Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess/Archive 17

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 10

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Archive 15

ECF grading system

Move text to Talk:ECF_grading_system. More relevant on article then a wider issue for WikiProject Chess. SunCreator (talk) 13:14, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Dallas Chess Club

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dallas Chess Club

You guys might be best equipped to help out on this article and the AfD. The article was made by a new user, too, so the article could do with some work. If the club is as big (most active in the US?) as the article states, then it definitely passes WP:N. _Met^ty 02:59, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Eugenio Torre

Eugenio Torre article probably has copyright problems. Two sections look like they are copied directly from another source. Bubba73 (talk), 03:40, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm... the section "Torre breaks Chess Olympiad Record" is word for word the same as this blog on chess.com. Which came first is unclear to me; did chess.com copy us, or did we copy someone else? The chess.com blog post is dated July 17, 2007, and the content in question seems to have been added to Wikipedia before that date. What is clear is that the section there does not look like an encylopedia article. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:01, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

That section reads like a newspaper article or something similar. There is a dead link at the end of the section and my guess is that it was copied from there. Much of the previous section is copied from the link at the end of that section. Bubba73 (talk), 19:36, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The page has been blanked because of copyright violations. MAybe someone can work on the article. Bubba73 (talk), 03:25, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The copyright violations have been removed from the article. Now the article needs to be expanded. Bubba73 (talk), 18:09, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Articles to delete section

Do we really need this any more, now we have the Article Alerts section which lists AfDs for us?--Pawnkingthree (talk) 21:27, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Not really, if the article has the Chess project tag on its talk page. If the article has that tag it should show up within several hours. Some articles don't have the tag and sometimes people see the AfD before it is picked up by the software. Bubba73 (talk), 02:39, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

One issue with Article Alerts (at least for me) is that it does not appear in your watchlist, so if you do not look at it specifically you may never know something is happening. SyG (talk) 18:29, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

That's true. You have to check the project page manually. Bubba73 (talk), 23:17, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

pronounce Rossolimo

How do you pronounce the last name of Nicolas Rossolimo? My first guess was ross-o-LEE-mo but looking at it, maybe it is ro-SO-li-mo or something. Bubba73 (talk), 02:10, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

FIDE titles merge

At first I supported the merge of many pages to FIDE titles, including IM, FM, WGM, and WIM, but now I'm not sure. Your input is requested at Talk:FIDE titles#Merge maybe not a good idea. Quale (talk) 06:58, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

There's another problem in that the moving of FIDE Titles to FIDE titles has created several double redirects. I fixed the four pages you listed above but if there are many more they'll all have to be done too.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 17:40, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Fixed the rest as well:)--Pawnkingthree (talk) 15:40, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I think there is a bot that is supposed to take care of double redirects within 24 hours. Bubba73 (talk), 03:59, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Chess titles and FIDE titles may need to be merged. Bubba73 (talk), 03:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Redirect class

There is a redirect class but currently WikiChess does not include it, I think we should. There is a bot that can add them to pages see here. Reminded of this issue because of the recent merge of various articles into FIDE titles, all of which previous had Chess-WikiProject assessments and all now will become redirects. SunCreator (talk) 23:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be useful to have a list or category of redirects to chess articles. There are a lot of redirects to chess terms which are a lot easier to type than the full path. Bubba73 (talk), 06:13, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Equal

In several articles I saw something like "he came equal 4th at ... tornament". If a player, for example, shared places from 4 to 10 and became 9th or 10th by tiebreak, can we still say that he came equal 4th? --I Do Care (talk) 06:00, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

The usual convention for ties without a tiebreak is e.g. 4th-10th, though you'd probably need to explain this the first it occurs in the text and/or tables. If course if a tiebreak (partially) resolves the order, you'd use the result of that - which could still include a few narrower tie groups. --Philcha (talk) 07:44, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Philcha. But it's still unclear for me and I would modify my question: when we see phrase "he came equal 4th at ... tornament" does it mean that a player tied from 4 to something (5, 6 ...10) but became 4th by tiebreak? --I Do Care (talk) 08:12, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Really brief reports would show only the post-tiebreak result, longer ones would give the background. If a report includes a table of results, it would usually show the post-tiebreak placings, but you'd notice that several players had the same score. -Philcha (talk) 11:22, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion the answer to Do Care's question is not a simple yes or no. It depends on the tournament really, some use tiebreak for 4th place and higher, while others don't bother. Loosmark (talk) 14:18, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Importance of Kayden Troff

I believe that Kayden deserves to be bumped up to a mid importance level. He just became the North American Champion for all ages U-12, and recieved the title of candidate master. He is nearly top of the list in regular rating for all ages under 16, and has been at the top of the quick rated list for quite some time. He is also Utah Champion in nearly all categories, and all of this at the age of eleven! Can't Kayden be bumped up a level? Grand Mattster 20:20, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I would tend to slightly disagree. My understanding of the scale would be something like:

Top-class: World Chess Champions
High-class: finalists of the World Chess Championship, Woman World Chess Champions
Mid-class: got into the world top-10 (adult) at one point of time. Maybe also the Junior World Chess Champion.

Let's present it another way: how has Kayden Troff contributed to the development of the history of chess ? SyG (talk) 20:36, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree - consider that the articles on Grandmasters Larry Christiansen, Joel Benjamin and Lev Alburt, each of whom has won the U.S. Championship at least twice, are also considered "Low importance", like Troff's. There's no way that he's a more significant figure in chess history than they are. Krakatoa (talk) 21:22, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

The importance scale is at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chess/Assessment#Importance scale. It advises that a Mid importance subject should "add important further details within its field, with some impact beyond it." I don't think Kayden is quite there yet. A Low Importance category doesn't mean he's insignificant; it's all relative.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 21:32, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Agreed - it's certainly not a slight of him at all. IMO, the description should be rewritten. I doubt that even most World Champions (i.e. the subjects of "Top Level" articles, typically) have much, if any, "impact" beyond the "field" of chess. Krakatoa (talk) 22:40, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for your opinions. I'll go with the concensus. Grand Mattster 14:09, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Review of Budapest Gambit

I have nominated Budapest Gambit for review at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess/Review/Budapest Gambit. This is both to get constructive feedback and to have a hint of how the article should evolve to get to A-class. It does not need to be a pain, even high-level reviews would be appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help ! SyG (talk) 07:34, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Apparently this review has unfortunately generated very limited enthusiasm, so I have nominated the article for GA-review as well. If one of you masters the GA process and GA criteria, of course he is welcome to take the GA-review on. SyG (talk) 18:22, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It's not that I'm necessarily unenthusiastic; I've read over the article a number of times and I've thought about participating, but I guess I'm just a little intimidated by the level of detail for an opening I'm not that familiar with. I will consider doing a GA-review instead. --Pawnkingthree (talk) 19:08, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Well looks like I don't need to - you have a GA reviewer already. You're very lucky - most people have to wait weeks!:)--Pawnkingthree (talk) 20:03, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it's completely mesmerising. I was counting on a one-month-delay, typical for chess-related articles. Another good fortune: he seems to be an expert on the Budapest and has all the references ! Mmm... too much luck recently, maybe I should watch out my wife more closely.

In all cases thanks for your intended GA-review, and please do not hesitate to do additional comments on the Talk page ! SyG (talk) 18:21, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I started a review but like the above felt it was gonna take ages to I didn't post the bit I started. The Budapest naming to match the place is implied but not verified. SunCreator (talk) 22:49, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I am very happy to announce that Budapest Gambit has successfully undergone the GA-review, and now becomes a Good Article ! How long the road has been since I had a first glance on it, when it looked like that, more than three years ago. I am especially happy to know that an article on a chess opening can apply to Wikipedia standards, avoiding pitfalls like WP:NOTHOWTO. I would like to thank the other significant contributors to this article, notably Krakatoa, Bubba73, SunCreator and the reviewer Sasata. Cheers ! SyG (talk) 12:42, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Endgame articles overview and review

The creation of the Queen and pawn versus queen endgame‎ article made me think it would be a good time to review what endgame articles we have and which one we require. Below is the Chess endgame frequency table.

