Krakatoa

Chess articles

Thanks for your fine work improving articles on chess topics. I'm amazed at how much they've improved in the last few months (particularly the articles on the openings), and I think they will continue to get a lot better. Quale 5 July 2005 02:05 (UTC)

Thanks from me too, your work on these articles is excellent. Sjakkalle (Check!) 6 July 2005 08:54 (UTC)

Napoleon Gambit

I saw you talk about the Napoleon Opening on Quale's talkpage. THe talk-system on Wikipedia allows easy eavesdropping ;-) Actually it was I who brought nominated that article for deletion (Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Napoleon Gambit). When I nominated it, the article was quite messed up. [1] It appeared that someone had got this mixed up with Fool's Mate and Napoleon Opening, only the title had anything to do with the variation of the Scotch Game (the redirect was made after this was pointed out). You are right that this variation is extremely obscure, and that there is no need to sacrifice a pawn since simply Qxd4 gives White a wonderful game. But the bar for notability of chess openings has been set low, the precedent is the Hippopotamus Defence being kept with a clear consensus. Sjakkalle (Check!) 6 July 2005 12:58 (UTC)

I would actually vote to keep "Hippopotamus Defense," which I think is in fairly common usage (for an obscure line -- although Spassky drew twice with it in one of his world championship matches with Petrosian). But I've never heard of the "Napoleon Opening" and "Napoleon Gambit" except here, so they would definitely get the ax if it were up to me. Frederick R 6 July 2005

Sjakkalle, I was inspired by your article on the Napoleon Opening to write one on the equally ridiculous Parham Attack (2.Qh5). Frederick R 6 July, 2005

Thanks for the Parham Attack article. I didn't know that opening had a name. Oddly, just yesterday I had read an article that Hikaru Nakamura had played it in a GM tournament, but it never occurred to me that it could be made into an article. It's remarkable what googling "2.Qh5" will find. Actually Bernard Parham is an interesting guy. Apparently he won the 1967 Indiana State Championship and has been a fixture of Indiana tournament chess for 30 years or more. He advocates his "Matrix System", which supposedly applies vector analysis and geometry to chess. That's the origin of the crazy early queen moves.

About the hippo: I don't think the wikipedia article describes what GMs call the hippopotamus defense. The wikipedia article is based on a website by Adam Bogon, which applies the name to a Black system featuring ...Nh6, ...g6, and then ...f6 (possibly ...f5) intending ...Nf7. IMO, idiotic. I think GM usage of the hippopotamus refers to a cramped defense that probably usually arises from an English opening. I think I've seen Karpov games with it (on both sides), and other GMs have used it although I don't think it's currently in fashion. If you can improve the Hippopotamus Defence article, that would be great. Quale 7 July 2005 00:15 (UTC)

At the same time you (Quale) were writing the above, I was writing this:

OK, I take back what I said about the Hippopotamus Defence. Wikipedia's definition is completely different from mine. I would vote to delete the goofiness in Wikipedia on the subject. I would define the Hippopotamus as an opening system where Black fianchettoes both bishops, plays e6 and d6, and puts the knights on d7 and e7. I think you're right that the term also refers to an English line. I will try to add something to the Hippopotamus article when I have a chance to do some research. Frederick R 6 July 2005

Thanks. One of the fun things about Wikipedia is that it turns out that you can make decent, and even interesting articles about seemingly trivial things like 2.Qh5?!. Of course I had no idea that you had actually met Bernard Parham. All I know about him is from www.chessdrum.com and I hadn't visited that site before today. I forgot to mention that the easy way to time stamp your comments is to use four tildes instead of three, so when I do ~~~~ I get this: Quale 7 July 2005 02:07 (UTC)

Ah, OK, thanks for the tip. I had read that someplace, then forgot it. Here, let's give it a try: Frederick R 7 July 2005 02:11 (UTC)

Notability and WP:VFD

Notability is a pretty controversial thing on WP:VFD. I would qualify as what many wikipedians would call a deletionist, since I think that editorial judgement and restraint as to what we choose not to give an article conveys important information that's lost when everything is included regardless of significance. Currently, inclusionists tend to get their way, in part because wikipedia has intentionally made it much easier to create articles than to delete them. I agree with this policy, but I don't agree that everyone and everything deserves an encyclopedia article. I admit that there are some advantages to a simple standard of "if it's verifiable and can be written in an WP:NPOV way, it can get an article". Unfortunately the encyclopedic notability standard I prefer is a lot more subjective, and since it must be applied case by case, it's more work, and people will disagree. Maybe subjective standards can't work in a world-wide collaborative community like wikipedia.

To be honest, I think most people who are truly notable don't care if they have an article in Wikipedia. They're too busy doing whatever interesting and important things they do that makes them notable to worry about vanity. The ones who want it the most are the ones who shouldn't get it. I figure that if the answer to the question, "Who would be hurt more if this bio article were deleted: wikipedia or the subject of the article?" is the subject would be hurt more, then the article is vanity and it should go. I think Wikipedia also has a problem with too much pseudoscience and crackpottery, and think that WP:NOR should be wielded like a giant hammer to crush that garbage. I also have a fairly low tolerance for fancruft. I enjoy a lot of fannish stuff in my real life, but I really don't think it belongs in WP. Of course I suppose some would consider my interest in chess trivia to be equivalent. Sjakkale (sorry, misspelled his user name and pointed to a Wikipedia:Doppelganger account) Sjakkalle is someone I respect who has a more liberal view of what should be included in Wikipedia (I'd say he's in the middle, not inclusionist or deletionist), and he's contributed a lot to the chess articles and has contributed to wikipedia for a lot longer than I have. Quale 7 July 2005 02:36 (UTC)

All of what you say sounds reasonable to me. I guess that means I fall in the deletionist camp too. Frederick R 7 July 2005 02:46 (UTC)

Polish Immortal

Thanks for adding the "Polish Immortal" to the Dutch article. I was thinking that maybe this game deserves its own article. If you look at Category:Chess games, we already have articles on a few famous chess games. (Also, regarding your user name change: I'm sure that sort of change is fine. Wikipedia used to move user names for people on request, but apparently it's technically difficult and that service has been suspended for quite a while and is unlikely to return anytime soon. I think you could change your old user and talk pages into redirects to the new pages if you want. Sjakkalle could advise as he is a very proficient wikipedian and an admin.) Quale 7 July 2005 21:15 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I had had the same thought about the Polish Immortal when I tacked it onto the Dutch Defense article -- so I have now written an article about it. It's just a stub, but that's a start. I may add annotations (as you might imagine, it's annotated at various sites on the Internet) when I have some time. Krakatoa 8 July 2005 02:08 (UTC)

Very good. Because of WP:NOR, you will want to source provide a reference for any annotation or observation about the game that isn't obvious, even though you're probably a strong enough player to annotate it yourself. (I'm not a strong enough chess player to be tempted to do much original research--I just look up most of this stuff on the web or in books.) In addition to famous games, we also need more articles on famous chess tournaments. If you look at Category:Chess competitions, wikipedia has Hastings 1895 chess tournament but lacks New York 1924 and 1927 and a bunch of others.

I will try to write an article on New York 1924 when I get a chance. I like that tournament because old man Lasker scored 80%, winning IIRC 1.5 points ahead of Capablanca, who had crushed him 3 years earlier in their world championship match. Moscow 1935 was pretty cool, too. Lasker, age 67, was 1/2 point out of first, the only undefeated player, just behind co-winners Botvinnik and Flohr, and ahead of Capablanca, whom he crushed. I like Lasker better than Capablanca -- can you tell? Krakatoa 8 July 2005 20:21 (UTC)

I think the success that Lasker had and Korchnoi continues to have late in their careers is fascinating because it's so rare in chess. (Lasker and Korchnoi aren't directly comparable in all ways of course, since I think Lasker was World Champion around age 25 and Korchnoi didn't develop to World Championship strength until much later in his career. Korchnoi's gradual improvement into his 40s and 50s until he reached the World Championship level seems almost unique in chess.) Now that I'm on the other side of 40 I have more empathy than I would have 20 years ago. I think it's a shame that the current fashion for rapid play puts such a great premium on youth rather than experience.

Last week I was reading a few of Lasker's letters reproduced at chesscafe.com (they're halfway down the pages) and he certainly could be ornery. If you write about New York 1924 you might want to read what Lasker had to say about his experience when he explained why he didn't play in 1927--he wasn't happy at all. Still the life of a chess professional has always been hard, and I think it was even much tougher then. I think I can understand why he felt that tournament organizers showed favoritism toward a charismatic Cuban over him. Apparently Lasker thought that Capablanca had been rude to him during their negotiations for a championship match, and maybe the fact that Capablanca got some financial support from the Cuban government (I don't know if Capa actually worked as a diplomat) was irksome to Lasker too. Quale 9 July 2005 04:34 (UTC)

Openings

On to a different chess subject. The chess opening article is much improved over what it was a long time ago, but it still has some rough edges. In particular, the very beginning and the first section (Aims of the opening) need work. Those are the only parts of that article that haven't been rewritten in the last few months. (If you look at the article history and go back to say February of this year, you can see how far the chess opening article has come.) In particular, I really dislike this sentence in the intro: "There are a number of openings, some defensive, and some offensive; some are tactical, and some are strategic; some openings focus on the center, and others focus on the flanks; some approaches are direct, and others are indirect." It isn't false, but it doesn't sound encyclopedic. For the chess opening#Aims of the opening section it might be simplest to just paraphrase a list of classical opening principles given by Reinfeld or Fine and credit the original source, and this would also avoid the original research problem. We should mention that classical opening principles are frequently violated today, and current grandmasters have gone beyond even the territory staked out by the hypermodern school.

Finally the chess opening#Indian systems (1.d4 Nf6) section needs short descriptions of a few openings that I didn't write anything for, including Modern Benoni, Benko Gambit, Knight's Tango, and Bogo-Indian. I tried to describe each opening briefly in 1-4 sentences and keep the amount of discussion roughly proportional to the importance of the opening. Owen's Defense and St. George's Defense got only a single sentence together, and many of the irregular openings listed in the flank section don't get any discussion in the text at all. Looking at this again, the Semi-open section needs more, especially for the Sicilian, French, and Caro-Kann because they're a lot more important than is made apparent by the text of the article. Actually Open games needs work too, because the Ruy needs more discussion and the King's Gambit isn't mentioned in the text at all. Quale 8 July 2005 04:31 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed that the opening article needed some work. I should be able to do some of that. How do I provide sources -- link to them in the article? Mention them in my description of the edit? Something else? Krakatoa 8 July 2005 05:35 (UTC)

Some people use refs right in the text footnote style, but in general I think this is unnecessarily picky for chess articles unless we need to provide a source for something controversial. Footnotes seem more useful for heavy philosophy and law, and maybe history and science. Also, I think it will be relatively unusual for a chess article to have more than about a half dozen references total, so it shouldn't be too hard for people to figure out. Generally I've just been putting the references I find most useful either in the "References section" or the "External links" section at the bottom of the article. There is a standard Book reference template that can be used in the references section. I find external links harder to deal with because there isn't a set standard way to format them. You can look at Wikipedia:Cite sources for the standard policy on this. It's linked near the bottom of the edit page whenever you do an edit. For the individual chess opening articles we could cite NCO, MCO and BCO for nearly every opening but I haven't been doing that. Usually one or two have more interesting things to say than the others, so I just list the ones that provided info used in the article. Naturally the chess opening article lists them all as references. The Oxford Companion to Chess comes up in a lot of chess articles because it has good historical info with bios and dates, and has a good reputation for scholarship. Quale 8 July 2005 14:11 (UTC)

Some technical notes

Hi Krakatoa! Sure, it's fine to make a new account as long as you openly declare it like you have done. It is when people create multiple accounts to vote multiple times that policy is breached (this practise is called "sockpuppetry"). Technically it is possible for the developers to merge the history from your old account to your new account, but since that is a time consuming process, that service has regretably been shut down.

I think redirects are what you were looking for. To make a page "point" to another you write:

#Redirect[[Target article]]

After merging two articles together, a redirect should be left behind and there should be no deletion. In part this is because the GFDL license requires the author(s) to be attributed and the easiest way is to preserve the page history in a redirect. Also, redundant redirects may be useless, but they are also quite cheap and harmless. Sjakkalle (Check!) 8 July 2005 08:06 (UTC)

Checkmate

I saw your good edits to checkmate. I don't like this sentence: "Traditionally, when checkmate occurs (or is thought to be inevitable) one lays one's king down on its side to indicate that the game has ended (by checkmate or resignation of the game)." For one thing, the word "checkmate" is used twice, and it seems to me that should be avoided. Secondly, I've never seen any knoledgable person tip their king in resignation AFTER they've been checkmated.

I don't think that you wrote the original sentence, but I think you would be a good one to revise it. Bubba73 00:17, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Bubba73. I don't like that sentence, either. I am actually partly responsible for it -- I added the "by checkmate or" terminology at the end, since the way it was written it read that someone who was checkmated tipped over his king to indicate resignation. Huh? But as you suggest, the whole notion of tipping over one's king after being checkmated is weird: the game is over and the "checkmatee" need not (and in my experience does not) knock over the king to acknowledge that. I would accordingly have been inclined to take out any reference to tipping over one's king after resigning, except that the previous writer actually posted a photograph of a knocked-over checkmated king. I will try rewriting the sentence to say that one normally tips over one's king to indicate resignation, but that one can also do so if checkmated -- although it's really not necessary.

In my opinion, the whole "tipping over the king" discussion probably should be axed altogether, since it's not really directly related to checkmate. First, one does not normally tip over one's king to indicate that one is checkmated, but rather to resign. Second, one resigns when it is apparent that one has no chance of winning or drawing the game -- even though actual checkmate might be many moves away. Krakatoa 00:41, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Légal Trap

Thanks for spotting that we already had an article at Legall's Mate when I created a second article. It is merged now. The score between us now stands at 1-1. :-) Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:58, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Blackburne Shilling Gambit vs Giuoco Piano

It would be fine to say Italian Game instead. At first I didn't put Blackburne Shilling under anything at all, until I remembered that Burgess had called that trap the "Oh my god" trap in his Mammoth Book of Chess. In that book he puts it in the GP section, which is understandable even if not precise. I just followed his lead for convenience. Really all the lines after 3.Bc4 could be considered one opening, and the Evans Gambit, GP, and Two Knights could be considered variations. They're certainly more strongly related than all the lines after Black's second move in the QGD. Quale 19:05, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that last is an interesting point. The different "flavors" of the QGD (2...c6, 2...e6, 2...Bf5, 2...Nc6, 2...c5, etc.) are radically different from one another. It's odd that they're all nominally one opening. I took your suggestion about Italian Game, writing a (very un-original) article about it, adding it to the Chess opening article, changing the terminology in the Giuoco Piano article, and recategorizing the Blackburne Shilling Gambit under "Italian Game" in the Category:chess traps article. Krakatoa 23:46, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I just looked at the Mammoth Book of Chess again and found that I didn't even accurately report what Burgess wrote. He does define the Italian Game just as you did in the new article you wrote. (I think sometimes Italian Game is used only as a synonymn for Giuco Piano, but I think the definition you use is more useful and better.) In the book index, his "Oh my god!" trap shows up under Giuoco Piano, but when you turn to the referenced page you find that Burgess put it in the Italian Game section, just as you proposed. I had only looked in the index when I made my earlier statement. Interestingly Burgess didn't seem to know about the Blackburne Shilling Gambit name for the trap, but I didn't either until I read your excellent article. I also put something on the Hungarian Defense talk page about something I had put in the article originally that was probably just wrong. Take a look and see if you think we should fix up that article, since 5.c3 doesn't seem to be an especially good reply to 4...exd4. Quale 00:13, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Nimzo-Indian

I agree 100% that the article should be Nimzo-Indian Defence, with a redirect from Nimzo-Indian. We have the same problem with the Bogo-Indian. Since articles already exist at the redirects and they have had edits, we can't do the move ourselves. Probably the best bet is to ask User:Sjakkalle to make the move, as he's an admin. He's also a chess player, so he'll understand why the full names are better. (I wrote Defence above instead of Defense since it looks like that article was originally created using British spelling. The wikipedia practice is to conform to the spelling that was used to create the article. If the article is about a clearly British subject, British spelling should be used, and the reverse if it's a U.S. subject.) Quale 01:20, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Ah, OK, I didn't realize an admin had to do the moving. I figured it was just another thing that I didn't know how to do. I'd noticed some time ago that someone (maybe Sjakkalle, I dunno) had renamed the Lilienthal article "Andor Lilienthal" (it had been "Andre Lilienthal" or some such) and figured anyone who knew how to do it could rename an article. I'll suggest to Sjakkalle that he rename the Nimzo and Bogo articles. Thanks. Krakatoa 18:07, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

OK, I'll move them. Usually also non-administrators can move these articles using the "move"-tab. The primitive copy-paste moves should be avoided since they don't move the article's history. There are three restrictions on moves:

• Anonymous users (not logged in) cannot move.
• If an article already exists at the target, it cannot be moved there. (The article must first be deleted by an administraor to "make way")
  • Exception: If the only thing at the target is a redirect pointing back to what you are trying to move, and there is no further history, it can be moved there anyway.
• Anybody moving an article to "(article title) on Wheels" or "(article title) is Communism" will be in serious trouble... (For an explanation of this one see this page.)

