Nalimov Endgame Tablebases, Complete Set, DVD

This DVD includes the most complete version of the 3-4-5 piece NALIMOV endgame tablebases (290 files). The tablebases will tell you exactly how to play out any position once five or less pieces are left on the board, therefore they may turn out very instructive while analyzing endgames with a smaller number of pieces. The program knows whether the position is won, lost, or drawn, and how many moves it will take to win or draw, assuming best play by both sides. You can use the tablebases while viewing games, analyzing, or playing against a computer. Provided with the tablebases, playing programs are infallible in the late endgame, because they begin to use variations and evaluations from the tablebases as soon as a position available arises on the board. Thus the program's playing strength increases greatly.
To speed up access to the tablebases, you should install them onto your hard disk. If you want to have the 3-4-5 tablebases available on your hard disk, note that they occupy as much as 7.5 GB (current incomplete version of the 6-piece tablebases occupy more than 100 GB!)
Attention! When you are installing COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS, the setup program offers you to install the tablebases as well. If you agree, you will not have to follow the procedures described below.

Installation:

Installing the NALIMOV Tablebases from DVD to Hard Disk.

· Insert the DVD into your DVD-ROM drive.
· Select Run from the Start menu.
· Select Browse, and select the DVD-ROM drive.
· Double-click on TBMANAGER.EXE. The setup program will start.

The Select operation dialog box will appear.

Select Install tablebases from DVD and press the Next> button. The Install tablebases from DVD dialog box will appear. The NALIMOV tablebases are installed in the 'C:\TBS' directory by default. However, before the files are copied you have the option to change the path. Don't forget that they occupy 7.5 GB!

Press the Next> button so that the Install tablebases from DVD window will appear.

The NALIMOV tablebases are divided into Critical, Important and Exotic, and consist of 145 endgame groups. You may either install all or select any desired groups from the list.
If you wish to install all, press the Next> button. The Specify group of tablebases to manage box will appear. Select All and press OK. The setup procedure will start. After successful installation the program will display: All files were successfully copied.
If you have not enough free disk space, install only Critical files. You can also choose files for installation by marking them in the # column. To select a group of files, right-click on the Files window. The local menu will appear:

Select Tick all on this page and press the Next> button. The Specify group of tablebases to manage dialog box will appear. Select the Marked and press OK.
Setup procedure will start. After successful installation the program will display: All files were successfully copied.

If you have installed COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS without linking the NALIMOV tablebases, you will be able to link the tablebases with the help of TBManager.EXE. While in the Select operation dialog box, choose Link Tablebases to Comprehensive Chess Endings and indicate paths to the NALIMOV tablebases as well as to COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS.

Linking the NALIMOV Tablebases to CHESS ASSISTANT

If you have CHESS ASSISTANT 7.1 installed and updated up to Build 723 or higher, run it and call the Engines\Link tablebases in the main menu. Of course, you have to install the tablebases beforehand.
If you own an earlier CHESS ASSISTANT version, follow these instructions:
To allow CA EndgameTB engine, open the Tools | Engines setup window and specify the path to the folder where they are stored in the Endgame tablebases path box. A new line Endgame TB will appear in the Engines list.

The procedure that follows does not link the tablebases to the built-in TIGER, CRAFTY and RUFFIAN. Each engine requires a separate setup.
You can view the NALIMOV tablebases as a tree which will display all alternate moves. To do this, enter EndgameTB instead of a tree name in the Edit Tree configurations window (to call it, press [Shift] [Ctrl] [F7] in View mode). Indicate a path to the tablebases before the EndgameTB name.

After this the tree will display moves and evaluations from the tablebases.

The Move column shows all legally possible moves from the current position. For example, in the figure above, all of them except for the first two lead to White's defeat.

Linking the NALIMOV Tablebases to CHESS TIGER within CHESS ASSISTANT

Open the Tools | Engines setup window and select Tiger 15.0. Press the Personalities button, and the Tiger 15 Setup box will appear.
Open the Tools | Engines setup window (with the [Alt] [F11] key combination) and select Tiger 15. Press the Personalities button, and the Tiger 15 Setup dialog box will appear.

Mark the Use Endgame TB check box with a tick and type in a path to the NALIMOV tablebases in the Tablebases Path text box. Press the Ok button.

Linking the NALIMOV Tablebases to RUFFIAN within CHESS ASSISTANT

Open the Tools | Engines setup window and select Ruffian. Press the Personalities button, and the Ruffian Setup dialog box will appear.

Type in the NalimovPath in the corresponding text box and press OK.
Linking the NALIMOV Tablebases to CRAFTY within CHESSASSISTANT
Open the Tools | Engines setup window and select Crafty. Press the Personalities button, and the Crafty Setup box will appear.

Mark the Use Endgame TB check box with a tick, type in the NalimovPath in the corresponding text box and then press OK.

Linking the NALIMOV Tablebases to CHESSBASE Products (FRITZ 8, SHREDDER 7, …)

Method 1:

To connect the tablebases with the help of TBManager.EXE, select the Write information about tablebases to ChssBase.ini option in the Select operation dialog box. Press Next> and enter the path to the folder where you have installed the NALIMOV tablebases.

Method 2:

Menu: Tools - Options - Tablebases
Let's suppose you installed tablebases to the C:\TBS folder. Set the path in the Options dialog box:
Note that you can put the tablebases files into different directories, partitions or even different hard disks of your computer. Use the Browse button to locate the directories.
The cache memory is used to speed up access to the tablebases during a game. We recommend that you set a value between 1 and 8 MB.

Decreasing Engines' Loading Time

After you have installed the tablebases and linked them to the playing engines, you can notice that the engines are being loaded into the memory much more slowly. This is the price you have to pay for using the tablebases. Therefore if at some moment you don't need the tablebases, you can temporarily switch them off.

System requirements:

Essential: IBM-compatible PC, 64 MB memory (RAM), Hard Disk (150 MB of free disk space), Windows 95/98/2000/NT/ME/XP, CD-ROM drive.