Chess endgame frequency table
Percent	Pieces	Pieces	Covering article or comment
8.45	rook	rook	Rook and pawn versus rook endgame extend article with pawns or create new Rook and pawns versus rook endgame?
6.76	rook & bishop	rook & knight	No existing article. Create Rook and bishop versus rook and knight endgame?
3.45	two rooks	two rooks	No existing article. Create Two rooks versus two rooks endgame?
3.37	rook & bishop	rook & bishop (same color)	No existing article. Create Rook and bishop versus rook and bishop endgame?
3.29	bishop	knight	No existing article. Create Bishop versus knight endgame?
3.09	rook & knight	rook & knight	No existing article. Create Rook and knight versus rook and knight endgame?
2.87	king & pawns	king (and pawns)	No existing article. Create King and pawns versus king endgame?
1.92	rook & bishop	rook & bishop (opposite color)	No existing article. Create Rook and bishop versus rook and bishop endgame?
1.87	queen	queen	No existing article. Create Queen versus queen endgame?
1.77	rook & bishop	rook	No existing article. Create Rook and bishop versus rook endgame?
1.65	bishop	bishop (same color)	No existing article. Create Same-colored bishop endgame?
1.56	knight	knight	No existing article. Create Knight versus knight endgame?
1.51	rook	bishop	No existing article. Create Rook versus bishop endgame?
1.42	rook & knight	rook	No existing article. Create Rook and knight versus rook endgame?
1.11	bishop	bishop (opposite color)	Opposite-colored bishops endgame
1.01	bishop	pawns	No existing article. To create?
0.97	rook	knight	No existing article. To create?
0.92	knight	pawns	No existing article. To create?
0.90	queen & minor piece	queen	No existing article. To create?
0.81	rook	two minor pieces	No existing article. To create?
0.75	rook	pawns	No existing article. To create?
0.69	queen	rook & minor piece	No existing article. To create?
0.67	rook & pawn	rook	No existing article. To create?
0.56	rook & two pawns	rook	No existing article. To create?
0.42	queen	pawns	Queen versus pawn endgame plus Queen versus pawns required?
0.40	queen	rook	No existing article. To create?
0.31	queen	two rooks	No existing article. To create?
0.23	king & one pawn	king	King and pawn versus king endgame
0.17	queen	minor piece	No existing article. To create?
0.09	queen & one pawn	queen	Queen and pawn versus queen endgame
0.08	queen	two minor pieces	No existing article. To create?
0.02	bishop & knight	king	Bishop and knight checkmate plus with pawn(s) required?
0.01	queen	three minor pieces	No existing article. To create?

Chess tournament GA review

Chess tournament has been nominated as a Good Article. If you are able to review please do so. 21:49, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I hate to be depressing, but Chess tournament needs total redevelopment to make GA. Some aspects are over-emphasised while others are omitted, this means the structure needs to be redrawn to accommodate the new material and to provide a logical order, some of the references don't provide what's required (e.g. some refs to books don't have page numbers). --Philcha (talk) 07:18, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I generally agree. Which aspects are ommitted? SunCreator (talk) 15:17, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Now you've just put me on the spot :-/

I'd be inclined to start with an overview of formats. That would provide defintions of terms that can be use din the rest of the article.
I think the early history needs more. The knockout tournament in London in 1849 and a tournament in Amsterdam in 1851, both already mentioned, were important. All international tournaments took place in Great Britain until Paris 1867 (ref at Howard Staunton). London 1862 chess tournament was the first international round-robin (refs at Adolf Anderssen), but it would be important to identify the very first round-robin, and most reasoning for and reception for this new format.
The range of levels, from school championships to those that contribute to the World Championship. Tournaments for the World Championship are not restricted to the Zonal-International-Candidates cycle. The World Championship was awarded on the result of tournaments in 1948 and World Chess Championship 2007. New York 1889 was meant to be for the Championship, although it did not work according to plan (refs at Wilhelm Steinitz).
Team comps, incl Olympiads.
Might be worth mentioning correspondence comps.
etc., etc.

I'm afraid I can't contribute right now, as I'm reviewing 4 artciles for GA and reviwers have just in the last day opened GA reviews on 2 of my noms - aaarg! --Philcha (talk) 16:30, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

So many GA... Take care Philcha, beware of wikipediholism :-) SyG (talk) 10:40, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Positional chess

I'm thinking of changing the Redirect for Positional chess from Glossary of chess#P to Chess strategy some day, then putting in a sentence or two in the Chess strategy introductory section saying that positional chess or play is a style of play involving chess strategy in addition to chess tactics. Does anybody have any thoughts on this matter? Currently I see no article on Positional play, Positional play (chess), or Chess positional play. H Padleckas (talk) 05:44, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I just changed it to redirect to Glossary of chess#Positional play. I think that is better for the time being. Bubba73 (the argument clinic), 15:14, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Chess Wikia website

I have found that this Chess Wikia site has become inactive. Maybe we could do something with it. A benefit of a site like this is that not all the English Wikipedia rules necessarily have to be followed. For example, we could put in our own or unpublished games in there. Also, notability and "no original research" requirements may not have to be as strictly enforced. H Padleckas (talk) 21:22, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Can't say I can see a purpose at the moment. Disadvantages would be few passing visitors and adverts on pages. If something turns up that can't be done on Wikipedia or Wikibooks then maybe worth giving a go, until then I think I'll pass. SunCreator (talk) 23:55, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I looked at it too. It probably gets very few viewers. Bubba73 (the argument clinic), 01:02, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup listing

I added Cleanup listing to the '... which need some work' section. What prompted this was a realisation that there is more articles flagged for cleanup in the Good articles, Top-importance articles and High-importance articles then there was the previous month. SunCreator (talk) 00:05, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Boungcloud Attack

It seems like players playing the Boungcloud Attack are usually not very serious...

1. e4 e5 2. Ke2 Ba3 3. bxa3 Ke7 4. Nf3 Ke6 5. Nxe5 Kxe5 6. f4+ Kxf4 7. g3+ Kxe4 8. d3+ Kd4 9. Bf4 Kc5 10. Nc3 Kb6 11. Rb1+ Ka5 12. Na4 Kxa4 13. Rb4+ Kxa3 14. Rb3+ Kxa2 15. Rb2+ Kxb2 16. Qb1+ Kxb1 17. Bc1 Kxc1 18. Kf3 Kxc2 19. Bg2 Kxd3 20. Rd1+ Kc2 21. Rd2+ Kxd2 22. Bf1 Ke1 23. h4 Kxf1 24. Kg4 Kg2 25. Kf5 Kxg3 26. Ke4 Kxh4 0-1

²³¹₉₁Pa (talk) 13:45, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Or maybe they're just high. Krakatoa (talk) 16:35, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Why isn't there an article about the Boungcloud Attack? ²³¹₉₁Pa (talk) 13:33, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boungcloud Attack. SunCreator (talk) 14:51, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Happy Halloween

May all your Halloween Gambit's be a success! SunCreator (talk) 00:16, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Let us protect our articles

Three poorly versed in chess wikipedians actively attacking the List of chess openings named after animals article and want to delete it. Members of WikiProject Chess not even try to save the article. If this continues, today we will lost List of chess openings named after animals, tomorrow List of chess players and after tomorrow Chess article. --MrsHudson (talk) 00:40, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know! I already went and "voted" for keep. (Not that it's a vote, but I justified my position too.) —ZeroOne (talk / @) 11:31, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Me too. I find it tiresome to have chess articles attacked by people who wouldn't know a rook if it hit them in the face. Krakatoa (talk) 01:55, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I would like to thank everybody who contribute to the List of chess openings named after animals and other related lists and voted for keeping. --MrsHudson (talk) 02:02, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

To be honest I do not think they where being attacked in this case, but a genuine desire to apply notability like it would apply to a normal article. The notability of lists have been a mystery to me for some time. Right now it seems to me there are thousands or tens of thousands of lists with no assertion of notability on wikipedia. List guidelines seems unclear so maybe they are mysterious covered somehow, but then again maybe not. SunCreator (talk) 02:09, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Now "our" lists are very well equipped but opponents are still unsatisfied... --MrsHudson (talk) 02:15, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Do we have any references for the upper part of Chess_opening#Opening_nomenclature. It could do with some. SunCreator (talk) 23:31, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

"Animal rights" successfully defended. Thank you all for your support. --MrsHudson (talk) 13:51, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

asking for correction

Hello.