I see that the redirect at Bogo-Indian Defence has a prior history so I'll need to delete that one first.

Incidentally, I'm not a particularily strong chess player, my national rating is at 1188, and after the last rated tournament I played, it's amazing that I still have rating points left... The contributions I have made to these articles is from knowledge gathered from various books and web-references which I've only been able to apply limitedly in actual games.

By the way thanks for your overhaul of the Ruy Lopez article, it looks much better now! Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:04, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for moving those articles, and for enlightening me on the "move" procedure. I agree that the Ruy Lopez article looks much better, but I'm not the party responsible for that. (I only made some pretty minor edits.) I believe (and my glance at the history appears to confirm) that Quale deserves the credit. Krakatoa 19:21, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Ugly chess diagrams

Do you have any ideas what to do about the ugly chess diagrams (Template:Chess diagram) that are being advocated? I don't want to start a war over this, but they're popping up in chess articles all over and I think they are distinctly worse than the diagrams they are replacing. I dislike the new diagrams for several reasons. Although the green and buff colors of the old diagrams are perhaps not ideal, I think the contrast of the brown on brown proposed replacement is too low. Standardizing the diagram sizes at fixed regular and small sizes is good, but I find the regular size smaller than I like. The coordinates around the board of the new diagrams are rendered as bitmaps rather than actual font characters and aren't very pretty. Coordinates on all 4 sides of the board are redundant when only 2 sides are needed and take extra space. Finally, the biggest complaint I have with the new diagram template is fortunately easily fixed: the use of multiple boxes around the board is ugly, and simply adds unnecessary visual clutter. Zero boxes is the correct number. Over use of boxes is a classic novice's mistake in typography. Unfortunately the low contrast and cluttered appearance were deliberate design decisions, so I fear that it may be difficult to change anyone's mind about these. Quale 22:41, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I completely agree with you. As you evidently noticed, I reverted the "Blackburne Shilling Gambit" article when someone changed the green-and-white diagram to one of the crappy brown diagrams. I don't know what to do about it, though. I'm not familiar enough with Wikipedia to know how these sorts of issues are resolved. Krakatoa 22:53, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I think there was a discussion on the meta which led to this, here I think. I agree with you, the green was better, even though I am used to playing all my chess on brown boards. I think green is used in Rogaland, but brown is used nearly everywhere else in Norway. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:35, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I didn't know you lived in Norway. Your handle is suggestive, of course, but since you're a native speaker of English, and seem to write in "American English" (no Briticisms, etc. that I've noticed) I figured you lived in the U.S. It seems you, Quale, and I like the green boards; too bad that is apparently the minority view. Actually, I like the black-and-white boards the best (as used at the top of the Stalemate article, for example), but I don't know how to make them. But the brown ones -- yuck! Krakatoa 15:43, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Schiller and so on

Just wanted to say thanks for the support over on Talk:Eric Schiller; it's really much appreciated. I've edited here for more than three years now and seen rather a lot in that time, but I think that's the first time anybody has called for me to be banned. Quite amusing really.

Thanks also for all the good work on other chess articles; I think the stuff on openings in particular has come on tremendously in the last few months. --Camembert 18:11, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Glad to lend my support. I didn't think there was any great likelihood of you getting banned, of course, but Sloan's vitriol really pissed me off.

I agree that the opening articles have gotten a lot better in the last few months -- not that I'm wholly (or primarily) responsible. Quale and others have put in a lot of work. Krakatoa 19:01, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Chess Opening Theory Wikibook

Would love your help on the Chess Opening Theory Wikibook. We've got a lot of theory in the wikipedia pages, but at some point I think this stuff goes beyond encyclopedia material. Wouldn't it be great to have a wiki version opening theory? Kind of a wiki-Nunn's so to speak.... Anyway, your help is always appreciated....

I will try to help, although I'm not sure how this will work unless we were to replicate NCO or ECO or MCO (or some combination thereof) online, which would of course be illegal. It's a huge undertaking in any event. Krakatoa 22:31, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, we would to avoid copying NCO/ECO/MCO analysis -- but the moves are not under copyright and our analysis would be original -- just like the opening sections in wikipedia. Huge undertaking is an understatement, but hopefully the wiki-gods will help... ThreeE 22:37, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

If our analysis is original, doesn't that violate the Wikipedia:No Original Research policy? Krakatoa 00:02, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

It would if it was on Wikipedia, but this would be on Wikibooks where original research is the name of the game.  :) This is another good reason to move the analysis off of Wikipedia opening entries. ThreeE 01:48, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Ah, OK. I didn't know Wikibooks had different policies in that respect than Wikipedia itself. Krakatoa 16:18, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Ray Nagin article

Where did I insert POV quotes, exactly, in the Ray Nagin article? Rather, I remember removing a dearth of information that was unsourced. If I did remove the information about the Posse Comitataus Act, it was completely unintentional. Another user, who you identify by their IP address, was in the midst of editing the article at the same time. I think this information was removed accidentally by me or accidentally/intentionally by this user.--Jentizzle 19:39, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I did not attribute the addition of POV material to you, but to 209.247.222.81. I was not objecting to deletion of material about the Posse Comitatus Act (which I would welcome, since no one has cited any basis for the claim that Gov. Blanco's extensive 8/28 letter to President Bush requesting assistance was insufficient under that Act). I was complaining about your deletion of the following material, which my comparison of the 18:08 version (the last by me) and the 18:33 version (after four edits by you) indicates that you deleted:

"On Saturday August 27, President Bush "declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing." [2] The president's "action authorize[d] the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts . . . ." The Department of Homeland Security's website states that, "In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility . . . for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort." [3] Page 43 of the National Response Plan issued by the Department of Homeland Security in December 2004 states, under the "Guiding Principles for Proactive Federal Response," that "Standard procedures regarding requests for assistance may be expedited or, under extreme circumstances, suspended in the immediate aftermath of an event of catastrophic magnitude." [4]"

Accidental, and I apologize. But I have to ask why you refer to Governor Blanco's request as coming on the 28th, when the document is dated and referenced by other newspapers as being sent on the 27th? --Jentizzle 20:21, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Bovineone in his reversion at 19:09 characterized your edits as "unexplained and unsubstantiated mass vandalism by Jentizzle." Krakatoa 19:51, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

If 209 anon keeps it up, I'll get the 3RR posse on him/her or do an Rfc on the issues.--MONGO 19:54, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, MONGO. Krakatoa 20:07, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Jentizzle, apology accepted, as I said on the article's talk page. But the Blanco letter appears to be dated August 28, as I said. [5] Krakatoa 22:11, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen the .PDF, which I still don't think has any more credibility than the press release with the date heading of August 27. Furthermore, the press release is linked to the public site, not the .PDF. Somehow I'm uneasy about assuming that the whoever is updating the Lousiana state government's site just made a huge mistake. The discrepancy could at least be noted in the Nagin and Blanco articles, meaning adding both links, for the press release and .PDF. Beyond this, it's not as if the .PDF couldn't have been edited. Anyway, I've updated the talk page for Mayor Nagin with a link to a FEMA statement dated August 27 [6] which references a state request for federal assistance --Jentizzle 03:01, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

The assault on the List of sexual slang

Two users in particular The Literate Engineer & Voice of All(MTG) have apparently made it their duty to get rid of the list and they have been using underhanded tactics in an attempt to do so in any way they can.

But word is getting out, and supporters of the list are starting to rally against them and protect the list (via rerverting vandalism, countering their tactics, etc.).

The results of the 18 October AfD:

• Keep & clean = 3
• Keep, no clean = 11
• Delete = 2

The anonymous clean-up notice

The following anonymous clean-up notice was posted to the list on November 1st:

23:44, 1 November 2005 68.17.227.41

The notice was placed without group consensus, and there was no edit comment. Pretty sneaky.

This was the user's only edit. Nothing before or after. A sock-puppet.

The results of the 10 November Afd

• Keep & clean up =3 votes
• Keep, with no mention of clean up =7 votes
• Delete = 4 votes (including the nomination)

That's 10 votes to keep, out of which 3 voted to clean up. Seven out of ten clearly voiced their desire to retain the list without deleting its entries.

Dishonest report of Afd results

Voice of All(MTG) reported the results as " ", and he and The Literate Engineer used that as the basis to erase the content of the list, which they did in successive edits.

Non-consensual list move

During the 10 November AfD discussion, Voice of All(MTG) moved the list to the new article name sexual slang, citing the introduction at the top of the list as the basis for the move ("it is more than a list"). Several users then used the article title as an argument against including any list entries.

When an article is moved, the change history is moved with it, and a redirect is placed under the original article's title. If the redirect is edited, then the article cannot be moved back. That is exactly what has happened to the list. See Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages for more information.

The current situation

The change history of the list is currently stranded as the change history of Sexual slang.

The content of the list itself has been restored to List of sexual slang, where it was originally. This preserves the spirit of the results of the two AfD discussions mentioned above.

To summarize:

1. On Oct 18 the list was nominated for AfD (article for deletion), but this attempt to delete failed, and the vote was overwhelmingly to Keep.
2. An anonymous sock-puppet placed a clean-up notice on the list. It has been used as a justification to delete entries.
3. On Nov 10, The Literate Engineer made an AfD attempt against the list and it failed too.
4. Voice of All (MTG) underhandedly moved the list to the non-list name sexual slang, while the AfD was still underway.
5. Voice of All(MTG)reported false results for the 10 November AfD vote, and he and The Literate Engineer edited out the entire list.
6. I posted a rebuttal to the above antics on the talk page for sexual slang, and reverted the sexual slang article to the November 15 version in the article's change history (the complete list). My username ("Bend over") was banned as inappropriate or offensive.
7. Some editors stated that an article is not the place for a list, and used that as a justification to keep list entries.
8. So I replaced the redirect at List of sexual slang with the actual content of the entire list. Unfortunately, the change history for the list is still part of the change history for the article sexual slang.
9. An attempt is being made to protect the list against vandalism at its original location: List of sexual slang.

Remember, the three reversion limit does not apply when reverting vandalism. Only if enough concerned users participate will this be successful.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. Red Rover 22:10, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Game against David Sprenkle

David Sprenkle was at the University of Illinois in 1982 (at least part of it) while I was there. Were you there too? Bubba73 (talk), 04:26, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Bubba73! No, I attended Illinois Institute of Technology and Columbia Law School, not the U of I. I played the game against Sprenkle at the "Master Challenge" tournament in one of the Chicago suburbs. Krakatoa 04:29, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

reply

"I never knew it was possible to add all that stuff about playing chess, liking chocolate, ,,,"

Those are userboxes that I originally got from other user pages, and then from Wikipedia:Userboxes.

" Not with you on the Country/Western thing, but your line made me chuckle. A friend of mine who moved from Chicago to Texas had used that line with me ("We've got all kinds of music here. Country AND Western."). I gather that neither he nor you originated that line."

The C&W thing is actually a joke. I like some C&W, but it isn't my favorite. I got the line about both kinds of music - country and western from the Blues Brothers movie.

"Keep up your good work on the chess articles."

Thank you, and you too. I'm the one that misspelled "desperado". I put in a link to it at the terminology, but at the time I suspected that you might be making an article about it, and you did. Those stalemate lines in Keres-Fischer are remarkable, aren't they? Bubba73 (talk), 17:28, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Actually, now that you remind me, I think that my friend had mentioned that he got the line from the Blues Brothers. Yes, Keres-Fischer is unbelievable. I see why Fischer was so shocked to realize that he had no win after Qe5! simply allowing him to queen. Perpetual check I can believe, but having stalemates in three different lines is incredible. Maybe the most problem-like position I've ever seen in an actual game. Krakatoa 17:35, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Promotion (chess)

Promotion (chess): my contribution wasn't vandalism (rv), I just try to directly point promotion. Sorry for thr word. --AndrejJ 18:00, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

No problem. As you may have noticed, I deleted my earlier discussion that double promotion could happen if White played e5xNf6xg7xRh8 and Black played bxNc3xb2xRal, which is now redundant since it's shown by the illustrative game. Krakatoa 18:09, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

promotions and underpromotions

I just added a breakdown of promotions and underpromotions to these two articles.

The 2006 ChessBase database of 3,200,000 games, the breakdown of promotions is approximately:

• queen - 96.8%
• knight - 1.8%
• rook - 1.1%
• bishop - 0.2%

I suspect that most of the promotions to a rook were not necessary to win the game (or not to avoid stalemate), but to give enough power to win, and give a hint that it is time to resign. But I certainly have no reference to that. Do you know of anything along those lines, or a way to mention it in the articles without being an opinion? Bubba73 (talk), 00:39, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Also, only about 1.5% of the games have a promotion. I think it is much higher than that at the amateur level. Bubba73 (talk), 00:41, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Huh, that is all very interesting -- and largely counterintuitive, at least to me. I would've thought that promotions to queen were well over 99%. I agree that the percentage of games with promotions has to be much higher at the amateur level. Sorry, I don't know of anything discussing why people chose to underpromote. Krakatoa 13:42, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

There is a way that those statistics can be biased. Chessbase only counts the number of games with each of those types of promotions. So if a game has two or more promotions to a queen, it will only be counted as one. It may be that a lot of those promotions to a rook are cases when it is going to be immediately captured anyway, so for fun they promote to a rook instead of a queen. I can sook at some of the games to check, but I haven't done that. Also, there are probably a lot more promotions to a queen in amateur play, since masters will probably resign before a pawn is queened. Bubba73 (talk), 15:52, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

That is all true, although I would think that if people wanted to underpromote a pawn that's going to be captured anyway, there'd be more bishop promotions, since they're so unusual normally. I saw a game of Keene's where he did that; he said he wanted to see how careful the chess magazines were. (A guy once played a8(N)! in that situation in a tournament game against me, just to amuse his friends who were spectating.) I think some of the rook promotions might be in (decisive) K and P vs. K situations. If someone played out an ending with a lone king against me, I'd probably promote to a rook, just to underscore how ridiculous it was for the guy to play on. Once in a tournament game against a complete fish, I promoted five pawns to knight (I also had one of my original knights), and then mated with just the six knights, not using my king, rook, or bishop. Not all of the games in ChessBase are master games, by the way: some are from the "Girls Under-12 Championship" and such, and those kind of games doubtless contribute a disproportionate share of the promotions. I was very surprised by the percentage of knight promotions in the ChessBase database; it amazes me that almost 1 out of 50 games has a knight promotion. Krakatoa 17:48, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, a promotion to a queen or rook might be immediately captured by a minor piece, and the side tht just did the promotion captures the minor piece. Therefore a promotion to a rook or queen might result in winning a minor piece. A player likely wouldn't sacfifice a minor piece for a promotion to a minor piece. ... You are right about not all of the games being at a high level.... Still there were only about 880 promotions to knights out of the 3.2 million games. (and about 96 to bishop, 528 to rook, 46,100 games with a queen.) The fact that most of the games are at a high level skews the stats compared to amateur games, since there are relatively so few promotions at all. Masters know when they're beat. Bubba73 (talk), 18:38, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Something is a little funky about the ChessBase statistics: they add up to 99.9%, but I would think that there's a non-trivial number of games featuring two different kinds of promotions (the Irish championship game I cite, for example, has promotions to queen and rook). Those ought to be counted twice, which would bring the total over 100% -- but it's not. Maybe ChessBase only counts the first promotion?! I've now put into the "promotion (chess)" article examples of rook and bishop underpromotion. If you can find a nice example of a game with a knight underpromotion, you might want to throw that in. Krakatoa 19:36, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

It is 99.9% because I rounded off the percentages to one digit after the decimal. There should be some games with more than one type of promotion. I noticed the stull you did about underpromotion in the promotion (chess) article. Some of that might be better in the underpromotion article, with a link to it from Promotion as the main article about underpromotion. Bubba73 (talk), 19:41, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

(uninent) There are between 47,500 and 47,600 games with promotions, which is about 100 fewer than the sum of the individual ones. So using that figure puts Q: 97.1%, R 1.1%, B 0.2%, N 1.9%, qhich adds to 100.3%, after rounding. So maybe it should be stated that way. Bubba73 (talk), 19:48, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, yes I think that is probably better. I will change the article to that.

