| PGN Source & Last Updated | Detailed Description |
|---|---|
|
ChessArchive
October 28, 2026
|
Archive of ~11.00 million games (11,001,335 as of 28 Oct 2026), updated daily. Player pages, tournament collections, opening tools, and free PGN downloads covering classics to current GM events. |
|
Lumbra's Gigabase
October 2026 (2026-10-05)
|
High-quality curated collection: OTB (>12M) + Online (>6M). October 2026 release (main DB 2026-10-05) with improved player-identity handling. Deduplicated with Rust pipeline. Available as PGN and Scid (si4/si5). License: CC BY-NC 4.0. |
|
CCRL 40/15 Games
October 23, 2026
|
Computer Chess Rating Lists – ~2.47 million engine vs engine games under controlled conditions (last games added 23 Oct 2026). Bare and commented PGNs available. Excellent for engine testing. |
|
The Week in Chess (TWIC)
Weekly (TWIC 1668 – Oct 26, 2026)
|
Weekly collection of top-level tournament games (cumulative >4 million since 1994). Standard free source for the professional scene. Latest: TWIC 1668 (26 Oct 2026). |
|
ChessBites
Weekly (into 2026)
|
Online searchable database with over 10 million games. Weekly updates. Individual games can be downloaded as PGN. Good for quick lookups and selective downloads. |
|
FICS Games Database
Real-time
|
Free Internet Chess Server games since 1999. Real-time updates. Searchable by player, rating, and date. |
|
Lichess Standard Games & Puzzles
Monthly (through Sep 2026)
|
Official Lichess open database – 8.22 billion standard rated games (monthly files, latest: Sep 2026 with ~89.6M games). Also variants, broadcasts, puzzles and evaluations. Released under CC0. Best used selectively or via the explorer. |
|
Chess Nerd PGN Downloads
October 21, 2026
|
Curated free downloads: complete public TWIC archive (from issue 920), historical games, regional collections (ARG, BRIT, RUS, new CAN-Base with 217k Canadian games), filtered high-Elo online games (2800+), and high-level tournament event packages (2600+/2700+). Actively updated. |
|
TCEC Games Archive
Season 29 Final (June 2026)
|
Official Top Chess Engine Championship PGN archive. All seasons included. Latest major release: Season 29 final (June 2026). Compact and full formats. |
|
Chess.com CCC Archive (GitHub)
2026 (ongoing by year)
|
Zipped PGNs of Chess.com Computer Chess Championship events, organized by year (2018–2026). Useful specialized engine-tournament collection. |
| British Chess Game Archive – extensive historical British games from the 19th/20th centuries plus more recent events. Continuously (if slowly) updated. Included as a source in Lumbra’s Gigabase. | |
|
Lichess Elite Database
Monthly (through Nov 2025)
|
Filtered high-level Lichess games (originally 2400+ vs 2200+, later 2500+ vs 2300+). Rapid & blitz only (no bullet). Monthly PGN files. Last clear updates around late 2025. |
|
Chessmont Open Database
2025 (major release)
|
Open dataset merging Lichess (2500+), Chess.com top players, TWIC and PGN Mentor. Final set claims 21.5+ million unique games (no duplicates). Files in .zst format. Also provides position indexes. |
|
Ajedrez Data
August 2024
|
Free OTB and Correspondence databases by Mario Lacunza. Updated through August 2024. Available in PGN, SCID and ChessBase formats. Clean collections focused on tournament and correspondence play. |
|
PGNMentor
July 2024 (core files; site active)
|
Classic archive of individual files sorted by players, openings and tournaments. Ideal for targeted preparation. Still actively linked and used. |
|
KingBase
2023
|
~1.8 million games with Elo > 2000 from 1990 onwards. Compiled by Arturo Perez. Solid high-level human-game collection (older but still useful). |
| Annotated games (many by Jan van Reek) covering historic tournaments, World Championships, Olympiads, etc. | |
|
Chessentials
2022
|
Annotated game collections ordered by World Champions (Steinitz to Tal) and major modern events. Good instructional material. |
| 24 PGN files with >30,000 annotations (Tartakower, Réti, Alekhine, New York 1924, etc.). High-quality historic annotated material. | |
|
MillionBase 2017
2018
|
~2.9 million games. TWIC updates until early 2018. Still useful for historical analysis. |
Contains world_matches.pgn by Jan van Reek – detailed annotations of World Championship matches since 1547. |
|
|
Exeter Chess Club
2010
|
Instructional collections (e.g. canon.pgn) with annotations by Chernev, Purdy, Bronstein and others. Excellent for learning classic games. |
| Opening names, moves (PGN/UCI) and positions (EPD). Not full games – useful for opening training and engine testing. | |
| Small historical PGN of the 4th Computer Chess Championship (2004). | |
|
ChessGames.com (PGN export)
Ongoing
|
Large master-game collection with annotations. PGN export available for registered users (subject to site terms). |
|
En Croissant (databases)
Varies by dataset
|
Open-source chess GUI that also provides/hosts several free databases (including older Caissabase snapshots and Ajedrez Data sets) for convenient download and use inside the application. |