One change is needed in the External links section at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Golubev:

"Mikhail Golubev's Chess Page" (was at http://www.geocities.com/mikhail_golubev) is now at http://mikhailgolubev.wordpress.com/

--- Also, about rating performances, I checked in the Mega Database 2009, my best performances were: Bethune 2002: 6,5/7, Perf. 2768 Karvina 1992/93: 8/9 Perf. 2691 Yalta 1996: 8,5/11 Perf. 2663 Berlin 1993: 7/9 Perf. 2662 ---

Thanks in advance, GM Mikhail Golubev gmi@europe.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikhail golubev (talk • contribs) 18:07, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for these informations. We have updated the link for your website, and the infos on your best performances have been added to the section Mikhail_Golubev#Chess_strength. SyG (talk) 08:56, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Images in other language wiki's

Have found an image for Ernst Grünfeld here. Can we use this, and if so how? SunCreator (talk) 15:37, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

And Manuel Aaron found here SunCreator (talk) 16:35, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

As Aaron is still living there's no way a non-free image of him could be justified. I'm not sure of the status of the Grunfeld picture; it could be transferred to the Commons if it's out of copyright.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 18:48, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Pageview stats

After a recent request, I added WikiProject Chess to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess/Popular pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 19:00, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for making the change so the data appears on that page! Bubba73 (the argument clinic), 19:06, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Excellent news. Thank you Mr.Z-man. SunCreator (talk) 19:42, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

This makes me think... Should we perhaps reassess the importance of some articles now that we have data on how popular the articles are? For example, Chess boxing is very near the top of the list but still only rated as low importance. Same goes with Fairy chess piece. There are also articles with high importance rating that should perhaps be promoted to top importance, such as the Elo rating system article. Of course these apply to the other end of the list, too: should we keep the high importance rating of, for example, Yakov Estrin even though he is on the position 1366 of the list? —ZeroOne (talk / @) 22:52, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Have done so already; checking views for all 3227 artices. You can see I have today/yesterday changed already as you mainly suggest: Elo rating system-Up, En passant-Up, Yakov Estrin-Down, Krunoslav Hulak-Down, 2004 in chess-Down, Fairy chess piece-Up, in this not for chess but Wikipedia:WikiProject Strategy games which is perhaps more relevant to that article. Not sure what to do with Chess boxing, it gets plenty of views but a chess rating of Low seems the only option appropriate. SunCreator (talk) 23:09, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

We initially made all World Champions top importance and world correspondence champions high imp (e.g. Yakov Estrin). Even though I played correspondence chess a lot, I'm now thinking that most or all of the correspondence champions should be mid imp. Bubba73 (the argument clinic), 23:44, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, we started out thinking world correspondence champions would be high importance but then discovered we knew nothing much about these characters Grigory Sanakoev,Friedrich Baumbach,Victor Palciauskas, Tõnu Õim etc. We then only made the ones we knew - Yakov Estrin and Hans Berliner - high and the rest Mid. Since then as even Yakov Estrin gets few views so now they are all mid, pity as I am a big fan of Yakov Estrin. SunCreator (talk) 23:55, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Palciauskas was covered in Chess Life. Bubba73 (the argument clinic), 00:37, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

What about Cecil Purdy? Right now he has high imp. Bubba73 (the argument clinic), 00:40, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I forgot about Cecil Purdy. Will make mid now. SunCreator (talk) 11:54, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent) IM Purdy was a well-respected writer and a decent player, but I have a hard time believing that he warrants being two importance classes above fellow Australian (and GM) Ian Rogers or New Zealanders GM Murray Chandler and IM Robert Wade, all of whom are Low-Importance. Also, very strong grandmasters like Ljubomir Ljubojević (once ranked No. 3 in the world after Kasparov and Karpov), Ulf Andersson (also one of the world's top players, ranked as high as No. 4 in the world; one of the best endgame players in history; he later branched out into correspondence chess and became the world's highest-rated correspondence player), and Robert Hübner (another super-GM, who in 1983 missed challenging Kasparov in the Candidates semi-finals only by the spin of a roulette wheel) are only Mid-Importance. Can anyone claim with a straight face that Purdy should be in a higher category than them? I agree that it is very hard to support more than Mid-Importance for Correspondence World Champions. Krakatoa (talk) 10:05, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Cecil Purdy is now Mid. Robert Hübner, Ljubomir Ljubojević, Ulf Andersson are also Mid which I think is about right. Ian Rogers, Murray Chandler and Robert Wade are low, Ian Rogers is boardline in my view being Australia's #1 for about 20 years. All said and done we have to remember the importance scale is just a guide and makes no big difference. Editors don't improve an article because the article has a high or mid importance but generally because they want to or the information is available to do so. SunCreator (talk) 12:34, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

True, and there will always be judgment calls. Is it right that Larry Evans is Mid-Importance and Larry Christiansen Low-Importance? Should Ortvin Sarapu really be Mid-Importance above the likes of Christiansen, Joel Benjamin, Lev Alburt, etc.? Sarapu doubtless was a huge figure in New Zealand chess, but for the rest of the world - not so much. And should IM Sarapu be Mid-Importance above Murray Chandler, the only grandmaster ever from New Zealand? Krakatoa (talk) 11:28, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

importance of Max Pomeranc

Max Pomeranc was the actor in Searching for Bobby Fischer and was in the top 100 players in the USCF for his age. He is listed as Low importance. I think he should be bottom. Any input? Bubba73 (the argument clinic), 14:56, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Bottom sounds right to me. Krakatoa (talk) 15:17, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Done Bubba73 (the argument clinic), 15:42, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Borg Defense

Here's a Borg Defense article at Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Borg Defense. ²³¹₉₁Pa (chat me!) 07:19, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Most of it looks like original research and the expression of the author's own points of view, both of which Wikipedia does not allow. Krakatoa (talk) 07:28, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I have a dream

I have been working on Bobby Fischer on and off for years, and think that it can be raised to GA status with a little more work. What does everyone think? Krakatoa (talk) 09:33, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I haven't read it in a while, but it needs to be GA. Bubba73 (the argument clinic), 16:19, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

It's one I keep on my watchlist and edit fairly regularly - I'd certainly be up for working on it. I agree with you that it's not too far off. I own several Fischer books so I know quite a lot about him and can help with references too.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 17:08, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I used to have Fischer, Kasparov, and Chess on my watchlist, but not now. I figured that there were enough people watching them for problems. I have dozens of others on my list though. Bubba73 (the argument clinic), 20:36, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I have almost every book about Fischer in the English language, so that's not a problem. The problem is more that the GA reviewer is likely to think that there's too much stuff in the article. Krakatoa (talk) 19:43, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

125kb is on the long side. There are certain sections (eg, US Championships, Olympiads, and Writings) that could be condensed, and I'm sure other stuff can be trimmed.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 20:30, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I think GA should be doable, especially since it (finally) has nice photographs now. Voorlandt (talk) 23:07, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Quite a bit of the size is due to the footnotes, refereneces, etc. The text of the article is probably under 100KB. Bubba73 (the argument clinic), 16:38, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, most of the size comes from "peripheric elements". But even if you remove those the article is still 54 kB which is too much. Should at least go under 50 kB. SyG (talk) 08:20, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. I'll help if and when I can 09:03, 5 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fletch79 (talk • contribs)

(from my comment on the Fischer Talk page) There is almost no support for the entire section of the article Bobby_Fischer#Involvement_with_the_Worldwide_Church_of_God. Apart from the first sentence which I put in, concerning the skepticism Fischer about religion that Fischer had previously expressed to Ralph Ginzburg, almost everything in the section is unsupported. Moreover, the only sources cited for anything are two Internet articles critical of Garner Ted Armstrong and the Church by the "Ambassador Report", whatever that is. I question whether these are reliable sources. If we try to get this article to Good Article status, this section will be an obvious target. We should either furnish reliable sources for this section, or delete it. Krakatoa (talk) 11:22, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Format for half-points?