You may well be right about the underpromotion article being more appropriate for my illustrative positions (except the part about mutual promotions to queen in the opening, of course). I have to go do some work, but if you want to move it, feel free. Krakatoa 19:55, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

There are 46,100+ games with at least one promotion to queen. However, there are 28,100+ with white and 19,000+ with black, total of 47,100 to 47,300. So that will change the stats slightly. I need to run each piece seperately for white and for black. Bubba73 (talk), 19:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Huh, that is a funny statistic too. I wouldn't have guessed that White promotes about 1 1/2 times as often as Black does. Krakatoa 20:03, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's the way it is across the board. Running the stats the better way, Q 96.9%, N 1.8%, R 1.1%, B 0.2%. This is ignoring cases where one side has more than one promotion of the same type, and I think that is the only flaw. That might make Queen promos slightly higher. Bubba73 (talk), 20:09, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

But those statistics are only counting once games with two or more kinds of promotions, right -- since now they add up to 100.0%, rather than 100.3%? Krakatoa 20:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I had the database count each of the promotions to Q/R/B/N for both white and black. It gives the number of games of each. So the only promotions that are missed by this method are where the same player promotes two or more times to the same piece.

Here is a position like I talked about: 1k6/6PB/p7/1p1b4/2pp3P/8/PPP2rr1/1K2R1R1 w - - 0 32 white promoted the g pawn to a rook, and black saced a B for it. A Q promotion would have been the same, but a minor piece probably not. I think many of the rook promotions are like this, and not ones that the position required it. Bubba73 (talk), 20:38, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Tim Krabbe talks about that (not sure if you're the one who put the link to his stuff in the "underpromotion" article) phenomenon -- he says that most underpromotions are not "true" (necessary) underpromotions. Krakatoa 21:13, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I ran the search on my own database of my 163 tournament games. It found 5 promotions, all to queen. But off the top of my head I remembered one game that it overlooked. Happens that the promotion was the last move of the game, which may be why it overlooked it. So that may affect the stats. I've written to ChessBase about it. Bubba73 (talk), 02:20, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

American

I noticed that you recently added a link to American here. American is a disambiguation page as the phrase has many uses including a person from the Americas or the United States. In the future, could you link the term to one of the articles listed on the American disambiguation term, that would be great. As an example, if you're linking to something related to the United States, you would input [[United States|American]]. Thanks! --Bobblehead 07:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Category:Chess Players

I noticed you added you-know-who: I had to laugh! Seems the article has gotten the attention of antisemites...at the same time, it would be nice to foreground the chess content and not the poor fellow's recent history. It's as if John Nash were only remembered for his nuttiness. Billbrock 02:47, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

True. A third or so of the article is about what a nut case Fischer is. Ty Cobb was a loathsome human being, but the article about him concentrates primarily on his baseball. Odd that in all that time no one had noticed that Fischer really ought to be on the list of chessplayers. Krakatoa 05:00, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I think the section 1967-72 is weak, particularly 1970-71. How to fix? Billbrock 05:54, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

My chess library is mostly in boxes at the moment (because of remodeling of our house), or I would try to fix it. There definitely should be more on what Fischer was doing before the 1971 candidates matches. He beat Petrosian 3-1 (+2=2) in the USSR vs. the Rest of the World in 1970. [7] It should be mentioned that Board 1 for the ROW was Larsen, whom Fischer demolished 6-0 the following year. Fischer also played in some tournaments in this time period, with crushing results. Krakatoa 04:43, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Nice start! I think it's hard to make a case for Fischer = #1 earlier than 1967 (Monaco/Sousse, e.g.); the amazing thing about his career is his withdrawal from active play & his reemergence in 1970--and his incredibly rapid demostration of being CLEAR & DOMINANT #1--this needs to be played up. (I think of Sandy Koufax, who didn't get good till year 5 in majors.) He was obviously something special, but he wasn't a true prodigy in the sense of (say) Reshevsky or Spassky (both considerably stronger at age 12)....so how did he get so good so fast? WP:NOR of course, but I think it's useful to think of this as a frame for the narrative. Billbrock 06:56, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, it always struck me how Fischer stopped playing, then came back stronger than ever -- no longer just one of the leading players, but as you say, clearly the strongest player in the world. Any normal human becomes rusty (as Fischer himself did in 1972-92). By the way, someone should write an article on Chess Informant already. Krakatoa 07:06, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

A good night's work! Article still sucks, but it sucks LESS. Billbrock 09:37, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Six-piece DB

Confirms the soundness of your study! 2K1b3/8/1R1k4/2n5/2n5/8/8/8 b - - 0 1 is a draw , as you assumed. Billbrock 21:41, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Billbrock 21:41, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! After playing over Karpov-Kasparov, I was pretty sure R v. BNN was a draw. (As I recall, Kasparov said he was surprised how few winning chances there were.) The defender constantly harasses the other side with checks and threats of RxB. (Another way to look at it is that KNN v. K is a draw and KBN v. K is just barely a win, so it's not surprising that if you give the attacker an extra minor piece over those endings, but give the defender a better piece (a rook), the defender can draw.) But it's good to have confirmation: I would have bet heavily that RN v. BB was normally a draw, but the computers say the RN side wins. BBN v. R is a win, which doesn't surprise me: it's much harder for the defender, since exchange sacrifices don't work, and the attacker thus can interpose a bishop to a check. Krakatoa 22:29, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you know of a page that summarizes the normal result of the six-piece endgames? Bubba73 (talk), 00:00, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

RN vs. BB - the R&N usually win for same-colored bishops, but draw for opposite-colored bishops. Secrets of Pawnless Endings, page 341, says it offers few winning chances unless the attacker starts with a very favorable position. Bubba73 (talk), 00:16, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I think I may have been confused. I was under the impression that RN beat BB generally, according to the computers -- as I said above, a result I found very surprising. RN beating same-colored bishops makes a lot more sense. Throwing a few positions with RN v. opposite-colored BB into the Shredder six-piece database seems to confirm that a draw is indeed the normal result. Yay! Sorry, I don't know of a page summarizing the normal results of 6-piece endgames. Krakatoa 06:43, 17 October 2006 (UTC) (corrected 1 May 2007)

Secrets of Pawnless endings' has a table of the ones w/o pawns that were finished at that time, including those two endings. Somewhere I've seen the complete list, but I can't find it. Bubba73 (talk), 20:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Fischer article

Hi, I don't wish to be critical of effort being put into improving articles, but see my comments on overlinking at Talk:Bobby Fischer. Rocksong 05:55, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Grandmasters

I believe it is a mistake to retrospectively call the likes of Morphy and Philidor grandmasters. They are not conventionally called that. I believe the term should be reserved for those who actually got called GMs: the original 5 GMs, plus those awarded the title by FIDE. (See International Grandmaster). Rocksong 04:54, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, I agree. I thought there was some sort of consensus that people of obvious GM strength deserved to be on the list, since I saw that it contained a number of people whom FIDE had not awarded that title. Now I see that most of those were the five original grandmasters. I removed Morphy and Teichmann, whom I had added, and also Nimzowitsch, whom someone else had added. Someone (maybe you?) already removed Philidor. I'm going to remove Blackburne (added by someone else), too, for the same reason. Krakatoa 05:12, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I removed Philidor. Then thought I'd better discuss it before we started a revert war. As for Blackburne, someone called Mibelz added him on 23-Aug, dunno why. I don't think there's any official definition of who does or doesn't go on the list, I think it's just a result of different editors to different article. But I think we should go with the "conventional" definition of grandmaster, which as far as I know is what I said above. I don't hold any strong opinion on this, I just think it's nice for Wikipedia to be consistent. Rocksong 05:25, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

barnstar

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		For many fine contributions to chess topics. Bubba73 (talk), 23:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm touched. Krakatoa 06:43, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

SP

grammer → grammar Hey, in the same paragraph I said that I can't spell! If I do editing off-line I run it through a spell checker. If I edit on line, I make a lot of errors!  :-) Bubba73 (talk), 03:30, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I know! I've fixed your spelling before! :-) Krakatoa 03:35, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to correct that or any of my other errors. Bubba73 (talk), 17:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Even when I run it through a spell checker (ad I did with the new material in "two knights ending"), I STILL make errors.! Bubba73 (talk), 23:09, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

That's the problem with spell checkers: if you type a known word, but it happens to be the wrong word, the spell checker won't flag it. Krakatoa 23:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussion about links to ChessWorld.net at WikiProject Chess

Hi, I started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess#Links to chessworld.net - you are welcomed to contribute. Greetings, --Ioannes Pragensis 17:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

List of Ethnic Chess Openings

Hi... Umm... I er... nominated this list which you created for deletion, and you may review the AFD entry at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Ethnic Chess Openings and you are of course free to disagree with me. I sincerely hope that you are not too offended by the AFD, because in general, I hold your contributions to our chess articles in very high regard. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Columbia University

Greetings, fellow Columbian. I just created a WikiProject dedicated to Columbia University, the schools, environs, and the notable people who notably affiliated with it. If you want to be part of it, please check out WP:Columbia. It is very barebones right now, but with your help we can expand it and make it fully functional. If you have any questions please drop my a line on my talk page. --Valley2city^₪‽ 08:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Judy Miller

"Nor, by the way, is this a case where a reporter keeps silent to protect a whistleblower who told her about government wrongdoing."

Maybe it is. Depends upon what the meaning of is, is. Suppose one believed (falsely, but work with me for purposes of a hypothesis) that the CIA was culpable either through laziness or through its own maverick agenda in hiding information about the Iraq/Niger tie, yellowcake, etc. Then the White House/ Veep office etc. might be credited with "whistleblowing" in trying to bring the CIA's dereliction to the attention of the public. Against such presumptions, JM might have thought of herself as hiding the identity of a whistle-blower.

My point is only that terms like "whistle blower" don't define themselves. Any government is a variety of cross-currents, any of which may be hiding something (requiring that a whistle be blown on it) from the POV of other parts of the same government.

In the case of Mark Felt a/k/a Deep Throat, the White House and CRP -- and elements of the CIA -- were where the criminality was, and the FBI guy wanted to blow the whistle. Of course, if your sympathies lay with the plumbers, you might think of Woodward and Bernstein as helping a rogue FBI operative to smear innocent folk, etc. -- much the way you seem to think of JM and Scooter.

I don't quarrel with any of that, except to note the subjectivity inherent in it. --Christofurio 19:16, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Vienna Game

The last sentence in the discussion of 3.a3 in the Vienna Game doesn't seem right.

Also possible is 3...Bc5 4.Nf3 d6, when Black stands well after 5.Bc4 d6 6.d3 Be6, while 5.d4 cxd4 6.Nxd4 gives White little or no advantage.

This has Black playing ...d6 twice, on moves 4 and 5. Is something else intended here? Quale 18:19, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Woops! You're right, of course. I will fix it. Krakatoa 15:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Categorizing Soviet chess players

I've created a section on the WikiProject chess talk page to discuss how we should categorize Soviet chess players within Category:Chess players by nationality. I'm interested in what you think, so I invite you to weigh in with your views at WT:CHESS if you like. Quale 05:46, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Nationality of Dragoljub Minić

There is a question about the nationality of Dragoljub Minić. Our article says Croatian, but an anon commented that he was a Serb, and his place of birth and death do strongly suggest that. Do you know which is correct? The original source that you used to create the article (Indochess) doesn't seem to be available any longer, but I haven't tried any of the web archive sites. I'm also going to ask this question on Talk:Dragoljub Minić and WT:CHESS to see if someone knows for sure. Quale 03:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I assume I got the Croatian thing from the Indochess article. I have no knowledge of Minić's nationality beyond whatever that article said. Krakatoa 04:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, makes sense. We'll see if anyone has anything to add. I don't have any references to Minić's nationality beyond saying he was Yugoslavian, so Croatian may well be correct. Quale 05:16, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Played by black

While it's true that both players are required to play the Wade Defence. Consider if you would say the Alekine's is an opening played by Black!? ...yet to play an Alekine's defense white is required to play 1. e4. Somewhat unsure. ChessCreator (talk) 20:52, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Certainly Black's 1...Nf6 is the move that finally defines a game as an Alekhine's Defense, just as Black's 2...Bg4 is the move that finally defines a game as a Wade Defence. It's not a huge thing, but to my eye it seems weird to say that "Wade's Defence is a chess opening played by Black." The "played by Black" is superfluous: the sequence 1.d4 d6 2.Nf3 Bg4 (or 1.Nf3 d6 2.d4 Bg4) makes a game one in which the Wade Defence is played. The article tells you that immediately, so you immediately know that Black plays the final move that makes the game a Wade Defence rather than some other opening. Even if you didn't know that, the fact that the opening is called a "Defence" tells you immediately that Black's move is the one that finally defines the opening. So "played by Black" tell you nothing that you didn't know either from (1) reading the word "Defence" or (2) reading the sequence of moves that defines the opening. Krakatoa (talk) 04:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, leave it out, it doesn't make sense to say it was played by Black. Although it is sometimes used that way in verbal language. ChessCreator (talk) 18:38, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Peruvian Immortal

Hi! I noticed that you did some editing on the above article. It has been tagged for notability concerns which could probably be cleared up by someone with a solid chess background...hope you can help. Thanks! --Stormbay (talk) 23:30, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi! Yes, I actually wrote this article. I have added a bunch of references. Hope this takes care of the problem. Krakatoa (talk) 08:32, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Articles for deletion

I feel I'm missing something. So please put me in the picture. Why do you want to have the Catherine Lip article deleted? It's one page on wikipedia that is linked from two others. It's reliably sourced. Sure it's a stub and stub quality article, as are most pages on wikipedia. It's notability is debatable, but even if it's wasn't notable, I don't understand a reason for it's deletion. So far as I'm aware the
Advantage of deletion are:

• One very small area on a computer hard disk is available to be recycled.

Disadvantage of deletion.

• Two existing linking articles go back to red links(or links removed).
• As the article would no long exist it's contains can't be improved on or added to.
• Someone chooses to recreated it over again - wasting editors time and then
• The possibility of another AfD being risen and more time spent pondering over it's possible usefulness or not.

Seems a no brainer to me. So perhaps I'm missing something. Please explain. ChessCreator (talk) 23:08, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

The last I heard, notability was a requirement for inclusion in Wikipedia. How important is that requirement? I really have no idea. But I don't think that Ms. Lip satisfies it. Krakatoa (talk) 02:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

It's a matter of opinion whether it meets the WP:Bio. I would certainly recommend you read WP:Bio carefully yourself rather then rely on the (mis?)interpretation given on it at the top of Ms Lip's AfD.

