HowToSearchHeader

Clicking on Search Header in [TheSearchMenu] invokes [TheSearchHeaderDialog].

This search can be used to find games according to the information contained in the fields of [TheGameHeader]

The name fields (White, Black, Event, Site and Round)

(such as date, result, names, flags and ratings).

This search does not require any moves to be decoded.

For a game to match a Header search, all fields that you specify must match.

The name fields (White, Black, Event, Site and Round)

Is Search Case Sensitive?

The name fields match on any text inside the name, case-insensitive and ignoring spaces.

Additionally, an Annotator may be searched case insensitively. Note that this function requires the Annotator header field to be set properly. The checkbox [annotated games only] acts as a logical OR filter for the flags Comments, Variations, Anotations, that is can be used to select only those games that got any type of annotations.

Can I Use Wildcards?

You can do case-sensitive wildcard searches for the White, Black, Event, Site and Round fields (with ? representing one character and * representing zero or more characters) by putting the search text in double quotes. For example a search for the site USA will find American cities and also Lausanne SUI, which is probably not what you wanted! A search for the site "*USA" (remember to use the double-quotes) will only match cities in the United States.

If you are searching for a particular player (or pair of opponents) as White or Black and it does not matter what color they played, select the Ignore Colors option.

Can I Search for Text within the Games?

Finally, the Header search can be used to find any text (case-sensitive and without wildcards) in the PGN representation of each game. You may enter up to three text phrases, and they must all appear in a game for it to be a match.

This search is very useful for searching in the comments or extra tags of a game (such as lost on time or Annotator), or for a move sequence like Bxh7+ and Kxh7 for a bishop sacrifice on h7 that was accepted. However, this type of search can be very slow since all the games that match other criteria must be decoded and scanned for the text phrases. So it is a good idea to limit these searches as much as possible.

What about

Note If a search by ECO code is performed, games that have no ECO code attached are ignored.