out how to buy you a coffee :-)
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If this page is an chess move. It will be a brilliant move.
As my favorite Gm would say.
Sanx for ze games. – Daniil Dubov -
This is a fantastic resource! Thank you so much for making this collection.
I’m in the process of writing a book on romantic style chess openings, and your database has been very helpful in finding games from some of the old masters.-
Thank you very much for the praise. I am pleased that the database has helped you with your project.
Regards, Michael
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