Certainly I feel that procedures have not been followed. It's gone from creation to AfD(twice) and the various steps before raising an AfD don't appear to have happened. ChessCreator (talk) 03:33, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Chess

Hello, I have noticed you have deleted your name from the list of the participants at the WikiProject Chess. As you are a valuable and charming member of the project, I feel sad about this. Is there anything we could do to help you change your mind ? SyG (talk) 21:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I hope you will stay. Most likely you are the best chess player among the editors of the chess articles. Bubba73 (talk), 23:50, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't have any doubt that Krakatoa is the strongest player (formerly) a member of WP:CHESS. I had hoped to get his help to update Ruy Lopez with the lines mentioned in Talk:Ruy Lopez#Another line. Quale (talk) 04:04, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. Sorry, I was in a very pissy mood, primarily for personal reasons having nothing to do with Wikipedia. I have rejoined WP:CHESS. It does strike me, though, that if Swindle (chess) isn't better than a B-class article, there's something wrong with how Wikipedia assesses articles.Krakatoa (talk) 21:22, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Welcome back to the fold! If I may say one thing about the Swindle article, I'm glad to have it, but I think it is too extensive for an excyclopedia article. It could easily be a series of several articles in a chess magazine or a few chapters in a book. Bubba73 (talk), 21:39, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much for coming back, and sorry for the personal issues you come through, whatever they may be. Regarding Swindle (chess), even if I am not sure it can become a FA article one day, I think it definitely has the potential to become a GA article. Still, I agree that the quality criteria on Wikipedia seem to become harsher every day, and this can be quite frustrating. SyG (talk) 09:40, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, guys. Krakatoa (talk) 16:10, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

First move advantage

Good work on the first move advantage article! This was a section in the article draw (chess), but I didn't think it should be there. I moved it to its own article, but otherwise I did little with it. Bubba73 (talk), 14:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Glad you like it. I am a little vexed about one thing: I know I recently read somewhere that Benko said that Fischer told him that he thought the advantage of the first move was almost strong enough for a forced win with perfect play. (That statement is in some tension, of course, with Fischer's statement to Evans that he realized that he could play for a win as Black, rather than just trying to equalize.) Benko said that this statement was more supportable than it seems, noting that Fischer had a big plus score (and no losses) as White against Benko, while Benko as White beat Fischer thrice and only lost once, that after missing a win. I looked through Benko's biography, and also the interview of Benko in The Wandering King, but can't find this. Most annoying! Krakatoa (talk) 17:59, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't know where that could be, I don't remember hearing it before. I do remember Fischer saying that he could draw with white against God. The other person asked him what if God payed the Sicilian? Fischer said that he would play B-QB4 and be OK. I don't remember a source though. Bubba73 (talk), 18:44, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I have heard that one somewhere, too. I was surprised by the Benko statement. I consider Berliner's claims of a forced win for White, or close to it, nuts (and am not alone in that assessment), so it was surprising to hear Fischer and Benko saying much the same thing, if a little less categorically. Krakatoa (talk) 19:49, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Mihai Şuba

Hello Krakatoa. I think that you should have a look at this thread at ANI, since you are the creator of the article that caused it, Mihai Şuba. Regards, Húsönd 18:21, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

First-move advantage in chess

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April 2008

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. It appears that you recently copied the contents of a page and pasted it into another with a different name. This is what we call a "cut and paste move", and it is very undesirable because it splits the article's history, which is needed for attribution and is helpful in many other ways. The mechanism we use for renaming an article is to move it to a new name which both preserves the page's history and automatically creates a redirect from the old title to the new. In most cases, you should be able to move an article yourself using the "Move" tab at the top of the page. If there is an article that you cannot move yourself by this process, follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Requested moves to request the move by another. Also, if there are any other articles that you copied and pasted, even if it was a long time ago, please list them at Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen. Thank you. Onorem♠Dil 02:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Copy and paste moves

You should use the "Move" tab to move a page—copy and paste is suboptimal. See WP:MOVE and WP:CPMV. Basically copy-and-paste loses/obfuscates the page history, which is unfortunate. We should probably repair this. I don't have any experience doing it, but we have editors like User:Sjakkalle who I think do. Quale (talk) 02:56, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I've been getting multiple messages advising me of this. I have moved the article and talk page back, and put in redirects at the intended new article and talk page for the time being. I will see if I can get Sjakkalle or someone to help me with this. Thanks (to you and others who apprised me of my blunder). Krakatoa (talk) 03:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I have the admin button back now, and I have moved the article. (I figured this was the quickest way to get it done, the last time I requested a fix-up of a copy-paste move it took five days to get an administrator to do so. Such moves are difficult to reverse, so I guess admins are generally reluctant to do so unless they understand the situation very well.) My screen says that a bot will take care of most of the link fix-up over the next few days. I deleted eight old revisions of First-move advantage in chess, and a review shows that they mostly consist of attempts at a failed move, so I don't think they need to be restored (but if you want them restored, just ask). BTW, excellent work with that article. :-) Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:57, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Alright, I have moved the talkpage as well. (I thought I had moved it along with the article, but apparently I hadn't. The "delete and move" doesn't look the same way as it did in 2006.) Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:48, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again. Krakatoa (talk) 08:56, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Reuben Fine's book

After a ref to "The World's Great Chess Games", Reuben Fine, (McKay, 1976) p.30.", I notice you've added "However, Fine also regards Staunton, Anderssen, and Morphy as having been "world champions." Id., pp.3-4.". I can't find that in my copy... could you give me a quote, or section title, so I can locate it? I'm also a bit surpised that Fine woul say that, since he has comments which sort of say the opposite, e.g. on Anderssen (p.14 in my copy), Fine writes, "Anderssen was now the unofficial world champion; the title was not yet in existence". Peter Ballard (talk) 07:53, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Woops -- I think I cited the wrong book. The book I meant to cite is not Fine's The World's Great Chess Games, but rather Fine's Great Moments in Modern Chess, Dover Publications, 1965 (a verbatim reprint of The World's a Chessboard, David McKay, 1948). Chapter 1, beginning on page 1, is entitled, "The World's a Chessboard." Starting with the last two words on page 3, Fine writes, "Of the eight world champions of the past hundred years (Staunton, Anderssen, Morphy, Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine and Euwe) all have been men considerably above the intellectual average." Id. at 3-4. Krakatoa (talk) 15:55, 27 April 2008 (UTC) Krakatoa (talk) 16:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

hyphens in ISBNs

Why are you deleting hyphens in ISBNs? They make the numbers easier to read and they seperate out the code number for the publisher, etc. Bubba73 (talk), 17:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:ISBN, which says to use hyphens, rather dashes. Bubba73 (talk), 18:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Göttingen manuscript

Talk:Chess_theory#Early_theory. You might want to check over some references regarding early theory. SunCreator (talk) 22:09, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar for your work on First-move advantage in chess

		The Content Creativity Barnstar
		For the tremendous work and material you put in the article First-move advantage in chess so that it reached A-class, I award you this barnstar. SyG (talk) 08:08, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Woo hoo! Krakatoa (talk) 12:53, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

References in First-move advantage in chess

Hello Krakatoa, sorry for my mistake on "Mein System" in First-move advantage in chess, I had not seen it actually was in "References", that's why I wanted to put it in "Further reading". That brings another concern to me: we have put this book in "References" but it does not seem we are using it anywhere in the article (we are only using "Chess Praxis"), so maybe it should be deleted altogether ? In other words, what is the reason for mentioning this book ?

On another point, I have to explain my current reasoning concerning references. If a reference is used several times in the article, I put it in the "References" section and I only use a short notice in the "Footnotes" (e.g. "Watson 2005, p.12). But if a reference is used only once, I put it directly in the "Footnotes" at length (with the full "cite" template), because then I do not see the point of putting it in two different sections.

However, there are a lot of other systems that could be used. For example it could be decided to put all references in the "References" section, regardless of the number of times they are used in the article. Do you have a preference ? SyG (talk) 19:14, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Napoleon Marache

On 30 May, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Napoleon Marache, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 18:28, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Bronze Wiki Award for First-move advantage in chess

I hereby award Krakatoa the Bronze Wiki Award for great work on bringing First-move advantage in chess to FA.Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:45, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, I'm not quite there yet (maybe you know something I don't?), but thank you! Krakatoa (talk) 07:50, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Seasons v series

Hello Krakatoa. I saw your edits on the All Creatures Great and Small page and I thought I would drop you a note letting you know that the term series is a briticism. Where we in the US refer to "seasons" for ongoing shows the Brits have used the term "series" as far back as the 1950's. About the only British show that uses the term seasons is Doctor Who where it is applied to the 26 years of its original run. The new version of the show has reverted back to using the term series. By your edit summaries I think that you already figured this out but I thought that I would leave this message to confirm your suspicions. Cheers and happy editing. MarnetteD | Talk 09:38, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

List of chess terms

Hi, I have seen you spend a lot of work on the list of chess terms. Perhaps you are aware that there is such a thing called Featured Lists. I think the article is getting close the Featured List Criteria. Still missing from the criteria is the engaging lead (also a top figure would be nice). I think our list is pretty much complete (most of the missing terms from other glossaries (see the talk page) are trivial or common English words, but perhaps a few more are relevant). Another thing we need to think of is the name of the article, perhaps mentioning the words glossary (there is a discussion on the talk page regarding the name, but personally I don't mind the current title too much). Do you think it would be a good idea to try to nominate this article for featured list? Regards, Voorlandt (talk) 10:27, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know. I think it is a very good list for our purposes. However, unlike almost every other chess-related article, the list cites virtually no sources. This has always seemed a little weird to me; I assumed (and still do) that the main reason for that is that citations would make the list take up even more space than it does and take even longer to load. Seems reasonable, but given the absence of citations, it seems to me that the list does not meet the Featured List Criteria of verifiability, citations, and reliable sources. We could try to add sources, but that would be an extremely time-consuming process, would I suspect be impossible in many cases, and would indeed result in a very big file that takes a very long time load. Given that, I don't see how we can meet the Featured List Criteria. Am I missing something? Krakatoa (talk) 16:44, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I never thought about this, and you definitely have a point. However, most terms on our list are very well known, and, not controversial or prone to be questioned. Therefore, using the same logic, the general references we have (several good chess dictionaries) probably do suffice. Or also: most of the terms can simply be given the same reference, but with other page numbers. I went over the list of featured lists, and it does seem that individual footnotes are not required for every list item, eg. see Manchester_City_F.C._seasons or List_of_Kansas_birds. Voorlandt (talk) 17:39, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry that I've been dilatory in responding. You're right that apparently the powers that be don't require footnotes for every list item. Our list is very good, so if you want to nominate it, I certainly have no problem with that. Maybe someone else in WikiProject Chess would have a better idea than I of what our list's chances would be - Sjakkalle or SyG, maybe? Krakatoa (talk) 11:33, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Review of Howard Staunton

Hello Krakatoa, and thanks very much for your review and your comments of Howard Staunton at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess/Review#Review of Howard Staunton. Sorry if this sounds a bit bureaucratic, but could you please indicate to me if you think the article has reached the A-class level (as defined at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment), the GA level or something else ? I would like to have the opinion of the reviewers in order to close the review soon.

(You can answer on this page, I will watch it) SyG (talk) 21:03, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks for your answer in the review, and very sorry for having annoyed you during your vacation. Have fun! SyG (talk) 14:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

question about opposite colored bishops

I saw you cite from Mednis' Practical Bishop Endings and I have a question for you. On page 94 (bottom), he says that the farther apart the pawns are, the more likely they are to win, except for two rook pawns if the defending king is in front of the "wrong" rook pawn. But it seems to me that with two widely-separated pawns, when one is the "wrong rook pawn" and the defending king is in front of it, it doesn't matter much which file the other pawn is on, if the defending bishop can control a square in front of it, because the bishop can be sacrificed for the pawn, leaving the king in front of the "wrong rook pawn", and the position is drawn. Is this right? Bubba73 (talk), 16:50, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly right. In those circumstances, it is a draw, period, irrespective of the number of files separating the two pawns. Krakatoa (talk) 02:57, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Last night I gave my 11-year-old daughter a handicap, and we got to K+R vs K+N. I told her I could hold the draw because the knight was close to the king. But my king was stuck on the edge, and she won! Bubba73 (talk), 05:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Pretty good! My daughter (like her mother) has always refused to even learn the game. :-( Krakatoa (talk) 07:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

She got me un zugzwang, and she doesn't even know the term. Bubba73 (talk), 02:11, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Staunton and Soltis

Concerning the 2B+N vs R endgame, Staunton said that the pieces win without much difficulty, but Soltis said that is wasn't that easy. The way I read Soltis, he is only disagreeing with the "easy" part, not the conclusion. It does take up to 68 moves with perfect play. Bubba73 (talk), 02:10, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

You are right. That had occurred to me too, but I guess I was too lazy to fix it. Soltis actually goes further, which wasn't clear from my discussion. He gives a position from an actual game (Black Kg8, Rg1; White Nd7, Bd4, Kh4, Bh5; Black to play) and claims, "Black can draw if he keeps the rook in a position for rank and file checks, e.g. 1...Rb1." In fact, Muller and Lamprecht had correctly declared before Soltis' book was published, based on endgame tablebases, that from a normal position two bishops plus knight win by force. Plugging the specific position into one of the endgame tablebases shows that it is no exception to the general rule; the pieces win. I have corrected the text in endgame theory accordingly. Krakatoa (talk) 05:42, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Howard Staunton - Influence

The GA reviewer is demanding cuts in Howard_Staunton#Influence_on_chess. Since you wrote most of that section and are our resident expert on theory, can you please comment at my Talk page on the draft at User:Philcha/Sandbox#Influence_on_chess_-_for_Howard_Staunton. If you can see further ways to slim it down, please suggest them. -- Philcha (talk) 19:05, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! The painful part is losing the contrast between 19th cent and modern play in the Sicilian. I'll see if I can get away with a condensed version of Staunton's and Nunn's remarks - strictly at my own risk.

BTW have you seen The Openings at New York 1924? I found it while Googling for something to contrast with Staunton's remarks. -- Philcha (talk) 21:25, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I've updated User:Philcha/Sandbox#Influence_on_chess_-_for_Howard_Staunton with a summary of the Sicilian smuggled in.

What would you think of removing most of the quotes in the notes? This GA reviewer counts bytes as well as words.

While you're thinking about that I'll remove from the main article the notes' extensive quotes of docs in the S-M controversy, since The Staunton-Morphy controversy now bears that burden.

BTW many thanks for several juicy quotes that are already in the article. My own favourite (in a close contest) is Hartston's "... A deep strategist living in an era when shallow tactics were still the rule ...", which summed up the impression I'd formed when looking for some illustrative games. -- Philcha (talk) 21:52, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Howard Staunton - S-M controversy

User:Philcha/Sandbox#Staunton-Morphy_affair.2C_for_Howard_Staunton_-_v_2 contain my current thoughts on the S-M controversy. The first part (Last para of "... final stages of playing career ...") looks too long to me, never mind the GA reviewer. But on such a sensitive issue ill-advised cuts could tilt the balance either way or just cause confusion (in which the participants needed no modern help).

Since you and I have rather different views of the affair, if we can agree which points can be omitted without tilting the balance either way, the result will probably be as equitable as such a confused mess allows. If you can find the time to comment, pleased do so at my talk page. -- Philcha (talk) 22:26, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments at User:Philcha/Sandbox#Staunton-Morphy_affair.2C_for_Howard_Staunton_-_v_2 - considering how complex the issue is, I appreciate the promptness. -- Philcha (talk) 22:37, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

There's one point where I've asked you to provide citations for a sentence you suggested and I'm happy with.

We also need to look at the summary of the events of 1858 (sub-section Last para of "... final stages of playing career ..." at User:Philcha/Sandbox#Staunton-Morphy_affair.2C_for_Howard_Staunton_-_v_2. It's too long, but removing items could tilt the balance either way. -- Philcha (talk) 22:37, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments last night, and for the effort you're putting into a topic on which our views differ so much.

Some of the 20th-century quotes need a bit more context if their intent is be summarised accurately.

Don't kill yourself over the summary of events. I'm reconciled to the prospect that the summary may have to be omitted - as The Staunton-Morphy controversy is fairly well developed, link phrases like "complex, confusing and controversial sequence of events" will give readers sufficient notice. -- Philcha (talk) 09:12, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I like your attention to deniability :-)

Your Reinfeld quote at "A bit of fun" was a killer! -- Philcha (talk) 09:12, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

The deadline for the GA review is almost on top of us.

I've put up a new draft at User:Philcha/Sandbox#Staunton-Morphy_affair.2C_for_Howard_Staunton_-_v_3. I've severely pruned the account of the events of 1858, an option I mentioned earlier. Even I feel that the previous version was a bit too long. I also feel that a selective summary would be very POVish. OTOH I think the handful of sentences in this draft reflects the rather narrow range of generally agreed points - after that, accounts diverge sharply in their selection and presentation of the facts and "facts".

Given the tight timescale, I'll have to incorporate this draft into the main article if I get no comments from you or the reviewer in 24 hours. I'm sorry if this catches you at an inconvenient time or while you're unavailable. We can still make adjustments after the review is finished. -- Philcha (talk) 10:05, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

PS: my biggest regret about the latest draft is losing the Hartston quote that you provided, as it's an honourable exception to the pattern of national bias. However Hartston falls into the category of "popular" (Diggle) and "non-historian" (Winter) writers, so I think it would be hard to justify including his comment when we're trying to slim everything down. -- Philcha (talk) 10:21, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Take it easy, have a vacation, spend time with the family, whatever. It's a GA now, so we can sort things out at leisure. -- Philcha (talk) 17:47, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Cambrian explosion calling card

Do you have time to fit evolution-related articles between family, business and chess?

I too find the anti-scientific backlash in the USA rather worrying - and you know my nationality. Russia's turned thuggish agan, China's just putting on a nice show (or a show of "nice") for the Olympics. The USA's current edge is based on more efficient use of science & tech. If it loses that, the world may regress to the dark ages - apart from the post-nuclear glow.