Apologies if this has been discussed before, but is there a standard way of recording half-points in chess-related articles? I've seen quite a few with (eg) XYZ scored 8.5/13, but I personally prefer the look of 8½/13. Not a big deal but just something I was wondering about. Fletch79 (talk) 23:27, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Good question. I also prefer 8½/13. There's also the question of how to write out a player's results in a tournament. I would prefer simply, say, +6=5-4, but some complain that that's not clear enough to non-players and want one to write out "six wins, five draws, and four losses". That sort of thing makes articles a lot longer if you have to do it a number of times. Krakatoa (talk) 00:16, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I also prefer 8½, since other fractions of a point are not possible with normal scoring. I don't like "+6=5-4" because it isn't clear to some readers (I've seen a couple ask about it). It would be good if there could be something like [[Chess scoring|+6=5-4]] which would link to an explanation. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 04:30, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Frankly, it amazes me that people don't understand this. But your idea is excellent - although I doubt that this scoring method is unique to chess. Krakatoa (talk) 06:10, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

A lot of casual readers probably don't know that "=" means a draw. They would probably understand 6W-4L-5D better. People are more familiar with 6-4 (6 wins 4 losses) or 6-4-5. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 06:14, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

In addition, some don't know that a tournament is usually not a knockout or elimination tournament. Also they may not know that a match consists of more than one game. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 07:17, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I have generally gone with the +W=D-L format, because the Oxford Companion uses that format. I think Bubba73 has a reasonable suggestion of how to make that more understandable to those who don't understand the convention. Another thing is that even though the format is common in North American result tables, I really don't like putting the number of draws after the number of losses, for the same reason I dislike the MM-DD-YYYY convention. A draw is a result between a win and a loss, so the draw figure should be in the middle. (OK, my European bias is showing here, so I'll shut up now.) Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:09, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Au contraire. This American agrees. (And yes, our American month/day/year is illogical, too.) Krakatoa (talk) 08:35, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Chess_position

Template:Chess_position has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. SunCreator (talk) 00:33, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Alexandra Obolentseva

What are opinions about Alexandra Obolentseva? It was created by a single-purpose account. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 05:35, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

It's an excellent start. SunCreator (talk) 05:59, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

It's a nicely done article, although I have no idea whether the Russian-language references support the propositions for which they're cited, and suspect that the author is not a disinterested party. Apparently Obolentseva will be playing in the World Youth Championships later this month. The FIDE link reflects that she doesn't have a FIDE rating yet. After the tournament, she'll have a FIDE rating and we can see how she's done (and thus get a better idea how notable or non-notable she is). My inclination would be to wait until after that tournament to consider whether an AfD or something similar is warranted. Krakatoa (talk) 06:06, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, that is what I was wondering. We usually delete players that are restricted by country, age, and sex. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 06:08, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

True - although if she wins the thing and thereby becomes the World Girls' Under-8 Champion, I would think she would have a good claim to notability. So IMO we might as well wait until the end of the month to see what happens. Krakatoa (talk) 06:26, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

You doubters! Grandmattster would have us move her to mid important quite soon. Her only issue is playing in junior tournaments means her opponents are mainly not Fide rated. She has nine Fide rated games so far. Not long and she'll have a Fide rating. SunCreator (talk) 11:22, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

In August 17, 2009 the article Оболенцева, Александра Сергеевна was deleted in Russian Wikipedia. Alexandra is very good and promising girl, but so far not notable enough for Wikipedia. But I agree with Krakatoa: let's wait until the end of the championship. --MrsHudson (talk) 13:47, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Her website says that she is 3rd category. I think that is roughly equivalent to USCF class C. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 03:30, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Cécile Haussernot is a similar player, currently under AfD. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 03:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

George H. D. Gossip - technical assistance needed

George H. D. Gossip (recently nominated for Today's featured article) uses the format of alternating images left and right. I added another photograph, with the result that I have to flip some images from left to right, and vice versa, to maintain the alternation. In the last section, there are two diagrams on the right, followed further down in the section by two diagrams on the left. I have tried to flip them (putting the right diagrams on the left, and the left diagrams on the right). Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to do this. Can someone more technically adept than I help with this? Thanks! Krakatoa (talk) 06:19, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I have switched them around. Regards Voorlandt (talk) 09:07, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! Thanks also for the image of the International Chess Magazine you uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons, my addition of which to the article caused the problem in the first place. Krakatoa (talk) 09:20, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Importance

I can understand why we need to assess articles by quality: thus becomes clear which of them should be improved, but I absolutely do not understand why we need to classify articles by "top" or "low" importantce". A grandmaster, who devoted all his life to chess, would be disheartened to know that Wikipedia consider him as low important. --MrsHudson (talk) 05:00, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Some grandmasters are more important than others, for instance Kasparov versus hundreds of GMs I've never heard of. Even if they are of low importance, they are still notable enough to have an article. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 05:46, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

The world seems to discover topics faster than WP editors can article on them. So we need to agree priorities, to use our limited resources in the right places - this applies to every topic, not chess or GMs. Of course there's a get-out clause - WP is a volunteer effort, so you can write articles on anything you like, provided it complies with WP:NOTABILITY, WP:NPOV, WP:COPYVIO, WP:BLP and a few other policies that MrsHudson probably never needs to think about. Philcha (talk) 08:01, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

The word importance is really misleading as it implies the article has low importance, however that is not so as it is a priority scale for the wikiproject. ~~It is better to use the word 'Priority'~~, several wikiprojects WikiProject Economics, British Royalty have changed over to the word priority so that it's clearer. SunCreator (talk) 15:06, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

An ordinary reader of Wikipedia rarely visits discussion pages and makes conclusions about who is more important Kasparov or Lobron himself. Hence such classifications are made for the editors. So my question is: why do we need to place Grandmaster "A" at a higher rung than Grandmaster "B"? What does it give us? How does it help us to improve the chess section of Wikipedia? Exept of Nietzschean separation of people on "important" and "unimportant", I do not see anything. --MrsHudson (talk) 15:08, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Classifying the grandmasters allow us to easily spot those whose articles should be improved (e.g. Kasparov) before others (e.g. an obscure GM no one has ever heard of). SyG (talk) 09:05, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with this point of view. Have a look here :how many of almost 5000 edits related to Top or High-Importance articles? Editors mainly work on what interests them. --MrsHudson (talk) 12:30, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

There are two problems with that: (1) those are on;y edits by you, and (2) relatively few of the articles are marked top or high importance (215 out of 3252 - 6.6%). Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 21:53, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, SunCreator. Have we discussed "priority" vs "importance" before? --Philcha (talk) 15:36, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Not to my knowledge. SunCreator (talk) 16:19, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how many GMs cry in their beer because we've rated them Low-Importance, but changing the terminology from "Importance" to "Priority" makes sense to me. Krakatoa (talk) 09:55, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Priority comes with it's own problem. An article that is FA may no longer be a prioirity as such. One might see improving stubs as more useful then improving an already FA class article. SunCreator (talk) 14:55, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Chess players like Vladimir Alatortsev, Lev Alburt, Nana Alexandria, Vladimir Bagirov, Elisabeth Bykova (!!!), Murray Chandler, Larry Christiansen, Victor Ciocâltea and many others are rated as Low-Important. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. --MrsHudson (talk) 13:07, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree, also if you look at the number of interwiki's (other wikipedias having an article about them), these are all quite high. Low importance articles typically have 0-2 interwiki's. I say, go ahead an reassess them Voorlandt (talk) 23:56, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

