lichess.org game database

Sample

[Event "Rated Bullet tournament https://lichess.org/tournament/yc1WW2Ox"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/PpwPOZMq"]
[White "Abbot"]
[Black "Costello"]
[Result "0-1"]
[UTCDate "2017.04.01"]
[UTCTime "11:32:01"]
[WhiteElo "2100"]
[BlackElo "2000"]
[WhiteRatingDiff "-4"]
[BlackRatingDiff "+1"]
[WhiteTitle "FM"]
[ECO "B30"]
[Opening "Sicilian Defense: Old Sicilian"]
[TimeControl "300+0"]
[Termination "Time forfeit"]

1. e4 { [%eval 0.17] [%clk 0:00:30] } 1... c5 { [%eval 0.19] [%clk 0:00:30] }
2. Nf3 { [%eval 0.25] [%clk 0:00:29] } 2... Nc6 { [%eval 0.33] [%clk 0:00:30] }
3. Bc4 { [%eval -0.13] [%clk 0:00:28] } 3... e6 { [%eval -0.04] [%clk 0:00:30] }
4. c3 { [%eval -0.4] [%clk 0:00:27] } 4... b5? { [%eval 1.18] [%clk 0:00:30] }
5. Bb3?! { [%eval 0.21] [%clk 0:00:26] } 5... c4 { [%eval 0.32] [%clk 0:00:29] }
6. Bc2 { [%eval 0.2] [%clk 0:00:25] } 6... a5 { [%eval 0.6] [%clk 0:00:29] }
7. d4 { [%eval 0.29] [%clk 0:00:23] } 7... cxd3 { [%eval 0.6] [%clk 0:00:27] }
8. Qxd3 { [%eval 0.12] [%clk 0:00:22] } 8... Nf6 { [%eval 0.52] [%clk 0:00:26] }
9. e5 { [%eval 0.39] [%clk 0:00:21] } 9... Nd5 { [%eval 0.45] [%clk 0:00:25] }
10. Bg5?! { [%eval -0.44] [%clk 0:00:18] } 10... Qc7 { [%eval -0.12] [%clk 0:00:23] }
11. Nbd2?? { [%eval -3.15] [%clk 0:00:14] } 11... h6 { [%eval -2.99] [%clk 0:00:23] }
12. Bh4 { [%eval -3.0] [%clk 0:00:11] } 12... Ba6? { [%eval -0.12] [%clk 0:00:23] }
13. b3?? { [%eval -4.14] [%clk 0:00:02] } 13... Nf4? { [%eval -2.73] [%clk 0:00:21] } 0-1

Notes

About 6% of the games include Stockfish analysis evaluations: [%eval 2.35] (235 centipawn advantage), [%eval #-4] (getting mated in 4), always from White's point of view.

In files with ✔ Clock, real-time games include clock states: [%clk 0:01:00].

The WhiteElo and BlackElo tags contain Glicko2 ratings.

The Round and Date tags are omitted (see UTCDate & UTCTime instead).

Variant games have a Variant tag, e.g., [Variant "Antichess"].

Known issues

• July 2020 (especially 31th), August 2020 (up to 16th): Many games, especially variant games, may have incorrect evaluations in the opening (up to 15 plies).
• December 2016 (up to and especially 9th): Many games may have incorrect evaluations.
• Before 2016: In some cases, mate may not be forced in the number of moves given by the evaluations.
• June 2020, all before March 2016: Some players were able to play themselves in rated games.
• Up to August 2016: 7 games with illegal castling moves were recorded.

Extract bz2 files

Unix: pbzip2 -d filename.pgn.bz2 (faster than bunzip2)
Windows: use 7zip

Open PGN files

Traditional PGN databases, like SCID or ChessBase, fail to open large PGN files. Until they fix it, you can split the PGN files, or use programmatic APIs such as python-chess or Scoutfish.

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