That's why I'm not keen on arguments that appeal to "consensus". OK, WP:RS is not about popular opinion, but even the collective wisdom of scientists screws up at times - see for example Continental drift. Closer to home, openings research is largely a search for oversights in the current consensus. -- Philcha (talk) 05:57, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't know a lot about evolution, and don't have a 1,500-book library to aid my research, as I do with chess. I agree with you that the current situation is scary. Eight years of a brain-dead warmongering president have done terrible damage to the United States and the world. There is a very real chance that McCain will be elected (to my mind his only "qualification" is being whiter than Obama, who is a far superior candidate on every sensible criterion), which would mean a continuation of Bush's suicidal policies. Krakatoa (talk) 06:08, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know enough to comment on the US presidential scene. But I don't have a 1,500-book library on anything - unless you count Google plus Wikipedians who point me at things. -- Philcha (talk) 06:50, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Howard Staunton - Personality

This section also expanded a bit , and I've slimmed it down a bit at User:Philcha/Sandbox#Possible_.22Personality.22_for_Howard_Staunton. It would be great if you could look that over.

One big favour - could you provide a page number in the Oxford Companion for Ranken's "With great defects he had many virtues". I've wanted ever since the start to point out S's Jekyll-and-Hyde character, but could never find a ref. -- Philcha (talk) 22:08, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, did I not give a page number? The long quote I gave (including Ranken's appraisal) is from page 392 of the second edition (1992) of The Oxford Companion to Chess. Krakatoa (talk) 17:40, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Great, thanks! -- Philcha (talk) 18:01, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

On the lighter side, I suspect Sellar and Yeatman's 1066 and All That might have described Staunton as "a Bad Man but a Good Thing" - for samples (of 1066 ..., not Staunton) see wikiquotes -- Philcha (talk) 11:39, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

World Youth Chess Championship

Hi, User:Brittle heaven pointed out the excellent work you have done at the World Junior Chess Championship. He and myself have been working very hard on the World Youth Chess Championship, but there are a number of open issues (ie. missing winners and/or not knowning whether certain tournaments have taken place). The open issues have been collected here. Since you seem to have excellent sources, would you mind having a look at them? I would be especially interested in number 3 and number 7. I am sorry to bother you with this, but we are seriously stuck on those! Thank you so much for any information you can provide. Best regards, Voorlandt (talk) 10:01, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

In theory, I should have all issues of Chess Life and Review magazine (later Chess Life) from December 1973 to date. (In actuality, I don't know the whereabouts of some of them.) I also have all 100 volumes of Chess Informant except for 91 and 94. Between those two sources I should be able to answer most if not all of these queries. I will try answering a question or two a day (maybe more if I get on a roll). Unfortunately I don't have all the answers readily at hand from one source as I did in the case of World Junior Chess Championship. Krakatoa (talk) 19:03, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much for having a look at those! Best regards, Voorlandt (talk) 19:57, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Stalemate/desperado

The section on desperado starts with "many draws have been saved this way...", without saying what a desperado is. The section above it ("more complicated positions") does define desperado. I think the definition either needs to be in the desperado section or the desperado section should be a subsection under "more complex...". Bubba73 (talk), 03:42, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes. I was just about to eliminate the desperado section heading, which I have now done. If you think about it, virtually every example of reaching stalemate from a complicated position involves one or more desperado pieces, which sacrifice itself/themselves, usually with check, to leave the defender with only a stalemated king (and perhaps other pieces or pawns that have no moves). Krakatoa (talk) 03:51, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

First-move advantage in chess‎

Hi again, First off, thanks for your work on the World Youth Chess Championship, although what you found didn't answer any of the open questions, it is useful information that can go in the notes (once I find the time). Now on your wonderful article, the first-move advantage in chess. There are two things I have been wanting to ask/tell you:

I will keep working on World Youth Chess Championship when I get a chance. I just noticed this stack of Chess Lifes that I'd forgotten about; it may well have the one I need to answer that question I couldn't answer. Lately I've been working on stalemate, which Bubba73 wants to get to GA.

Thanks for the compliment on the article. It's funny how much I ended up being able to write on that subject. When I first looked at the article, it was a little stub by someone that Bubba73 had moved from the Draw (chess) article because it didn't really fit in there. The subject seemed pretty uninteresting to me at first, but I just kept finding more and more relevant material, and I eventually realized that it was actually a very important subject.

• There is an early reference on the first move advantage in the book "Guide to Double Chess" by J. T. Howard - 1885 (you can view part of this book in google books -depending on were you live). In any case, I reproduce it here:

In ordinary Chess the player who begins possesses the advantage, after each of his moves, of having made one more move than his opponent. And this advantage, skilfully used, gives him the privilege of the attack: whilst the player who had the second move is compelled to remain upon the defensive until the attack has been repelled. In short the attack belongs to the first player until he loses it by wasting a move. But in Double Chess neither player has any advantage at first starting: and the attack becomes for the first time the privilege of the player whose opponent first wastes a move absolutely or comparatively. Whichever therefore of the two gets his men out best and soonest will in time possess the attack. And as attack is easier as well as more advantageous than defence, no pains should be spared from the first to make every move tell.

Double chess as explained in the book is a two-player game played on a board similar to Four-handed chess. The first player makes a move, the second makes two moves, than the first one makes two moves, then the second one makes two moves, etc... So the player who has just moved is always a move ahead of his opponent. So the author claims that in this chess variant, there is no such thing as first move advantage. I will have to think about it :) Anyhow, one chess variant that has absolutely no first move advantage is Bughouse Chess, as the game is in fact a theoretical draw (if identical moves are played cross-diagonal, the game is a draw, however in practice draws are extremely rare!). Perhaps a line can be mentioned about chess variants not having a first move advantage.

I had never heard of double chess. That is a very interesting concept. It's similar to the idea I (and doubtless others) had for avoiding/minimizing the home-field advantage in two-team sports series like baseball's World Series: play game 1 on Team A's field; games 2 and 3 on Team B's field; gaves 4 and 5 on Team A's field; games 6 and 7 on Team B's field. I have played bughouse chess many times. I didn't know it was a theoretical draw - though if I wanted to say so in the article, I would need a more authoritative source than you for that proposition. :-) (I have Penn and Dizon's Comprehensive Bughouse Chess, but thumbing through it I don't see anything about this.) In any event, I am disinclined to put in a sentence saying that White has no advantage in chess variants. This must vary depending on the variant. For example, in Capablanca chess, the pieces are so much more powerful (especially the queen+knight monster) that I would think that White's advantage would be greater - maybe even decisive? (Coming soon to a bookstore to you: White to Play and Win at Capablanca Chess by Weaver Adams' ghost!)

• The second thing I have been wondering: The first move advantage gets larger as the players get stronger. How can this be reconciled with the fact that chess is probably a draw? It would be nice to have some theory about this. Say in increasing steps of average strength, the score % would be: 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 56 55 54 53 52 51 50. It is strange, but possible. I wonder how you felt about this.

I hadn't thought of that. It does seem a little paradoxical, although to me it makes sense if you think about it. Games between very weak players approach complete randomness, so White's first-move advantage is almost meaningless. (So too with a material advantage: in Chess handicap, I cited Larry Kaufman's observation that in games between weak players knight odds is only a small advantage, equivalent to 50 Elo rating points or so.) As the players become stronger, any small advantage, including that of the first move, becomes more significant. But once you get to players of infinite strength, who have perfect understanding of the game, they also have perfect defensive abilities and can hold the draw in any position that is a theoretical draw, even if just barely so. In any game between those players, the actual result of the game will be the same as the theoretical result of a perfect game. So if in fact chess is a draw with perfect play, every game between them will also be a draw. Krakatoa (talk) 15:29, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for going on about this, just had to get this of my chest. Happy editing! Voorlandt (talk) 14:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Half Barnstar for Howard Staunton

		The Half Barnstar
		For the great work Philcha (a British) and Krakatoa (an American) were able to produce together in order to reach a neutral point-of-view in the article Howard Staunton so that it reached GA-class, I award to each of them half of this barnstar. SyG (talk) 08:30, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Give me a call when you're free to start work on the other half :-) -- Philcha (talk) 21:13, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

You have got to be kidding. I hereby wash my hands of Howard Staunton. I also must reject this award. I appreciate the sentiment, SyG. However, I reject any claim that the Staunton-Morphy section of that article is NPOV, and refuse to accept any part of the blame for that piece of offal. I also reject any claim that the article is, in fact, a Good Article. Krakatoa (talk) 22:26, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh...Well, I was assuming the article had passed GA because you and Philcha had found some sort of agreement on the controversial points, but given your answer I now realise how mistaken I was. Sorry for the confusion, and thanks anyway for the efforts you put trying to improve the article towards NPOV, regardless of the final result. SyG (talk) 19:21, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I apologize if I came off sounding like a jerk toward you, as I very likely did. I do appreciate your compliments. But no, Philcha and I never reached any sort of consensus on Staunton-Morphy. Krakatoa (talk) 19:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the article is now reasonably balanced, so I am very belatedly accepting your gracious award. Sorry to have been such a Cheney. Krakatoa (talk) 17:26, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

My great pleasure ! I have answered on my Talk page. SyG (talk) 19:44, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

rule about checkmate possible for time forfeit

Do you know when that rule about you must have the possibility of checkmate if the opponent's time runs out to win on time? My guess is that it was in the 1992 FIDE changes, but I have nothing to back that up. Also, same for USCF's "insufficient losing chances" in the same situation. Bubba73 (talk), 06:05, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

This isn't very important, so don't spend a lot of time on it. Bubba73 (talk), 12:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

And can you please supply refs if feasible. -- Philcha (talk) 12:50, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

As best as I can determine, this rule was promulgated by FIDE at the 1984 FIDE Congress at Thessaloniki. Tim Redman (editor), U.S. Chess Federation's Official Rules of Chess, David McKay, 1987, ISBN 0-679-14154-5, p. 75 is the first page of the "International (FIDE) Laws of Chess". The footnote on that page says, "Amended Text by FIDE Rules Commission, FIDE Congress, Thessaloniki, 1984, used by permission of FIDE." Article 10.7 thereof, on page 86, states:

10.7 The game is drawn when one of the following endings arises, where the possibility of a win is evidently excluded for either side:

a. king against king,

b. king against king with bishop or knight,

c. king and bishop against king and bishop, with both bishops on diagonals of the same color.

This rule does not appear in the immediately preceding version of the book, which is Martin Morrison (editor), Official Rules of Chess (2nd edition 1978), David McKay, ISBN 0-679-14043-3. In the FIDE Section thereof, Article 12 on pp. 19-21 defines "THE DRAWN GAME". The four instances of drawn game are stalemate (12.1), agreement between the two players (12.2), three-time repetition (12.3), and fifty-move rule (12.4). Article 17.1 on p. 39 unequivocally provides, "A game is lost by a player--1. who has not played the prescribed number of moves in the given time". The other player's lack of mating material is not given as an exception.

The earliest edition of the USCF's Official Rules of Chess that recognized "insufficient losing chances" was the fourth, in 1993. Bill Goichberg, Carol Jarecki, and Ira Lee Riddle, U.S. Chess Federation's Official Rules of Chess (4th edition 1993), David McKay, ISBN 0-8129-2217-4, pp. 37-39. In the USCF section of that book, Rules 14D and 14E slightly modify the previously-stated rules to the advantage of the player whose flag has fallen. Specifically, Rule 14D4 on pp. 34-35 provides a fourth instance of insufficient mating material: "There are no legal moves that could lead to the player being checkmated by the opponent." Rule 14E on p. 35 is entitled "Insufficient material to win on time." Rule 14E3 on that page is "Opponent has only king and two knights, the player has no pawns, and opponent does not have a forced win." This is evidently the first instance in which the rules recognize a draw after a flag-fall even though it is possible to win the position on the board (albeit only with very stupid play by the defender). Rule 14H on pp. 37-39 is the rule you are looking for, entitled Claim of insufficient losing chances in sudden death. The whole thing is long, so I'm disinclined to type it out, but the first clause of Rule 14H1 on p. 38 gives you the gist of it: "In a sudden death time control, a player with less than five minutes of remaining time may stop the clock and ask the director to declare the game a draw on the grounds that the player has insufficient losing chances." Krakatoa (talk) 05:58, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

USCF's "insufficient losing chances" appears to apply only to sudden death time limits - no mention of "X moves in Y minutes" - see Rules. So you 1993 Official Rules have nailed down the USCF's change. Thanks! Philcha (talk) 07:54, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Right - in a non-sudden death time control, "insufficient losing chances" is irrelevant, even in something ridiculous like K+B v. K and opposite-colored bishop, since a helpmate is possible (e.g. Ka1, Bb1 vs. Ka3, Bb2). Krakatoa (talk) 08:53, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Re FIDE, the bit you quoted applies to dead-drawn endings irrespective of the clocks. But section 6.10 of Laws of Chess says, "Except where Articles 5.1 or one of the Articles 5.2 (a), (b) and (c) apply, if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by the player. However, the game is drawn, if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player`s king by any possible series of legal moves, even with the most unskilled counterplay." Time Management During a Chess Game, which my browser says was last updated 18 June 2003, implies that FIDE's "cannot checkmate" clause was added as part of a package to eliminate adjournment analysis after Kasparov used a computer in the adjournment of the 16th game in the 1990 Kasparov-Karpov match. That fits Bubba73's "guess is that it was in the 1992 FIDE changes". Can you or any fellow competitive players help nail it down, including a ref? -- Philcha (talk) 07:54, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Bubba73's surmise about the 1992 rule changes appears to be incorrect. (btw, my statement about the 1984 FIDE rule changes was inaccurate - those rule changes dealt with certain specific endings where mate was impossible rather than the global concept that mate being impossible = a draw. To illustrate the difference, in K+Q v. K+N, if the side with the queen flags, that is a loss under the 1984 FIDE rules even though the knight cannot possibly mate.) The 1993 4th edition I referred to does not change this principle. The 1993 4th edition, beginning on p. 299, gives "The Laws of Chess approved by FIDE General Assembly at Manila in 1992." Article 10.4 thereof (FIDE 1992) repeats the former Article 10.7 (FIDE 1984), but adds to clause (c) thereof, "This immediately ends the game." Official Rules of Chess (4th ed. 1993), p. 310. I am guessing that this sentence is supposed to apply to all three situations given in 10.4/former 10.7 (K v. K; K v. K and one minor piece; K+B v. K+same-colored B) even though its placement in clause c implies that it only applies to the last situation. FIDE really needs a competent lawyer to write its rules more clearly. I can think of someone . . . . :-)

Article 10.5, also on p. 310, states, "A player having a bare king cannot win the game. A draw shall be declared if the opponent of the player with a bare king oversteps the time limit (Article 10.13 and 10.14) or has sealed an illegal move (Article 10.16)." This weird rule seems to imply that notwithstanding Article 10.4 a player with K+minor piece v. K, or K+B v. K and same-colored bishop, can win by virtue of the opponent's time forfeit or illegal sealed move, even though 10.4 says that the presence of at least the last-named endgame, and maybe the other as well, "immediately ends the game". I don't see how 10.4 and 10.5 can reasonably be reconciled. Maybe the most reasonable interpretation is to treat 10.5 as redundant, but one normally presumes that the drafters of legislation had a clue (to use the vernacular), which they can't have had if 10.5 adds nothing to 10.4, the immediately preceding section.

But whatever the resolution of the above, the 1992 FIDE Rules do not say that a position where side A flags and it is impossible for side B to checkmate (e.g. the A has K+Q, B has K+N situation I posited), the game is a draw. So, to use Bubba73's language, the 1992 Rules do not say that "you must have the possibility of checkmate if the opponent's time runs out to win on time."