As Krakatoa alludes, the grandmasters themselves won't know and won't care and this is also the case for occasional or even regular users of Wikipedia who are not editors in any meaningful sense. To me, the whole rating exercise seems quite an arbitrary and academic exercise; MrsHudson is quite correct in saying that many ratings are blatantly wrong, understandably so, given that the average assessor is not necessarily expert enough to make an accurate assessment, but perhaps more fundamentally, the average editor isn't paying any attention anyway. They almost always write about things they know about or are interested in, regardless of whether it is important or needs improving. If you look back at the Wikiproject Chess 'Articles to create' section from a year ago, virtually nothing has changed - these are suggestions for important, outstanding articles, yet editors would rather dot an 'i' or cross a 't' on the already competent articles than attempt to fill in the gaping voids. This is not a criticism; we all have limited time available, information is more accessible for Kasparov than for Lobron and of course cherry-picking is inevitable when dealing with volunteer labour - but I believe it does highlight the futility of taking the rating system too seriously. Brittle heaven (talk) 13:50, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the 'Articles to Create', you can knock the best player ever off the list. Fletch79 (talk) 22:52, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree very much with this! I check daily my personal watchlist, with over 800 chess articles, and the majority of the changes in the past half year seem to related with assessing the articles (or bot edits). Imo this is a bit a waist of time. All in all, I think the wikiproject chess is slowing down compared to what it was. I don't have time to create new articles or expand existing ones, and I guess this is the case for many other members. I hope this is just temporary, and we get new people like MrsHudson, who add content! Voorlandt (talk) 14:46, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Brittle heaven to not take the rating system too seriously. I've used it in helpful ways; for example focusing on which Chess players to add info boxes for but in general it's not worth thinking to much about. I would encourage people to change individual ratings if they believe it is to be different from the importance scale. It's no big deal. SunCreator (talk) 15:06, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Going back to an initial remark that I've been researching. MrsHudson -"I absolutely do not understand why we need to classify articles by "top" or "low" importantce". The classification system was setup by the Editorial Team whose purpose is in publishing sets of articles in print, CD, DVD - for example to schools and offline articles. To do so they had to identify which articles are important as paper and CD's are not infinite. They have various methods to work out importance but one thing that was identified is that wikiprojects have more knowledge about which articles are the important ones in a given subject then some general criteria. So that resulted to each wikiprojects being encouraged to assess there own articles. In 2008 Wikipedia:Version 0.7 was complete with 31,000 wikipedia articles being selected, of which sixty-nine where chess articles. SunCreator (talk) 16:08, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

For anyone as interested in the article selection and scoring as me then see SelectionBot scoring. SunCreator (talk) 16:35, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Interesting - thanks for that. Nice to see that chess outnumbered the entries allocated to golf, cricket, fishing, cycling etc. From a quick glance, the only weakness in the selection of 69 chess articles that I noticed (and I know this is very subjective) is the total absence of any queen pawn openings - i.e. no QGD, KI etc. despite the inclusion of the English, Lopez, French, Sicilian etc. Presumably when these are put on DVD all of the wikilinks are effectively lost - it seems a shame to remove one of Wikipedia's finest features? Or am I missing something? Brittle heaven (talk) 17:12, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Not all wikilinks are lost, only those to others articles that are not included. You can look online at an old version(0.5), you can see some of the wikilinks are preserved but not many. SunCreator (talk) 17:33, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

SelectionBot selected English Opening over QGD and King's Indian Defence because despite the importance and quality being similiar English Opening has more Interwiki links, more Internal links and more daily views. SunCreator (talk) 18:33, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

FEN with the diagrams

On the Zugzwang talk page a user suggests putting FEN with the diagrams. Of course, if we do it there, we should do it in many places. It is not a bad idea but it would be a lot of work. What do you think? Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 21:19, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Discussion from before. Would be nice to have FEN as an option somehow. Unfortunately the Template:FEN has already been used. SunCreator (talk) 01:13, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

If it would be OK for the FEN to be in the caption of the diagram, with an hour or two of work I could alter my Program to generate Wikipedia chess diagrams so that you could edit the article, cut the diagram and paste it into my program. It could then add the FEN to the caption and you could paste it back. That would take probably less than 10 seconds per diagram. Or we could have a different name for the template (I don't know how the templates work) and my program could generate the FEN and put it into the template and we could paste them into the article. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 02:55, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Two questions. Is the full FEN required, like "rnbqkbnr/pp1ppppp/8/2p5/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKB1R b KQkq - 1 2", if so how would the Program to generate Wikipedia chess diagrams handle the parts other then the piece position. Once we have the full(?) FEN how do we display it? The objection before when including it like a caption under the chess diagram meant that it causes display issues. SunCreator (talk) 03:05, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

You're right. It is easy to get the FEN of the pieces from the diagram, but it wouldn't get anything else. The user would have to enter that info into the program, say enter the move number and check boxes "white to move", "white queenside castling OK", etc. And then there are still the display issues. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 03:09, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

FEN:rnbqkbnr/pp1ppppp/8/2p5/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKB1R b KQkq - 1 2

Because of the display issue. I wonder if a seperate FEN display is suitable, it would not be added automatically but rather seperately to diagrams that required them. 03:26, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Books/Chess variants

Didn't even know such a thing as Wikpedia books existed. SunCreator (talk) 00:33, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I did not know either ! It kind of sounds redundant with Wikibooks. Maybe we should try to create a Wikipedia book on chess ? SyG (talk) 09:23, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Would be a good long term objective. With chess diagram display in pdf issue being resoved also. SunCreator (talk) 14:06, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia books is great and is very different from Wikibooks. WIkipediabooks is just a collection of articles from wikipedia (which has to satisfy all wikipedia rules, notability, wikipedia is not a manual, etc..). I can envisage, that we can make a book on chess openings, world championships, chess tournaments, etc... in the same way, until all chess articles are covered. In the end, what you get is a chess encyclopedia in different parts, covering all of wikipedia's chess articles and which automatically updates :). I very much like the pdf availability. Chess variants is already a wopping 650+ pages. Voorlandt (talk) 09:56, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

K. K. Karanja

K. K. Karanja may have an edit war starting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.177.193.40 (talk) 00:24, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Alekhine, Esnaola, and Vitoria

The Alexander Alekhine article says "In 1941, he ... won a mini-match with Benito Lopez Esnaola in Vitoria". Problem is, it doesn't say which Vitoria (surely it's the one in Spain, but I don't want to guess). I've searched the web and can't find anything. Could someone here answer this for me? Thanks, --JaGa^talk 14:36, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Would most likely be Vitoria, Spain but can't find any source, not even mention in Spanish Wiki. Perhaps remove that part? SunCreator (talk) 22:56, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I think I will, seeing as there seems to be no source for it. I'm glad I checked here first, though, in case I was just missing something. --JaGa^talk 12:08, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Canadian grandmasters?

Just came across this: Canadian Chess Grandmasters There doesn't seem to be a great deal of point to the article, and the information it contains is almost all in the list of chess grandmasters article. Any thoughts as to whether it should be deleted? Fletch79 (talk) 22:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Agree, can be readily deleted I would think Voorlandt (talk) 22:31, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Merge it into(redirect it to) List of chess grandmasters. SunCreator (talk) 22:54, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Just wondering whether there's any point in merging / redirecting? No other articles link to it. Fletch79 (talk) 22:59, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Somebody looks at it. It might be linked from outside wikipedia, or people maybe find it while searching in Google, whatever the reason changing it to a redirect seems a helpful solution. After all, the article creator felt that was appropriate article naming in the first place, so others may attempt to arrive at the article by the same thinking. SunCreator (talk) 23:09, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Should just be redirected to List of chess grandmasters. That's the simplest solution.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 02:45, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Addition of 1976 US National Chess League to United States Chess League page

First post on a discussion page! I would like to suggest an addition to the United States Chess League page.

Prior to the creation of the United States Chess League in 2005, a previous attempt to start a United States chess league occurred back in 1976, with the formation of the "National Chess League". 9 teams participated, finishing in the following order

1. Washington Plumbers 2. New York Threats 3. Cleveland Kinghunters 4. San Francisco Dragons 5. Los Angeles Stauntons 6. Miama Capablancas 7. Chicago Prairie Dogs 8. Boston 64s 9. Houston Helpmates

In the pre-Internet era, moves were made by phone calls.

