It&#x27;s not quite that simple. I discuss variable bit schemes like the one you describe in the article. Your suggested scheme is an extreme variant, and it&#x27;s by no means obvious it&#x27;s optimal. I&#x27;d be prepared to be convinced if some statistical evidence were presented. As I say, designing these schemes is &quot;a lot of fun&quot;. Under your scheme;<p>1st move in the list takes one bit (great)
2nd move in the list takes two bits (good)
3rd move in the list takes three bits (okay)
4th move in the list takes four bits (average)
5th move in the list takes five bits (worse than average)
...etc<p>There are many positions where there are lots of plausible moves, in such positions your scheme could use many bits. I would estimate your scheme would take around 4 bits per move on average, much like the similar scheme I describe.<p>You are correct that a good modern database of 5 million plus games stored uncompressed occupies about 5 gigabytes or 1 DVD. Clearly compression is very useful for online distribution, which is what people expect these days. Chessbase compression reduces the 5 gigs to 0.5 gigs, about 10:1.<p>The scheme I describe is a nice compromise between performance and maximum compression. In my database program I achieve much faster position search than Chessbase. I am trying to achieve similar results without massive position indexes, and my performant compressed move scheme is a key ingredient in my work.<p>Edit: But as I state in the intro to my article, I am just an amateur playing around - I am not expecting to &#x27;beat&#x27; Chessbase. I&#x27;ll settle for having some innovative aspects to my program.