I don't have any editions of Official Rules of Chess or the like after 1993, so if the current rules require the possibility of checkmate in order to win on time, I don't know when that rule change occurred - but it wasn't 1992. Krakatoa (talk) 08:53, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks anyway. I agree with your edit comment "What a mess". I don't know why they couldn't have left the old "a loss on time is a loss on time" rule in place. The rationale about computer-assisted adjournment analysis rings hollow when you consider Korchnoi's allegation that every decent player in the USSR did adjournment analysis for Karpov - computers would have levelled the playing field a bit. -- Philcha (talk) 09:43, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all of that research and information. I only have the first, second, and fifth editions of the USCF rulebook. And, as you say it isn't in the second ed. Bubba73 (talk), 13:04, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, what a mess. But my feeling is that if you couldn't win the game without clocks you shouldn't be entitled to win it because of the clocks. Bubba73 (talk), 13:10, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Clocks were introduced in the 19th century because some players were glacially slow and opponents complained of being "outsat", not outplayed. -- Philcha (talk) 13:15, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, clocks keep a game from going on too long and that is good. But I think that there should be some rule that if your time runs out and you could not have lost the game otherwise, you don't lose. Bubba73 (talk), 14:42, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Krakatoa (talk) 03:59, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Chessmetrics & Em Lasker

BTW I checked Chessmetrics Player Profile: Emanuel Lasker. The 2 dips in his ranking correspond to "vacations" from competitive chess, e.g. from 1910-1913 he played no tournaments and only the one match, against Schlechter. In the mid-1800s, when events were infrequent, Chessmetrics' penalty for inactivity would hurt absolute ratings but possibly not rankings (Paul Morphy ranked number 1 in Nov 1861!). But in the early 1900s everyone else was playing flat out, so the inactivity penalty bit Lasker hard. Sonas says this is an intentional feature, to prevent players from protectig rankings by taking long breaks, which the Elo system allows. -- Philcha (talk) 09:54, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I know Chessmetrics has this feature, but if you're the best, you're the best . . . . Of course, these days there are way more players near the top, so maybe one would cease being the top player after a period of inactivity. Krakatoa (talk) 03:20, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

"if you're the best, you're the best" - e.g. that part-timer Steinitz :-) -- Philcha (talk) 10:53, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

True, in Lasker and Steinitz's day it was much more normal for top players not to play for long periods (Fischer also did that). Of course, unlike today, L and S didn't have tons of strong (and lucrative) tournaments to play in. Krakatoa (talk) 05:03, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be truer to say that the late 19th century was a transition period. Joseph Henry Blackburne was a full-time pro who averaged about a tournament a year; one would have to analyse his finances (if records survive) to see whether tournaments were profitable for him or whether they were the "advertising" that kept his exhibitions business profitable. Adolf Anderssen was a prolific tournament player in the final stages of his career. Some thought Wilhelm Steinitz forfeited his claim to the title "world champion" when he took a "vacation" in the mid-1870s. It looks to me like Steinitz and Lasker were below average in tournament participation because of their other interests (chess theory and maths + philosophy respectively). Steinitz actually dropped right out of Chessmetric's rankings aug 1877 to May 1882 ([8]).-- Philcha (talk) 09:54, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

BCE cover

Do your hardback copies of Basic Chess Endings have a dust jacket (mine doesn't). If so, does it look like the cover of the 1971 paperback pictured in the article? Bubba73 (talk), 18:42, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

No, they don't. Two hardcover copies, zero dust jackets. From what I've seen (in my library and on eBay), I don't think BCE ever had a dust jacket. I've seen pictures of the signed first edition (limited to 500 numbered copies, all signed by Fine) and I don't recall even them having dust jackets. Krakatoa (talk) 03:37, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe not then. I got a new copy of Fine's Practical Chess Openings in 1967, and I don't think it had a dust jacket. Bubba73 (talk), 03:44, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Looking it up on used book sites, they say "no dust jacket issued". Bubba73 (talk), 03:48, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Marcello Truzzi

Do you know if the Marcello Truzzi you refer to in touch-move rule is this Marcello Truzzi? Bubba73 (talk), 00:04, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The book cover says that Truzzi was at that time "Head of the Department of Sociology at Eastern Michigan University." That corresponds with the bio of the Wikipedia articled-Truzzi, so yes, it is almost certainly the same guy. (Of course, there are or were two John Whites who are/were professors at the University of Michigan Law School, so anything is possible. But "Marcello Truzzi" is probably around two orders of magnitude less common a name, so I think it's safe to assume that it's the same person.) Thanks for the tip. Krakatoa (talk) 01:42, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that has to be the same person. Bubba73 (talk), 01:49, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Query about US law

I'm currently GA-reviewing Bouncer_(doorman) (it had been queuing for a long time, poetic justice?). Bouncer_(doorman)#United_States says, "Requirements for bouncers vary from state to state, with some examples being:" Is this one of the powers reserved to the states under the Constitution? Can you provide a ref? --Philcha (talk) 11:13, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

it had been queuing for a long time, poetic justice?). LOL!

What, you don't know about the Bouncer Clause of the United States Constitution? Don't they teach you Brits anything in school? :-) OK, there is no such thing. If the federal government were to enact requirements for bouncers, it would do so through its legislative branch, the United States Congress. Article I, section 8 of the United States Constitution enumerates Congress' powers. As explained under Enumerated powers:

"The enumerated powers are a list of specific responsibilities found in Article 1 Section 8 of the United States Constitution, which iterates the authority granted to the United States Congress. Congress may exercise only those powers that are granted to it by the Constitution, limited by the Bill of Rights and the other protections found in the Constitutional text.

"The classical statement of a government of enumerated powers is that by Chief Justice Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland:

This government is acknowledged by all, to be one of enumerated powers. The principle, that it can exercise only the powers granted to it, would seem too apparent, to have required to be enforced by all those arguments, which its enlightened friends, while it was depending before the people, found it necessary to urge; that principle is now universally admitted.

So let's look at Article I, section 8. It provides:[9]

"Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

"To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

"To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

"To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

"To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

"To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

"To establish post offices and post roads;

"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

"To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

"To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

"To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

"To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

"To provide and maintain a navy;

"To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

"To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

"To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

"To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And

"To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."

You'll notice that there's nothing in there about bouncers. If there's no other conceivable constitutional basis for Congress to act, the last resort basically is the Commerce Clause, specifically the Interstate Commerce Clause thereof, which gives Congress the power, "To regulate commerce ... among the several states ..." (See text quoted above.) There has been a long series of cases interpreting Congress' powers under that clause. The U.S. Supreme Court interpreted those powers very broadly in Wickard v. Filburn (1942), generally thought of as the high-water mark of Commerce Clause jurisprudence, when it interpreted it as allowing Congress to regulate a farmer's production of wheat consumed on his own farm (i.e., that was never sold, remained on one farm in one state, and thus never reached interstate commerce). In cases such as Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964) the Court upheld federal civil rights statutes as proper exercises of Congress' power under the Commerce Clause. More recently, however, in a series of controversial decisions (often decided 5-4) beginning with United States v. Lopez (1995) (holding that Congress lacked power to enact national legislation to forbid carrying of handguns in the vicinity of schools), the Supreme Court has often struck down legislation as exceeding Congress' powers under the Commerce Clause. See also United States v. Morrison (2000) (invalidating in part the Violence Against Women Act as exceeding Congress' powers under the Commerce Clause).

So if Congress were to enact requirements for bouncers ("the Bouncer Regulatory Act of 2009"), someone affected by that (say, a particular bar charged with having failed to comply with those requirements) could challenge the BRA as exceeding Congress' powers, pointing out that Article I, section 8 says nothing about bouncers. The government would presumably defend the BRA by arguing that Congress has the power, under the Interstate Commerce Clause, to set requirements for bouncers. It might argue, for example, by analogy with Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, that such-and-such percentage of the defendant bar's patrons are from out of state, and thus interstate commerce is affected. The Supreme Court might well disagree and strike down the BRA as exceeding Congress' powers under the Commerce Clause.

In sum, the United States Constitution does not, in terms, give the United States Congress the power to regulate bouncers. That is not one of the enumerated powers set forth in Article I, section 8 of the Constitution. Were Congress to pass legislation regulating bouncers, it would (if challenged) presumably have to defend its legislation as an exercise of its powers under the Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court (or lower courts, if the case didn't get that far) might well disagree, given cases like United States v. Lopez (1995) and United States v. Morrison (2000) that have taken a narrow view of Congress' powers under the Commerce Clause. And perhaps I should have mentioned that the Tenth Amendment may have some relevance. It provides, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Since the Constitution says nothing about Congress' power to regulate bouncers, and it's a stretch to argue that the Commerce Clause gives it that power, something like regulation of bouncers would generally be thought of as a matter "reserved to the States".

I hope that helps. Krakatoa (talk) 16:47, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I thought the Bouncer Clause referred to something else, although I may have misread Jacobson, N. (2000). Cleavage. Rutgers University Press. p. 62. ISBN 0813527155. Retrieved 2008-11-12., which is cited at Sponge.

The interesting thing is that there's no mention of law-and-order. So each state has its won crimial code? --Philcha (talk) 17:23, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Sure, each of the 50 states has its own criminal code (most crimes, including murder, are violations of state law, not federal law), and its own civil code. A state's criminal code wouldn't necessary address something like bouncer regulations, which would more likely be administered by a state agency or agencies that could, for example, fine or shut down a bar if it violated the state's regulations. Krakatoa (talk) 17:38, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks. --Philcha (talk) 17:42, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I thought the Bouncer Clause referred to something else, although I may have misread Jacobson, N. (2000). Cleavage. Rutgers University Press. p. 62. ISBN 0813527155. Retrieved 2008-11-12.

Apparently my references to bouncers and the hypothetical BRA got your (warped) mind working in other directions. :-) Krakatoa (talk) 19:11, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Author/date ref format

When using the author/date citation system, it is best to separate the authors by pipes (|). That way clicking on the inline citation will take you to the reference. For instance {{Harv|Fox and James|1993|p=177}} should be {{Harv|Fox|James|1993|p=177}}, and the system will show it as "Fox and James" in the inline citation. Bubba73 (talk), 19:36, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah, OK, thanks for that clarification. Good timing, since I was just about to cite those two again in the Stalemate article. (I forget what format the references there are in.) Krakatoa (talk) 19:53, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Done

OK, the revision with the e-mail is deleted. Incidentally, I am interested in finding out who the portrait was drawn by. I think that if the drawer died before 1908, then (or perhaps 1938?), then the image would be public domain ({{PD-old}}, {{PD-old-70}}). And then there is the {{PD-US-1923-abroad}} template. Copyright/public domain issues are a can of worms, which I'll pass on to you. :-) Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:20, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks, Sjakkalle. I don't have the 1888 issue of Columbia Chess Chronicle that this image appears in, so I don't know who drew it. I'll make inquiry and see if I can find that out. I knew that if the artist died 100+ years ago, that was significant for these purposes. Unfortunately for us, if some unknown person drew a sketch in 1888, we can't be certain that he/she was dead by 1908, or even 1938. I'm well aware that copyright/public domain issues are a can of worms. A photograph of a dead person (not uploaded by me in either case, but that is mainly because until recently I've tried to avoid headaches by leaving the uploading and documenting to others) has been yanked from each of my articles First-move advantage in chess and Swindle (chess) because of this stuff. Thanks again. Krakatoa (talk) 16:22, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I am told that the magazine doesn't say who the author of the sketch was. Another editor put the {{PD-US-1923-abroad}} template on the image summary. Krakatoa (talk) 02:05, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

word change

In touch-move rule, in the Fischer-Donner game, you changed "since no other bishop move was better" to "playable". I think this might confuse some people, thinking that "playable" means that is the only bishop move he could make. Bubba73 (talk), 23:27, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, "playable" should probably be in glossary of chess, and then it could be linked. Bubba73 (talk), 23:29, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it should say "since other bishop moves were worse.." or "much worse". Many people reading these basic rules articles are not familiar with the jargon. Bubba73 (talk), 23:43, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

True. I tend to assume a level of knowledge of chess terminology that some readers may not have. I've changed it as you suggested. Krakatoa (talk) 01:39, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

DYK for Charles Ranken

On 5 December, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Charles Ranken, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

BorgQueen (talk) 15:21, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

DYK for William Wayte

On 11 December, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article William Wayte, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

BorgQueen (talk) 11:42, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Gossip

Only the chess player! I'd have put the game links in the diagram captions. --Philcha (talk) 11:05, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I never thought of doing it that way. I'll try that. Thanks! Krakatoa (talk) 17:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't seem to work - I tried it and the diagram captions disappeared?! See [10] Am I doing something wrong? Krakatoa (talk) 17:54, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

EDO chess ratings

Hi Krakatoa, In case you missed it on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess: There is a great website with alternative historical chess ratings: [11]. It is pretty complete in its coverage. Hosmer is given a historical rating (and ranking) too (unlike chessmetrics). His rating peaks just above 2500. Also, on a related topic there might be some extra info on Grundy in the book of the 5th am chess congress, which is downloadable from google books [12]. (just in case you decide to work a bit more on it). Best regards, Voorlandt (talk) 10:23, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll check it out. Krakatoa (talk) 12:41, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Emanuel Lasker

Hi,Krakatoa. Does any of your books say exactly when Em. Lasker and his wife left Germany in 1933, and exactly when their property was confiscated. Is' come up at Talk:Emanuel Lasker/GA1. --Philcha (talk) 22:01, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi. No, I'm afraid I've got nothing that answers your question. This is it:

"It may well be that, but for the stormy events of 1933, Lasker would have lived out his life contentedly in the quiet retirement of his country home. But it was not to be, and for the Laskers, no less than for so many Germany Jews and other anti-Nazis, the advent of the Hitler régime meant the loss of their property and citizenship, it meant being uprooted from their home and forced into exile." Dr. J. Hannak, Emanuel Lasker: The Life of a Chess Master, Simon and Schuster, 1959, p. 268.

"As a result of the persecution of Jews he and his wife were driven out of Germany in 1933 and their property confiscated." David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess (2nd ed. 1992), p. 218.

"In 1933 he and his wife left Germany. Their property confiscated, he had to begin all over again." Anne Sunnucks, The Encyclopaedia of Chess, St. Martin's Press, 1970, p. 275.

Other books are even less enlightening, including Soltis' Why Lasker Matters; Whyld's trilogy on Lasker's games published by The Chess Player; Fine and Reinfeld's Lasker's Greatest Chess Games 1889-1914 (no follow-up volume was published); Egon Varnusz, Emanuel Lasker, Volume 1 (I don't know if there was a Volume 2); and Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess. Sorry I can't be more helpful. Krakatoa (talk) 00:55, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Gossip

Hi Krakatoa, congratulations for your excellent work on George Gossip. As the author of the (modest) German article about him, I would like to ask whether you could upload the images on Wikimedia Commons. This would make it easier to use them in sister projects. Thanks and all the best for 2009, Stefan64 (talk) 19:26, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Stefan64, glad you like the article. As per your request, I copied the four images in the article (two pictures of Gossip, and two of his books) and uploaded them all on Wikimedia Commons. Have fun with them. By the way, the (English) Gossip article is a Featured Article candidate, so feel free to drop by and express your opinion if you so desire. Thanks! Krakatoa (talk) 08:23, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

knight/horse

An anon user made a change at Knight (chess) about some players calling a knight a horse. He says that he is a master and even masters use either term. Is that true? Bubba73 (talk), 05:04, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Bubba73, you'll always be a fish until you start calling a knight a horse. :-) I have heard people, including the late FIDE Master Eugene Martinovsky, call a knight a horse facetiously, but I'm not aware of any player above beginner level who would seriously call it a horse. And as you know at least as well as I, we're supposed to cite reliable sources, and I would be greatly surprised to find any reliable source (The Oxford Companion to Chess, Sunnucks, Golombek, assorted instructional books, etc.) that calls the knight a horse. Krakatoa (talk) 05:54, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I haven't heard anyone other than beginners seriously call it a horse either, but yesterday someone saying that they were a master made a change to knight (chess). Since then the sentence has been changed again. Bubba73 (talk), 15:19, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Other handicaps

I noticed you removed the paragraph about some other chess handicaps. When I was in college I actually played with a guy using him to take back moves. There was no formal limit on them, though. It is really hard to win with almost unlimited take backs. But you are right to remove it, unless there is a reliable source. Bubba73 (talk), 17:03, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I would like to keep it, and presumably the writer got it from somewhere, but yeah, without a reliable source (for 6 months since I flagged it) it doesn't belong in there. And with everything else in the article thoroughly sourced, that material stuck out like a sore thumb. Chess handicap is a good article; I'm thinking of maybe nominating it for GA sometime. I just ordered a book by George H.D. Gossip and Francis Joseph Lee that has a section on odds. Maybe it will have some more stuff I can use. Someone else was selling an 1891 (IIRC) treatise on pawn and move play on eBay, but the price got too high for me. People never think about it today, but a century or so ago there was a whole body of theory on how to play at different kinds of odds, especially pawn and move. Krakatoa (talk) 17:59, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Chessmetrics and "ratings list" language