The league lasted up the late 1970's, but I have no other information

GrahamClayton (talk) 09:16, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

David mates (good for him...)

Could you please have a look at David and Goliath mate and Damiano's bishop mate and tell me if you think these are notable enough to be worth an article ? I would suggest to delete the former and merge the latter in Damiano's mate. SyG (talk) 16:34, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The D&G mate is not described well enough and I don't know if anyone uses that term other than Schiller. The bishop mate is not exactly the same as Damiano's mate but it is close enough that they could be covered in the same article. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 17:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

The creator of those articles has added several other mates, based on the terminology of Schiller's book. I'll make him aware of this project. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 17:59, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Swallow's tail mate
Suffocation mate
Pillsbury's mate
Opera mate
Réti's mate
Morphy's mate
Max Lange's mate
Lolli's mate
H-file mate
Hook mate
Dovetail mate
Double bishop mate
Corner mate
Corridor mate - now redirects to Back rank checkmate, ~~which indicates that Schiller is using his own terminology~~
Cozio's mate
Blackburne's mate
Arabian mate
Anderssen's mate
Anastasia's mate
Greco's mate Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 18:36, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Corridor mate is NOT made up by Schiller. See Mating patterns: corridor mates and The Art of Checkmate by Georges Renaud, Victor Kahn - 1926. SunCreator (talk) 18:43, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be various sources for all the above except perhaps(h-file and hook mate) maybe they can all be merged into a article like Mating patterns or something similiar. Even so, some of them Anastasia's mate for example, would perhaps have enough notability to stand on it's own. SunCreator (talk) 19:13, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

An article Checkmating patterns would be a good idea to contain them because there probably isn't enough to say about most of the individual ones. A second source for the names would be good. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 19:47, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Also, none of these have the chess project tag. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 19:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The Art of Checkmate by Georges Renaud, Victor Kahn - 1926 covers Corridor mate, Greco's mate, Anastasia's mate, Blackburne's mate, Anderssen's mate, Pillsbury's mate, Morphy's mate, Arabian mate. Chess for dummies By James Eade covers Réti's mate. Dynamic Chess-Most Common Mates includes Max Lange's mate and Swallow's tail mate. Cozio's mate here. Double bishop mate here. Lolli's mate here and here. Suffocation mate here and here. Dovetail mate here and here. That leaves H-file mate, Hook mate and Opera mate without additional sources. SunCreator (talk) 20:39, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, so I was at least mostly wrong in assuming Schiller made up those names. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 20:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the Opera mate is mate from the Opera game given that this refers to Morphy's famous Opera Mate pattern. Personally I think the game is famous but not the pattern. This page lists in it's glossary Opera mate, H-file mate, Hook mate. So they all exist in some fashion. SunCreator (talk) 21:19, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I attempted to do a google search for all the mates listed to see if they are generally in fact called that or if that was just what Schiller was calling them. I didn't add an article on the mate if I couldn't find a second mentioning of it. Also, with regards to whether there is enough information about these mates to warrant having their own article I think there definitely is. Most of the information in the recent checkmate articles I added just covers the basic information. There is much more information that can be added though. For nearly all of them there is a famous chess game or chess study that talks in detail about the checkmate, detailing means of obtaining the checkmate, strategies for preventing it, famous players who commonly use it. Just explaining these things can really make for a lengthy article on each of these checkmates. Also, simply having an article called "Checkmating patterns" would seem kinda redundant since there is already an article titled Checkmate that kind of sort of covers checkmating patterns a bit, but just not in a completely systematic way. With regards to the Hook mate I vaguely remember reading a Chess Life article on this mate a long time ago. If somebody has past issues of it they might try to find it.Chhe (talk) 23:28, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

PS. When I added the Swallow's tail mate I was a bit uncertain as to how it was most commonly phrased. Schiller listed it as "Swallows-Tail mate", while other sources I saw listed it as "Swallowstail mate", "Swallow's tail mate", and "Swallow's mate". I used "Swallow's tail mate" though since that seemed to be the most commonly used.Chhe (talk) 23:35, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Nobody uses those terms, ever, really. One source is generally not enough for a wikipedia article (WP:N suggests multiple independent sources) and Schiller is generally a poor source for anything about chess (much of what he writes appears to be very idiosyncratic and few respected chess writers follow his lead especially on terminology). Creating articles for these gives them prominence they don't have in the chess world. My opinion is that they should all be removed, but I'm interested in what Krakatoa thinks about them. 04:06, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

You are right that these are very obscure terms, and that Schiller likes making up his own exotic names for things. (List of chess openings named after animals, anyone?) Boden's mate, the smothered mate, the back-rank mate, Légal's mate, and the epaulette mate may be the only mating patterns that have widely known names. No one says, "I was going for Anderssen's mate." I have Renaud and Kahn's book, which I read about 30 years ago, and the only one of these terms I recalled was Anastasia's mate. However, if one can get multiple reliable sources for these weird names, then I suppose those are sufficient to support articles. If it turns out that there is not much to write about some of them, then Bubba73's idea of putting them in an article on checkmating patterns strikes me as a good one. Krakatoa (talk) 06:51, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I've been playing chess for 43 years and I don't remember hearing of those names. But it might be nice to illustrate those from actual master games. I'm also skeptical of having Schiller as the main source. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 07:00, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Renaud and Kahn's book has nice examples from actual play of the mates they cover. Krakatoa (talk) 09:06, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

64 (chess magazine)

I believe the correct translation is 64 - Chess Review. -- I Do Care (talk) 10:58, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Why do you think this? Source? SunCreator (talk) 12:52, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

This is official website: http://www.64.ru/?/en/ -- I Do Care (talk) 15:41, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Think you are reading to much from the page title. Chess review is a description not the name. SunCreator (talk) 15:50, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Russian wiki says it's 64 — Шахматное обозрение. Also in the main page of the website there is following: "In 11-th time the russian chess magazine «64 Chess Review» (the editor-in-chief Alexander Roshal) has summed up traditional competition «Oscar»." -- I Do Care (talk) 16:20, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not usual for websites to have a name then a description of the site in the title. Same principle applied to English, Russian or any language. Given then the article gives references that call it '64' unless some other WP:RS refers to it otherwise then in my view it is still called '64'. SunCreator (talk) 23:07, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Round-robin tournament and Swiss-system tournament

Round-robin tournament and Swiss-system tournament have been removed from this project and added to the sports and to the games projects. Do you agree with this? Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 21:33, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I would think that any article that mentions chess would come under the Chess Wikiproject as it's members would be likely be interested and willing to contribute to it's improvement. So no I don't agree with it's removal. However, some editors have other ideas. The Board game article which has currently twelve occurances of the word chess in it, was added recently having spotted dubious chess related OR/POV, which I thought chess members would like to keep an eye on. Much to my surprise, SyG then removed the article from Chess Wikiproject. So perhaps there is something I am not aware of. SunCreator (talk) 23:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

At first I thought they should be restored to this project, but the round-robin article has very little chess content. The Swiss system article has a little more, but not much - chess is mentioned mainly in passing. Tie-breaking in Swiss-system tournaments has more about chess but it is still in the project. So I'd like for more people to give opinions on this, I'm on the fence. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 23:39, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I assume the principle of moving it only to the parent project could be applied to Tie-breaking in Swiss-system tournaments, Elo rating system and others. I don't like that at all. Why can't the WikiProject Chess decide on it's own articles? SunCreator (talk) 23:43, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

The chess project can decide which articles it wants as part of the project. I don't think anyone else can dictate that. One might more reasonably ask why Humphrey Bogart is in the chess project, but that isn't my decision either. Quale (talk) 02:14, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Notable?

