Free 5.61 Million Game Database

     Caissabase can be downloaded free...it's rather large at 482MB, but it has 5.62 million games. I believe the last update to the database was in December of last year. Visit site

     It's important to know that in order to utilize the database you need the free Scid vs PC chess program which you can download from SourceForge HERE. If you are using another program (e.g. Chessbase) you can export the Scid files as PGN and then import the games into your program. 

     I remember an incident from the early days of chess programs when an amateur mentioned to GM William Lombardy the he had a database with two million games (or some such) in it. Lombardy's snide remark was, "How many of those games have you actually played over?"

     Poor Lombardy simply did not understand the value of having a database. It's not so you can play over millions of games, but so you can search for openings you play and see how GMs handled them or you can search out positions with specific features you are interested in or you can search for endgames you want to study...things like that.

     Chess.com has a good article by National Master Sam Copeland on using databases HERE.