I love your work on all chess articles, but I have a nit to pick with some language describing chessmetrics numbers and ratings. In Mir Sultan Khan: "His highest rank was number six in the world, albeit with a slightly lower rating, on the May 1933 rating list ...". I don't think we can really refer to chessmetrics results as "rating lists", which I think is bad in two ways. First it gives them a kind of official import that they don't have, and second a rating list is an unchanging thing that would only be altered later if a computational error were found. I believe Sonas has already changed his method of computing chessmetrics more than once. I think that any talk of "rating lists" should be avoided for anything but official FIDE or USCF lists and for Arpad Elo's computations which were published in book form and cannot be revised since he is dead. How about simply "His highest rank was number six in the world, albeit with a slightly lower rating, on the May 1933 rating list in May 1933, behind only Alekhine, Kashdan, Flohr, Capablanca, and Euwe, and ahead of such giants as Aron Nimzowitsch and Akiba Rubinstein." I know it may seem picky and I think chessmetrics is the best resource we have for this sort of information, but it should be handled very carefully. I think you have aslo edited some other bios to refer to chessmetrics results as "ratings lists". Thanks again. Your work on chess articles is the best (written, researched, and referenced). 165.189.101.177 (talk) 23:08, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliments. Chessmetrics calls them "rating lists", so IMO it's not that big a deal. However, since you feel so strongly about it and I don't particularly care either way, I have changed it as you suggested. I do appreciate that Chessmetrics' numbers shouldn't be elevated to the status of inviolable truth (nor should Elo's or anyone else's, for that matter). I have previously on Talk pages expressed skepticism about some of Chessmetrics' numbers - specifically its stunning claim that Lasker was only number 12 in the world immediately before his immortal victory at St. Petersburg 1914 - behind such players as Teichmann, Spielmann, Tartakower, and Duras. Krakatoa (talk) 07:09, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

That makes sense. If chessmetrics calls them ratings lists, then maybe we should too. It does give them an air of permanence that they don't have. As far as I know, the lists are only published on his website, and if any of the "lists" were to change tomorrow we'd have absolutely no way to know. Chessmetrics is the best we have, but it has a lot of problems. There's no obvious reason why a rating should decline due to inactivity, but Sonas programs in a penalty. Inactivity certainly adversely affects some players, but not all, as Lasker proved. It seems plausible that inactivity may be a more serious problem in modern chess as theoretical knowledge has become more important and the rate at which theory changes has increased, but using a time-dependent inactivity penalty factor seems even worse than what Sonas does. This is especially unfair to masters of the 19th century when there were far fewer opportunities to play tournaments and serious matches. The other problem is comparing chessmetrics ratings to Elo or FIDE ratings. I haven't looked at Sonas description of his methods in detail, but I seem to recall that he normalized his ratings to coincide with Kasparov's peak FIDE rating. That makes chessmetrics ratings directly comparable FIDE ratings for one player at one moment, but less so for any other player and far less so for any other time. The comparison grows weaker and weaker the farther removed from the 1990s the player rating is to become essentially meaningless (in my view) when you get to say the 1930s or earlier. The value I see in chessmetrics is not the number (which is completely arbitrary and could be scaled in any way), but the rank which is immune to scaling effects. Saying that a player was number 7 in the world is much more important than an essentially meaningless chessmetrics rating number. The numbers seem to say more than they really do, and it is unreasonable to expect that everyone who reads these articles is going to understand this. I encourage less emphasis on the chessmetrics ratings, and more emphasis on the chessmetrics ranks. 165.189.101.177 (talk) 15:14, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I had never thought of it that way, but that makes a lot of sense. It is very confusing when we give both Arpad Elo's and Chessmetrics' numbers for a player, and they're a couple of hundred points apart - as they normally are. On the other hand, rank can be a little misleading, too - Chessmetrics says that George H. D. Gossip was number 17 in the world early in his career. Today, with far more players in the world and far more tournaments, number 17 in the world would be a super-grandmaster, which Gossip emphatically was not. Krakatoa (talk) 17:16, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for butting in, Krakatoa's Talk page sticks on my Watchlist because we talk fairly regularly. A couple of academics, Moul & Nye, chose Chessmetrics as a "what if" analysis tool for their article "Did the Soviets collude?" (ref at Chessmetrics), because their preliminary investigation showed it was the best predictor based on players' previous records. If you look at Chessmetric's "Formulas" page you'll see that Sonas developed the algorithm by testing its predictive ability. The real problem is that there's no ideal system for time-series data - if you want responsiveness to recent events, the price is volatility. 165.189.101.177 is right that the volatility is exaggerated for the 19th century and early 20th century, because tournaments were less frequent.

Re Emanuel Lasker's drop in the rankings, he played only one very minor event between coming 2nd at Cambridge Springs 1904 and thrashing Marshall in 1907 (see also the "Career details" option at Chessmetrics Player Profile: Emanuel Lasker). He had another big lay-off between annihilating Janowsky in 1910 and winning the 1914 St. Petersburg tournament.

Re Gossip, ranked 17 in the early 1870s and much lower at the time of his best performance (New York 1889), I suspect that's a sign of how much stronger the competition became in the intervening 15 years. In Chessmetrics' Monthly List: December 1873 rating list only Steinitz scores over 2700 and only 9 (incl Steinitz) score over 2600. In the Monthly List: December 1889 rating list, there are 4 over 2700 and 17 (including the top 4) over 2600. As Krakatoa says, Gossip was no super-GM, and could not stay ahead of the deepening competition.

Gossip also illustrates one of Chessmetrics' strengths - I'm not sure that any other system provides reasonably objective assessments of mid-range 19th century masters like him. --Philcha (talk) 18:20, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

It occurs to me that there are other ways in which giving Chessmetrics' ratings is relevant. First, they correspond much better to what ratings are today (when having, say, a 2600 rating places you about a rating class - 200 points - below the top players) than Arpad Elo's "historical ratings" do. Second, and relatedly, they give a better sense of whether the player would be a GM or IM if he/she were playing today. If you look at Elo's 2530 rating for Mir Sultan Khan you get the impression that he'd be a weak GM today. Chessmetrics' much higher numbers (around 2700) give the correct impression - that he would be close to world-class strength today. Incidentally, I became ill when I realized that FIDE never even gave the guy an International Master title. I somehow had been under the misimpression that they had made him an IM on their initial 1950 list. Krakatoa (talk) 18:34, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about the long delay in my reply. Philcha, I'm always interested in what you have to say about chess topics (and also Bubba73, Voorlandt, Peter Ballard, and Sjakkalle). I've seen you mention that study as support before for the validity of chessmetrics ratings. I think it's a good point and probably the best we have, but I don't find it quite as compelling as you seem to. As far as I know it's only a single article, and I don't know that anyone has given its conclusions any kind of critical examination. If other independent researches have checked their results and concur that would be stronger evidence. (Maybe they have. I don't know, but this doesn't seem to be an active area of research.) I think there are estimates that 5 to 25% of all scientific articles have serious errors, and while unchecked academic work is better than no academic work at all, I'd rather see their results confirmed by others. Also it's not clear to me that their purpose (determining whether Soviet players colluded during a single era) directly pertains to our purpose: comparing the strength of chess players of entirely different eras. Being an accurate predictor of results between players of a single generation to me does not guarantee anything about the suitability of using the numbers to compare players separated by more than 100 years. Finally, your description of Lasker's chessmetrics numbers pinpoints one of the very problems I mentioned although you don't seem to see it: chessmetrics ratings penalize Lasker for inactivity, but his results clearly indicate that that was wrong as he had not declined in strength. It may be that this inactivity penalty makes the chessmetrics numbers more accurate overall, but Lasker is at least one counterexample. Finally, to address Krakatoa, you zero in on the crux of the matter: Elo's numbers for historical greats "seem" too low. I agree. At least part of this problem is perception. The number "2700" as a chess rating has no inherent meaning, it's only our idea or feel for how strong a 2700 rated player is or should be that matters. Both Elo and chessmetrics ratings predict outcomes based on the difference in ratings rather than their absolute values. This brings us back to the scaling issue I mentioned as you could add 100 to all Elo ratings and it would not change their predictions, and you could subtract 100 from all chessmetrics ratings in the same way. It's true that a 2530 rating seems to understate Mir Sultan Khan's chess strength, but if you look at the inaugural FIDE rating list in 1970 it doesn't look quite so out of line, especially considering the (controversial) possibility of ratings inflation. It's inherently difficult to compare players numerically across generations, and as you know Elo writes about this in his book. To evaluate an Elo rating of 2530 for Mir Sultan Khan I would have to compare the ratings of his contemporaries, not modern players.

The real problem is that people are too hung up on the numbers. A 2600 player today is not the same as a 2600 player in 1970, so why do we expect the numbers to work for 1930 or 1870? 165.189.101.177 (talk) 22:14, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

You're right; they can't. Looking at some of Elo's other numbers in his 1978 book, Andor Lilienthal and Isaac Kashdan, who were world-class players at their peaks, both have "best 5-year averages" of 2570. Given those numbers, Sultan Khan's 2530 is plausible. He was very strong, but not quite at the level of the very best. He usually lost to the likes of Alekhine, and occasionally got upset by a lesser light. Krakatoa (talk) 02:13, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

165.189.101.177, by comparison with science topics you're right about the shortage of reviews of Chessmetrics or any other statistical chess ranking system. The only other statistical ranking systems I'm aware of are in tennis, and I've never heard of any academics commenting on that - and if someone provided a citation, I'd insert it into some tennis articles.

I also agree that one should not place to much weight on the absolute numbers - both Elo and Sonas commented on the difficulty of inter-generation comparisons, and Warriors of the Mind was criticised for using absolute numbers as a basis for inter-generation rankings. However Warriors of the Mind is well-known to chess enthusiasts because it's quite common in public libraries, and we'd be doing readers a disservice if we left the impresion that it's the only game in town. I've seen no explicit comparisons of Warriors of the Mind with Chessmetrics and Elo's historical rankings - have you, Krakatoa? - but hopefully showing how the 3 systems' results differ and how Chessmetrics' rankings vary depending on the lengths of peak periods compared will alert readers that this is a minefield. --Philcha (talk) 09:16, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

No, I haven't seen anything like that, either. I have never read Warriors of the Mind; I think I may have briefly laid eyes on it once. So I have no familiarity with the book itself, just with seeing people such as Winter criticize it. Krakatoa (talk) 16:05, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Here's a copy of the Warriors of the Mind rankings. I don't see the logic in placing Steinitz 47th below a bunch of Soviet GMs who never made the Candidates' and seldom played outside the USSR - OK, these GMs were from the period when the Soviet number 10 was stronger than almost anyone outside USSR apart from Fischer and perhaps Larsen, but the gap between #1 and #10 is usually huge in most sports. And placing Blackburne ahead of Zukertort?? --Philcha (talk) 16:55, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

(Unident) I agree. Sokolov (I think that's A. rather than I. Sokolov?) 28 places above Steinitz? Rubinstein ranked No. 44, just below Hort? A very weird list. Krakatoa (talk) 17:05, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

An interesting piece of Gossip

Hmmm, makes someone we discussed last year seem almost likeable. What a pity G. had to live in the period of Jewish chess hegemony. --Philcha (talk) 07:48, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes to all of that. My guess is that Gossip used the "Ivan Trepoff" pseudonym so that if someone like Steinitz (who had published Gossip in his International Chess Magazine, and whom Gossip had said was (with Morphy) one of the two greatest players ever) happened upon the book in a bookstore he wouldn't realize that Gossip had written this piece of anti-Semitic crap. Krakatoa (talk) 09:32, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Diplomacy from Gossip? Hold the front page :-) --Philcha (talk) 09:38, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, what was I thinking?! On further reflection, I think Gossip must have figured that becoming known as a rabid anti-Semite and anti-Catholic (he says in the book, IIRC, that "There is little to choose between the Jew and the Jesuit.") would discourage some people from buying his chess books. Hence the pseudonym. Krakatoa (talk) 15:40, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

The protagonist of the book was apparently a real person (and alleged swindler, and I don't mean in the chess sense), Charles Joachim Lefevre. Krakatoa (talk) 16:58, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Not compliant with WP:BLP then? --Philcha (talk) 17:31, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Say what? He was apparently an alleged swindler circa 1875, so I think it's safe to assume he's dead by now. Krakatoa (talk) 20:18, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I was referring to Gossip's book - when was it published? --Philcha (talk) 20:52, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you mean. Gossip's book was published in 1898 by Hausauer and 1899 by Neely. There's no doubt that what Gossip said about Lefevre was defamatory (he pretty much makes Lefevre out to be the spawn of Satan), so if Lefevre was still alive, he could surely have brought a defamation action. I would guess that Gossip wouldn't have been able to get two publishers to print his book unless (a) Lefevre was dead or (b) he had been convicted of really bad stuff - although if he had, that would tend to contradict Trepoff/Gossip's thesis that rich Jews can get away with anything. Krakatoa (talk) 22:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, having now read the book to the end, I learn that Lefevre died in June 1897. I'm sure it was no accident that Gossip's book first came out the following year - dead men can't sue for defamation, nor can their estates. Krakatoa (talk) 06:42, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Harkness book

Do you have The Official Blue Book and Encyclopedia of Chess by Kenneth Harkness? Assuming so, I think it has material about how to run a tournament, tie-breaks, rating systems, and running a club. Does it contain a general encyclopedia too? Bubba73 (talk), 06:08, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I have two Harkness books, neither with that exact title. Mine are the Official Chess Rulebook (1970, second printing 1972), a small book that has little besides rules, and the Official Chess Handbook (1956, second printing 1971). The latter has the material you described, plus chapters on rating chessplayers, and world and national champions. It has no encyclopedia or glossary. I haven't seen the book you describe. Krakatoa (talk) 13:40, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I have both of those, there is also a Blue Book. Thanks. Bubba73 (talk), 18:38, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Zugzwang

Hello, I just read your fantastic article - really very good! --Yoavd (talk) 06:29, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! But truth be told, Bubba73 has done far more work on that article than I have - see http://wikidashboard.parc.com/wiki/Zugzwang Krakatoa (talk) 06:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Le Palamède

Hi! Yes the dates are a bit puzzling, but you are right. Le Palamede had an edition 15 December 1841. The second number of the second series is 15 Janauary 1842. The cover, was actually a cover of the whole year. Although printed monthly (at least the second series), the page numbers from one month to another followed each other, and could be assembled into a yearbook. So the 1842 yearbook consisted of 13 numbers, which is explained somewhere in the 15 December 1841 number. The 1842 yearbook (and several others) are available for free from google books [13]. Best Regards, Voorlandt (talk) 10:16, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Flag of Country of Birth

Hi! I have just changed term "Native Country" into "Country of Birth" in crosstables of early chess tournaments, held in the period from 1867 to 1914). You have written: FIDE lists the ratings of every single player under the name of a country. Would you be so kind to tell me, for example, what country Szymon Winawer represents? --Best regards, Mibelz (talk) 17:31, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi. Poland. The Oxford Companion to Chess (2nd ed. 1992), p. 448, calls him a "Polish player". Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess, p. 343, calls him, "A Polish master, born in Warsaw." Arpad Elo's book The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present, p. 196, gives his "Country of Birth/Residence" as "Poland" (i.e., he both was born and resided in Poland, unlike, say, Johannes Zukertort, who is listed as "Poland/England"). Krakatoa (talk) 18:04, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Of course, Winawer or Zukertort were Polish chess masters, as well as Frédéric Chopin was a great Polish composer, although their birthplaces belonged to Russian Empire in the 19th century. My rethoric question is connected with our discussion on "Native Country" into crosstables. I have found, for example, that a Russian user User:Conscious had tried to present Bernstein (UKR), Nimzowitsch (LAT) and Rubinstein (POL) as Russians in St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament because of a purported anachronism in the text.