Zoran Lazetich - Is he notable enough? --MrsHudson (talk) 14:07, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't look like it. We have deleted as non-notable at least two people with the FIDE Master title (Charles Weldon and Boris Baczynskyj (sp.?)), and Lazetich apparently doesn't even have that. Although he has the Life Master title, his current FIDE rating is indicated as being below 2200. There's no indication that he's ever written anything. His tournament results (Connecticut State Champion once, and Sacramento City Champion several times) are only mildly impressive, and there's no indication that any of his students have become grandmasters or anything like that. Unless there's more that the article doesn't reflect, I would say he is no more notable than Pete Karagianis, who was just deleted by unanimous (8-0 or so) vote. (I realize it's not a "vote" technically, but you know what I mean.) Karagianis had been Iowa State Champion a couple of times and had written some articles. The notability of someone like Viktors Pupols is questionable to my mind, but at least Pupols once beat Bobby Fischer, and Larry Parr wrote a book about Pupols. The article indicates nothing notable about Lazetich. Krakatoa (talk) 14:57, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't seem notable. When was this person born? FIDE rating might be okay if they are now 70-80 years old for example. SunCreator (talk) 15:02, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

He was born in 1956. --MrsHudson (talk) 15:17, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I have sent it to AfD. SyG (talk) 09:14, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

It's been deleted. Krakatoa (talk) 18:34, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Bogart and others (mentioned above)

I added Bogart because he was a chess player (expert level it is said) and organized tournaments. I added it to the Bottom importance category when I thought they would be articles that had something about chess but would not be in the chess project. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 02:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Bogart has a section with two paragraphs about chess. However, I would be in favor of removing from the project most of the articles about people for whom the chess content is a small part of their bio, for instance

and probalbly

Fred Waitzkin and others.

And although Marcel Duchamp was primarily an artist, I think his chess contributions are notable enough to keep his article in the project.

I'm also in favor of removing art and litt things that have no real chess content, e.g.

I'm also in favor of removing puzzles and problems that refer to chess pieces but otherwise have no chess content, e.g.

And also

Beersheba, where the only thing about chess is a mention that it has the highest per-capita population of GMs. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 18:18, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

If the project tag is removed from them they could still stay on the index of articles that mention chess. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 18:23, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

See also previous discussion Removing bottom class articles from the index of chess articles - I object started by Voorlandt . SunCreator (talk) 18:30, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Didn't we come up with the Bottom Importance category for precisely these kind of articles? What else is the category for? What benefit is there in removing them?--Pawnkingthree (talk) 23:50, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes we did, about 6 months ago. But I don't think it has worked very well. It has added work with no real benefit in my opinion. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 02:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually despite my kvetching it doesn't matter too much to me whether marginal articles are included in the project or not, although the important tournament system articles that sparked this discussion should be in. (Of Bubba73's list I would argue to keep Jacqueline Piatigorsky and remove the rest, although the chess puzzles and math related articles could probably stay too.) A matter of greater practical importance to me is whether articles of minor interest are included on Index of chess articles as I use that as a watch list. Often Special:RecentChangesLinked/Index of chess articles is clogged with edits having nothing to do with chess. This is acceptable for Benjamin Franklin who was important in the early history of chess in the US, but annoying for articles on celebrity chess hobbyists and nearly intolerable for Aleister Crowley. The Crowley edits never have anything to do with chess, and the only reason I can see that he's on the list are his own bullshit claims to have beaten Blackburne and that he was such a great chess player that he could have become world champion had he deigned to. Marion Robert Morrison was an avid chess player and one of the most famous people of the 20th century, but I'm very glad he's not on the index of chess articles. If we included him we might just as well include the Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic who beat him in an off-hand game. Quale (talk) 05:40, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually that is really my main beef too - the index of articles. I have dozens of chess articles on my watchlist and I try to check all changes to those by editors I don't recognize. I have a desktop icon for that and a desktop icon for changes to articles in the index. Whenever I have time I check it too. You are right about it being clogged with edits that have nothing to do with chess. You mention Aleister Crowley but I'm also tired of seeing The Seventh Seal. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 06:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I have edited the index of chess articles, and now the bottom chess articles are just linked, rather than inbedded. So now these wont show up on the watchlist anymore. I very much hope we can keep the chess puzzles part of the wikiproject chess (I dont care at what importance level - can be bottom). Voorlandt (talk) 09:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

A more accessible chess diagram template

I've made some edits to one of the {{chess diagram}} templates to try and improve it's accessibility by setting the alt text to better values. The code is at User:H2g2bob/chess diagram small, and I've also got User:H2g2bob/chess diagram test case to compare with the normal version.

They should look identical unless you've disabled images, are using a screen reader or doing some other magic. But in lynx, the start is displayed as:

  Start of chess board.
  a8 black rook. d8 black queen. f8 black rook. g8 black king.
  a7 black pawn. b7 black pawn. e7 black pawn. f7 black pawn. g7 black
  bishop. h7 black pawn.

rather than the current template's:

  Chess zhor 22.png
  Chess zver 22.png a8 rd b8 c8 d8 qd e8 f8 rd g8 kd h8 Chess zver 22.png
  a7 pd b7 pd c7 d7 e7 pd f7 pd g7 bd h7 pd

I've only done "chess diagram small" so far, but I'm willing to do the other templates if it looks like a good idea. --h2g2bob (talk) 23:20, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

So does this help people with screen readers? Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 00:00, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it should do. --h2g2bob (talk) 23:30, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Then that sounds like a good idea to me. Bubba73 ^{(the argument clinic)}, 23:39, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Halloween Gambit

Recently there have been a few edits to Four Knights Game and Halloween Gambit which I feel cast the knight sacrifice in a better light than what published theory holds. Some of the things which worry me are:

In Four Knights Game added just a few minutes ago: "However, White can mantain a good game by responding 6... Bb4! with 7. Bg5! The pin on the knight can allow white to continue with an even more powerful halloween's gambit progression.". I have let that stay, but tagged it as "citation needed".
Concerning Pinski's refutation in the Halloween Gambit article: Nevertheless, Steffen A. Jakob's chess engine Brause scored 100% after playing 9.Be3, which has led some proponents of the Halloween Gambit to question the strength of this line. Who are these proponents? Does a GM-strength Brause computer slaughtering lots of weaker players carry any theoretical weight?

Even Tim Krabbe's article A breeze in the sleepy Four Knights Game which interviews some of the players behind playing it acknowledge that: "objectively, after 4.Nxe5, White is probably lost". Personally, I am also very sceptical of the line's ultimate soundness, because if this were a gambit White could play with confidence that it will stand up to a sturdy Black defense, we would be seeing this gambit at 2600+ level GM tournaments, but we don't. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:03, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Problem is sourcing. The line given by Larry Kaufman/Jan Pinski as 'dubious' of 5...Nc6 6.d5 Bb4! 7.dxc6 Nxe4 8.Qd4 Qe7 is equal after 9.Be3 0-0 10. Bd3 but gives white excellent practical changes. Bb4 is a faulty move for this reason and so is Kaufman's assertion, better for black is 6... Ne5 5.f4 Ng6 6.e5 Ng8 7.d6 or 5...Ng6. While Larry Kaufman sourcing is used, and especially in regards to the 'dubious' wording this article is going to be sniggered at because the line given is not dubious but okay for white. SunCreator (talk) 11:39, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

2600+ level GM's don't use this opening(as white) because it's not sound against 5...Ng6 or 5...Nc6 6.d5 Ne5. SunCreator (talk) 11:43, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Changed the Four Knights Game text to give Euwe's refutation with 5...Ng6. SunCreator (talk) 12:43, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

