The German Chess Game Exchange Circuit

Since 1992 a games exchange circuit exists that was hosted until 1996 by the German ChessBase User Club. Now it has become a private effort of a few chess database enthusiasts, who invite you to join in. The idea is quite simple: you send in 100 games and receive back the whole collection (presently a factor of 30). New issues become available every 2-3 months. Co-ordination is with the central manager, who determines which games are acceptable to the circuit. For snail mail users, there are no costs but for stamps, diskettes and envelopes. The central manager acts for the love of God - and for thousands of games.

Contributors accept and support a high quality standard of chess data. The ways in which players' names and sites have to be encoded (available here) are oriented towards the ChessBase standard.

Particular emphasis was put on the selection of material. Complete tournaments should be considered, but they should not already be available from the big companies (ChessBase, Chess Assistant, NiCBase).

Participation needn't be on a regular basis. Assume we agree on some 500 games that you send in via email. If they meet the standards set out above, you will receive 5 issues of the Circuit according to your choice; here is an overview of what the Circuit has achieved so far. We would prefer to make these games available to you on an ftp server.

If you are interested in the Circuit via snail mail, contact the central manager: