Tablebases

A tablebase is a file containing the perfect result information about all positions of a particular material setup, such as King and Rook versus King and Pawn. Tablebases for all material situations up to five men (including the Kings) have been generated, and some simple 6-men tablebases are also available.

Scid can use Nalimov-format tablebases that are used by many modern chess engines. These often end with the file suffix .nbw.emd or .nbb.emd.

Using tablebases in Scid

To use tablebase files in Scid, simply set their directories by selecting Tablebase directory... from the [Options] menu. You can select up to 4 directories where your tablebase files are stored. You can press a ... button to the right of an entry to choose a file, to specify that the directory of that file should be used.

When a position found in a tablebase file is reached, the game information area (below the chessboard) will show tablebase information. You can configure the amount of information shown by clicking the right-mouse button in that area or selecting Game information from the [Options] menu. Selecting the "result and best moves" option gives the most useful information, but is much often slower than the "result only" option.

The Tablebase window

You can get even more tablebase information about the current position by opening the Tablebase window ([Windows] menu, shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+=). This window shows the result with perfect play of all legal moves from the current position.

Obtaining Tablebase files

See the related links section for help on finding tablebase files on the Internet.

(Updated: Scid 3.2, February 2002)


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