If that's the case Suncreator, why did you change the Four Knights Game article to say that the gambit is "aggressive"? That was simply a bad edit as the gambit is dubious, exactly as the article said before you changed it for reasons I don't understand. Also, a source needed for your claim that White can equalize in the Pinski line. Your last edit, removing sourced material, is also bad. Quale (talk) 19:21, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I removed the dubious because the Larry Kaufman line given isn't dubious. I can't add a source for the Pinski line because I don't have one - this is why I started the previous comment with Problem is sourcing. It's just a problem between stating what is true and what is supported by sources. If your happy for the article to be false and sourced then you can leave the Kaufman line. If you want the article to be both true and sourced that you have to remove the Kaufman stuff and only use the Euwe source. SunCreator (talk) 19:57, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I have Pinski's book, I'll be happy to look things up there on request. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:22, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so what does Pinski's book say for Black to vary/improve and show 'dubious' if white plays the line 5...Nc6 6.d5 Bb4 7.dxc6 Nxe4 8.Qd4 Qe7 9.Be3 0-0 10.Bd3 Nxc3 11.bxc3 Ba5 12.0-0 Bb6 13.Qb4 Re8(Qxb4 14.cxb7 Bxb7 15.cxb4=) 14. Rae1 Qxb4 15.cxb4= SunCreator (talk) 14:57, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Pinski does not cover 9.Be3. However, according to the 365chess database, Black has won the two games which reached this position. The cited game Gaillard-Platel (2004) with 9...0-0 is a 2000 level encounter, while the Sigfusson-Bellin (2007) encounter is a 2300 level encounter which featured 9...f5. That game is also annotated by Andrew Martin, an IM, on chess.com.[1] Also, note that citing lines which "refute" Pinski's book need to be backed up by a reliable source. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:10, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I didn't expect to have to explain the difference between truth and verifiability as applied to wikipedia. If you haven't read WP:V, you certainly should. If you have a reliable source that contradicts the Pinski/Kaufman assessment it can be used in the article, but without a source your opinion of the merits of the Pinski line does not belong. I'm not very impressed by the success of one or more strong chess engines playing the Halloween Gambit against unknown amateurs. These games are even worse than Sjakkalle noted earlier, as they all appear to be blitz which favors both computers and the attacking side. Rybka defeated a GM in a match at a much slower time control while conceding pawn odds in every game, and I think that an engine should do even better in blitz against weaker opponents. If a chess engine played the black side of the Halloween Gambit instead and defeated many human opponents in blitz games, would you take that as evidence that the gambit was unsound for white? There may be a language problem here and maybe the meaning of "dubious" isn't clear. In both plain English and in its chess usage, dubious means "doubtful" or "questionable". Unsound has a stronger connotation that could be described as something like "demonstrated to lead to a significant disadvantage". Note that it isn't the Kaufman line that is dubious. The Pinski/Kaufman line is fine, it is the Halloween Gambit itself which is dubious. You probably meant something like "The Kaufman line doesn't prove that the Halloween Gambit is dubious". Quale (talk) 07:27, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

George H. D. Gossip is Today's featured article!!

I proposed that George H. D. Gossip be added to the list of requests for Today's featured article. It has a respectable three "points" for being today's featured article on December 6: one point because December 6 is Gossip's birthday, and two points because no similar article (i.e., no article related to chess, or any other board game for that matter) has been today's featured article within six months of the requested date. George H. D. Gossip is the only chess-related Featured Article that has not been on the main page. The others - Chess, The Turk, and First-move advantage in chess - have been. Krakatoa (talk) 08:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. George H. D. Gossip is not the most important of chess topics, but would be nice to have it front page. Six months later hopefully we'll have a selection of options Rules of Chess, Bobby Fischer, Wilhelm Steinitz and more perhaps. SunCreator (talk) 11:51, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Was not aware of the points system before. How many points are typically required?

Dates can give an article a lot of points:

* Date relevant to article topic: 1 point

* Decennial or quinvigintennial anniversary (10-year or 25-year multiples): 2 points

* Semicentennial anniversary (50-year multiples): 4 points

* Centennial anniversary (100-year multiples): 6 points

Here are some top dates for articles in 2010

100 years - World Chess Championship 1910 (Lasker-Schlechter) - unlikely to be FA. Emanuel Lasker can.

100 years - Hamburg 1910 chess tournament - unlikely to be FA, but maybe Carl Schlechter can.

50 years - Mikhail Tal became World Chess Champion May 7 1960

50 years - World Chess Championship 1960 - A lot of work required.

50 years - 14th Chess Olympiad - unlikely to be FA.

For 2011, Mikhail Botvinnik will have a Centennial anniversary b. August 17 1911.

Max Euwe, Anatoly Karpov and Vasily Smyslov have 10-year multiples b'days.SunCreator (talk) 12:42, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Nice list of candidates! I have now nominated George H. D. Gossip for Today's featured article. Weigh in if you wish. Krakatoa (talk) 20:44, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

And here is the place where you can express your ~~eager support~~ unbiased opinion. SyG (talk) 09:56, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

At the moment, it has the most support of any of the five nominees, even Homer Simpson. All are nominated for different days, fortunately. Krakatoa (talk) 03:05, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent) It has been approved and will appear on the Main Page on December 6 - i.e., beginning less than a hour and twenty minutes from now! Krakatoa (talk) 22:42, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I see it:) Congrats.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 06:20, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, a tremendous achievement once again ! Kudos for Krakatoa (as would say a famous chess commentator)! SyG (talk) 18:46, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Krakatoa (talk) 19:28, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Advice on London Chess Classic article

I've been doing a bit of editing on the London Chess Classic article, and wanted to get some advice from this WikiProject on how best to update it tomorrow, when the tournament finishes. If possible, I'd like to bring it up to a standard good enough for an 'in the news' entry (hopefully the result will be covered by the mainstream media in London and the UK). What I was thinking was more photos (I will be there tomorrow and will try and take some suitable pictures), and a results table, and lots more that can be added. Maybe include the game that wins the tournament best game prize? But I'm coming here for advice, either here or on the article talk page, on how best to update and expand this sort of article. Carcharoth (talk) 00:59, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm so envious that you are going to be there while I am stuck watching the internet coverage...

If you look at some of the other articles on the other major tournaments such as the Tal Memorial, Pearl Spring chess tournament, and Corus chess tournament, you will see that the full crosstable is usual, while giving the moves of any individual game is not. For a major tournament like this, all games will be available on sites like chessgames.com, which we have often used as an external link. At the moment, the crosstable is missing altogether, and this is the obvious item to install. Regarding photos, it would be nice to see what the room in the large open GM tournament looks like, but remember that photography in the tournament hall during the games is usually somewhat restricted, often prohibited after the first few minutes. I would also mention that Carlsen's score in this tournament has secured him first place on the next rating list, even if he loses to Short today. (Oh, and if Short does beat Carlsen today, will someone please put the article on AFD? ;-)) Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:15, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Great idea to get some more photos uploaded to Commons on the Share-alike 3.0 license you used before - you will probably see them used around the world on other wikipedias too! I have in the past asked the organiser if I can take photos for Wikipedia and they kindly allowed me to join the pros for that first ten minutes of frenzy in the playing area (tell them your article will give the event some extra publicity) ... not guaranteed to work though! As Sjakkalle says, images of the playing halls, giant chess set in the foyer, kids playing blitz, bookstall, Houska, Susan Lalic (probably one of the most sought after, cos we don't have any of her and her article is well overdue), Caoili, the GMs of the FIDE Open - all good. Brittle heaven (talk) 10:09, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Re crosstable; a simple alternative would be to copy the 'result only' format I used in EU Individual Open Chess Championship, but given the importance of the event, a full crosstable would be better - maybe copy the format of the one used in San Remo 1930 chess tournament. To see a multitude of other chess tournament articles for ideas on layout, go to the bottom of the page List of strong chess tournaments, where they are listed for ease of access. If you need any help with photo cropping/light level adjustment etc., then please let me know. Brittle heaven (talk) 10:39, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Looking briefly through, Hastings 1895 chess tournament is quite a good format - in a similar vein to the notable game section there, you could add each end of round, prize-winning 'best' game or snippet and state which got the overall brilliancy award (including occasional diagrams perhaps). Cross-referencing any analysis to an expert source would be necessary though. Brittle heaven (talk) 11:04, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. Am looking around to see which sort of cross-table will be best. Slightly complicated by the use of Sofia rules. Did get some pictures as well, during the final round. Photography without flash was allowed during play, though the ones with flash at the beginning are still better. Wasn't able to get the other pics. Maybe another time. It was good fun being there. The finish in the Short-Carlsen game was very tense. Carlsen looked rather uncertain and nervous as his clock ran down to about 20 seconds before he played his last three moves before the time control at move 60. Seems as though he had everything under control though. Will keep an eye out for more news stories to help add to the article over the next few days. Carcharoth (talk) 00:50, 16 December 2009 (UTC)