2CBH to PGN: ChessBase 17 and 18 databases (Beta)

The ChessBase 17 and 18 database format

ChessBase 17 introduced a second database format alongside the classic .cbh. Its files end in .2cbh (the game headers), .2cbg (moves and guiding texts), .2cba (annotations), .2lid (players, tournaments, sources, teams and game tags), .2lgd and .2lcd (indexes). Older ChessBase versions and other chess programs don't open it.

Upload the files together, or a .zip of the folder, and get:

• a PGN with every game, its full move tree and its annotations;
• comments in every language stored (English, German, French and the others), or only the one you choose;
• symbols, coloured squares, arrows, time spent, clock times and engine evaluations, including the evaluation curve ChessBase stores for the main line, as [%eval] on each move;
• game quotations inside comments, written as the two players' names;
• Chess960 games with their start position;
• the guiding texts as HTML pages and a CSV game list.

The .2lgd and .2lcd files are indexes and are not needed; the .2lid file is, for the names.

Differences from the CBH format

The newer format stores the variations after the whole main line and gives every move a number of its own, but the content is the same, so a game converted from .2cbh gives the same moves, variations and comments as the same game converted from a .cbh copy of the database. Annotators are players in the newer format, so their names come out as "Last, First".

Pitfalls

• Without the .2cba file the games come without annotations, and without .2lid the names are question marks.
• A few annotation kinds have no PGN equivalent: pawn structure and piece path displays and variation colours are left out; training questions are marked with a note.
• Deleted games are left out unless you include them under "More options".

More about what this tool reads and writes: ChessBase to PGN Converter (CBH, 2CBH, CBV).