I started 33 of 40 strongest individual chess tournaments' articles in the Wikipedia (twenty pages for the period from 1862 to 1914), so I am interested in their form and correct information. It is not cumbersome and most of the time, overkill, for me. -- Best wishes to America, Mibelz (talk) 17:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

We really need articles on strong tournaments, so it is great that you are doing this. Even pretty well-informed chessplayers (like me!) don't know enough about the great tournaments of the past, such as Vienna 1882. Much more recently, the Linares tournaments are phenomenally strong tournaments that all deserve articles. I am not a huge Karpov fan, but his victory at Linares 1994 was probably the best tournament result ever. Best wishes to you. Krakatoa (talk) 20:38, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinion. By the way, I have just written a new reply at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess#Listing Native Countries in tournaments. --Mibelz (talk) 17:13, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		For numerous quality contributions to chess topics. SunCreator (talk) 16:03, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you so much! I'm honored. Krakatoa (talk) 16:10, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

ECE

Do you have ECE volume 4 (queen endings)? If so, how many diagrammed positions does it have? Bubba73 (talk), 20:12, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

And do you have This Crazy World of Chess, by Larry Evans? If so, is this photo File:ReshevskyChild.jpg on page 209? Bubba73 (talk), 21:58, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Taking the latter item first, yes and yes. It's the same photo. As for ECE, sorry, I seem to have only the volumes on rook and knight endings. Krakatoa (talk) 22:45, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Bubba73 (talk), 00:00, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Endgame study by Mitrofanov

Hello Krakatoa, thank you for having put that wonderful study of Mitrofanov on his page, it is really a great masterpiece and I enjoyed playing it through, also your comments are quite good and to-the-point. I will propose it for solution to a friend of mine who is very good at solving studies, though I doubt he will succeed this time! I agree it can be called "study of the millenium", though there are others that can compete. Personally I admire very much Kubbel's studies for their aesthetic qualities. Also Alois Wotawa is a composer of the highest rank. I put one of his best studies on the page [14], perhaps you may want to try and solve it. I think I will make the Mitrofanov page on it.wikipedia. Best regards, --Gabodon (talk) 14:41, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Glad you liked the study and my article. Incidentally, my user page has a study that I composed that you might want to try. The Wotowa composition seems too easy; I think I must be overlooking Black's best line. I'll have to look at it with a board to see what I'm missing. After 1.f4! (a) 1...Kxf4 2.e6+ and White queens and wins easily; (b) 1...Ke6? 2.Kg6 and 3.f5#; (c) 1...a3 2.e6! and now (i) 2...a2 3.exd7 a1(Q) 4.d8(Q) Qg1+ 5.Kf8 wins easily or (ii) 2...dxe6 3.Be5 wins or (iii) 2...Kxe6 3.Be5 d6 4.Bxd4 wins. Krakatoa (talk) 16:21, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm - having looked at it with a board, it (predictably) seems a lot harder than I'd thought. Specifically, 1.f4 a3! 2.e6 fex6 (not 2...Kxe6?? 3.Kg6, which still mates) 3.Be5 a2! 4.Bxd4 Kxf4 followed by 5...e5 if necessary, and White will have a hard time keeping his pawns. I'll have to look at it some more. Krakatoa (talk) 15:38, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, I gave up and looked at the solution. Very nice! Krakatoa (talk) 15:43, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Article deletion

You might want to discuss the following chess set articles here:

Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2009 February 26

Green Squares (talk) 12:31, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Staunton (again!)

Hi, Krakatoa, I see you've been quietly improving Howard Staunton, most recently with Sergeant's (!) assessment of him as de facto world champion in 1843. I suggest it's time to accept the Half Barnstar SyG awarded you in mid-2008. Drop me a line if you ever get the urge to thrash out a consensus on the S-M (:D) affair - I think it all started as a misunderstanding (check out the link :D). Then perhaps we can do something with Paul Morphy, which is currently languishing at B-class. --Philcha (talk) 09:08, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Philcha, good to hear from you. Yes, I may well have done that. Maybe once we finally reach consensus on S-M I'll accept it. Lately I've been working on the 1972 world championship article. And yes, poor Paul Morphy deserves at least a GA-class article (as does Fischer, Kasparov, Karpov, Capablanca . . . ). It's good that you've been so assiduous at getting the World Champion and quasi-World Champion (Staunton) articles to that level. I don't understand how biographical articles on even controversial figures like Barack Obama and John McCain (joint front-pagers on the U.S. election day last November) can be gotten to FA, and we have such a hard time getting ours even to GA. Krakatoa (talk) 19:31, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt reply. I've responded at my own Talk page as this could get complex and I think is best kept on one page. I think we first have to resolve methodological issues before more concrete ones. This case is so complex and controversial it reminds me of some debates in paleontology, where I've seen comments that border on WP:uncivil in the journals.

I've just had one of my wacky ideas - would it be fun to write a sub-page where we pretend that we're lawyers (easy enough for you) and quiz our shifty clients (M for you, S for me) on the reasons for actions / inactions that contributed to the confusion? If all went well, we could then invite SyG to commment, as he's great at finding new punchlines.

Re FA / GA:

• To be objective, US presidents and candidates are more important to more people than top chess players are. Whatever the misconduct of Staunton or Gossip or even Emanuel Lasker, no chess champion has ever started a war.
• The academic and corporatist bias of WP:RS makes it hard to source articles in subjects that are not the hunting grounds of grant-funded academics and / or of advertising-funded journalists in big-name news media. For that reason I've given up on video game articles - the big-name mags in that field have been accused of superficiality and of adjusting reviews to keep on good terms with major advertisers, and I've seen bloatant errors in articles on games I know well. --Philcha (talk) 09:33, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the draft. Our discussion was already longer than most articles - and of better quality :-)

So to avoid clogging up my Talk page I've transferred your draft to User:Philcha/Sandbox/Staunton-Morphy and all of the discussion, including my response to your draft, to User talk:Philcha/Sandbox/Staunton-Morphy. I've noted this at my Talk page and invited anyone else who's mad enough to join in.

PS "bloatant errors" in my previous post was a typo, but I left it as I thought it appropriate. --Philcha (talk) 17:12, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I've just forwarded Sarah Cohen's reply. --Philcha (talk) 23:53, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Today's feature article

First-move advantage in chess is Saturday's feature article! Congratulations. Bubba73 (talk), 00:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I concur. Your fantastic work on this article has climbed up to the Everest of Wikipedia ! SyG (talk) 11:46, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you both! It was a happy (and most unexpected) surprise when I opened Wikipedia today and saw F-MAIC on the front page. Krakatoa (talk) 15:45, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Petrov's Defence

In Petrov's Defence you said that Fischer recommended a line in My 60 Memorable Games. Where is that in the book? Bubba73 (talk), 01:45, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Game 45, pp. 280-81 - Fischer writes that after 1.P-K4 P-K4 2.N-KB3 N-QB3 3.B-B4 N-B3 4.0-0 NxP 5.N-B3 NxN 6.QPxN Q-K2! "White has no compensation for the Pawn". The same position can arise from the Boden-Kieseritzky Gambit, 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Nxe4 4.Nc3 Nc6!? 5.0-0 Nxc3 6.dxc3 Qe7!, as in Kornfeld-Rhine, Chicago 1975 or thereabouts. Krakatoa (talk) 16:00, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Bubba73 (talk), 13:55, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

People (magazine)

What does the People People magazine say? Does it give Susan's birthday or just say she is 48? SunCreator (talk) 12:57, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Same as this perhaps? SunCreator (talk) 13:00, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

No, unless the content of that link has changed since you typed the above. I quote People in what is currently footnote 3:

Boyle "just turned 48". "Suddenly Susan!", People, May 4, 2009, p. 52. As is common with magazines, the issue was in fact published about 10 days before its cover date, implying that her birthday is sometime in April 1961.

According to the current version of our (Wikipedia's, that is) article on Boyle, someone else has found another source that says she was born on April 1. Krakatoa (talk) 05:57, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

page number

This is apparently a quote from Garry Kasparov on Modern Chess, Part Two, Kasparov vs Karpov 1975-1985, where Kasparov wrote of the 41st match game that "the pretty intermediate move" 33.a6! would have won the game and the match. Can someone who has this book furnish the page number?

The 41st game ended in 15 moves, so perhaps it is from a different game. I'll look for it. Bubba73 (talk), 19:19, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Unless I missed it, there is not a 33.a6! in the book. Different move number? Bubba73 (talk), 19:36, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Whoops, it is an alternate move. "... Dorfman drew attention to the pretty intermediate move 33. a6!'. Page 208.

• Kasparov, Garry (2008), Modern Chess: Part 2, Kasparov vs Karpov 1975-1985, Everyman Chess, ISBN 978-1-85744-433-9

Bubba73 (talk), 19:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Krakatoa (talk) 19:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

And it is in game 41 of the first match. (Game 41 in the book is game 37 of the match, which led me astray for a while.) Bubba73 (talk), 20:26, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

File:Hugh Myers An Opening Explorer (3).jpg missing description details

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José Raúl Capablanca

Hi, I see you've been tweaking José Raúl Capablanca. I've just lokoed at Wikipedia:Mosnum#Numbers_as_figures_or_words and it's about as helpful as MOS ususally is :-? I'd rather leave it as numerals for now - my view of MOS'd not-altogther consistent advice is that chess artciles use point scores a lot, bit number and haf-integers should be numerals so the rest should be too.

What would be seriously helpful would be sources:

• "fact" tags.
• What did C do 1932-33 and 1930-42?
• Any gaps you can see.

It's time Capa was a GA. --Philcha (talk) 18:20, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi. I bought some new Capablanca-related sources recently: Winter's books "Capablanca" and "World Chess Champions". I'll try to add stuff as I have time. The next couple weeks will be hectic (I really should be doing other things right now . . .). I certainly agree with your last sentence. Of course, the same is true for Bobby Fischer, Anatoly Karpov, and Garry Kasparov. 18:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, not to mention a few other guys you're too young to remember :-) I'll carry on working forwards from time to time - Euwe & Botvinnik next. But it will be intermittent as: I'm working my way thru invertebrate phyla, with half an eye on Cambrian explosion; a paleo buddy fancies getting Fossils of the Burgess Shale to FA as it's the centenary of the BS' discovery; I also do GA reviews. Above all, these other topics don't have anything active as WP:CHESS behind them. --Philcha (talk) 18:38, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm older than you think - pushing 49, certainly old enough to remember Euwe and Botvinnik. Yes, it would certainly be nice to get all the World Champions to FA eventually. Krakatoa (talk) 18:50, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

You lose, but if I explain I will have to kill you :-)

I've re-inserted the "Crafty" study w more sceptical wording - if it's omitted, someone else will insert it, but may well take the authors' claims in Chessbase as gospel. If you can find even more sceptical phrasing w/o breaching WP:NPOV, I shall applaud. --Philcha (talk) 18:56, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Krakatoa. Do you have anything that would help to resolve the remaining "citation needed" tags? If not, I'll just take out the relevant content, whip up a lead (down, boy!) and take it to GA review. --Philcha (talk) 18:42, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Fischer

Do we know anyone who will lock the page for a few days in the right state, if our friend has another surge of whatever. --Philcha (talk) 09:18, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Our friend's whatever continues to surge. He reverted you, Brittle heaven reverted him, and I re-reverted. Another revert by him will violate WP:3RR. We could try appealing to User:Sjakkalle - I don't know what his position would be on this sort of thing. Krakatoa (talk) 18:46, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's quite amusing. "Stooges" of whom, I wonder? --Philcha (talk) 21:56, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

It isn't funny at all, the edit doesn't belong there and the RFC will rid the article of it be sure of that, I have plenty of other matters to attend to but instead my time is being wasted on stubborn wikipedia users that don't understand that just because they want something in an article doesn't necessarily mean that the something should be in that article. POV pushing is what that's called.--194x144x90x118 (talk) 22:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

POV pushing? Perhaps you should look in the mirror. The edit in question is a factual statement, not anyone's POV. Its inclusion has been supported by four users, all members of WikiProject Chess: Quale, Philcha, Brittle heaven, and I. None of us are "stooges" of one another; indeed, I have had disagreements, sometimes heated, with all of the others. You have opposed the edit in question because it offends your POV: because (as you have repeatedly stated) you don't believe Fischer is a racist, think his possession of racist books is irrelevant, and you own one of the books in question and you're not a racist. As I said, the edit in question is factual, and the reader can draw whatever inferences he/she chooses. Yours will differ from mine, obviously. But you're the one pushing your POV, not I - nor Philcha, Brittle heaven, or Quale. Krakatoa (talk) 22:45, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

This is basically the deal, you were wrong, the consensus is against you, a larger consensus is going to form and the edit will not stand. I have also taken a look at other instances in your edit history and it seems that much of your work here on wikipedia has been somehow misguided. You have two options, A. Face a full review and scrutiny of your work here on wikipedia that will lead to other article changes that you've made being reverted or B. Withdraw your support for your own edit on the bobby fischer article and never show yourself anywhere near it again. I await your response.--194x144x90x118 (talk) 10:58, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Note that one more revert or one more supporting comment on the talkpage will be taken as a rejection of this offer and will have consequences.--194x144x90x118 (talk) 12:55, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

And so will harassing and threatening other users. Be WP:CIVIL, please. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:40, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

There is no harassment or threats being made here.--194x144x90x118 (talk) 15:22, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

In light of facts that I was previously unaware of I have changed my mind, feel free to continue editing the Bobby Fischer article but please do not try to introduce facts or POV material that doesn't belong in the article.--194x144x90x118 (talk) 15:38, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

In light of facts that I am currently aware of, feel free to try to be more condescending. (That may be challenging.) No one needs your approval to edit Bobby Fischer or any other page on wikipedia. There should indeed be consequences, but the admins seem unwilling to block you again for reasons I can't explain. Quale (talk) 17:06, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I left a reply to a post by 194x144x90x118 on my talkpage which I think concerns you. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:08, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. Krakatoa (talk) 08:17, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Having looked more into the matter, I think you have handled this issue really well. I agree with Quale that we often are often slow in banning users like 194x, due to the possibility that an incivil editor is merely temporarily angry and can otherwise be productive. In the case here, there seems to be a pattern of abusive edits, and he's already been warned multiple times and blocked once for incivility fairly recently. You are not the only target for his attacks, and if that pattern continues, he will be banned (most probably by the community) sooner or later. The constraints of adminship discourage admins from using tools in a way which might be perceived as "helping friends", or "supporting a particular edit", unless it's to stop blatant vandalism or to do otherwise uncontroversial actions. Hence, I try to exercise restraint in using the block/protect tools on chess articles, a restraint which understandably may lead to frustration for inaction. However, from what I see, his behavior is wearing thin the patience of several other admins as well, and it will break at some point if he continues to push it. In the meantime, continue holding your head high and cool, you are not alone in this. :-) Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:43, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. Yes, it was upsetting dealing with this guy, and not so easy to keep a cool head and avoid responding in kind. Looking at his Talk page and seeing his prior history, I did wonder, "What DOES this guy have to do before the admins finally shut him down??" I certainly understand your perspective, not wanting to be accused of "favoring your buddies in WikiProject Chess." I hope that either 194x starts acting reasonably or, if not, that you admins do finally shut him down. Such behavior disturbs a lot of people and forces those of us he has attacked to spend time responding to him that could be used much more productively. Krakatoa (talk) 16:33, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Reported

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#User_Krakatoa_edit_warring_on_Bobby_Fischer_and_mislabeling_edits

Feel free to respond "my friend".--194x144x90x118 (talk) 20:33, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Owen's Defense

I posted the following on the discussion page on the Owen Defence: In your article there are many remarks that are subjective and unsubstantiated, such as ‘White has the advantage’. Who says White has the advantage? You also use weasel words such as a 'dubious reputation'. You carry on the usual tradition of denigrating perfectly viable openings on the basis that they are not used at the very highest levels. If you think that the Owen is inferior, try playing against Fritz when it employs the defence and you will quickly realise that the defence is playable against 98% of the world’s chess players. If you believed articles such as yours, we would all be playing the Semi-Slav. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.202.54.178 (talk) 23:42, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I posted the following on the discussion page on the Owen Defence

Calm down boys. This preachy tone of yours is really condescending. Who elected you guys to be the arbiters of what is right and wrong? I do not believe your article is neutral in tone at all. It is obvious that you can present cited sources in such a way as to promote a given opinion. I believe that is the case here. In addition the article does not state that a few authors consider the line dubious. The article states it has a dubious reputation, which gives the impression that this is a generally held view Krakatoa says that my note is not relevant because the variation in question relies on White playing an imprecise move. Yet the whole Pitfall section relies on Black playing a weak (or incorrect move). A great deal of chess literature is a discussion of how to respond to bad moves. You make reference to my article; it was only a short note.

I dislike the righteous, highly aggressive, pseudo-professorial tone of your remarks, which are completely at odds with the friendly democratic nature of Wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.202.68.144 (talk) 15:52, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I have posted the following on the discussion page for the Owen Defence: You quote selectively from Bauer’s book so that it appears to support your point of view. If my memory serves me well (it is a while since I read it), Bauer says that against correct play Black will have a small disadvantage when playing the Owen – he then adds that this is the case with virtually every defence. It is White’s birthright to have the advantage. There is no doubt that other defences may be better in the hands of a grandmaster. However, it is not always wise for the vast majority of players to play these openings because quite simply they are not grandmasters and do not have their strategic and tactical skills. There is no doubt that the Sicilian may be a better alternative to the Owen for a super-grandmaster. There is equally no doubt that there is a great deal of complex theory related to the defence, and that it may require a capacity that many players lack. In the introduction for MCO Nick de Firmian recommends for beginners to use the Tarrasch and Scandinavian Defences, despite the fact that the Tarrasch has fallen somewhat out of favour at the very highest levels and that the Scandinavian has been denigrated in countless opening books and has only once been played at World Championship level.

I understand and accept your reasons for believing my very short note does not meet Wikipedia’s standards. However, there was nothing helpful or friendly about your initial approach. You removed the text, without leaving any explanation, or any sort or suggestions on how I might be able to improve it. You only did this after I objected. I do not think you are as impartial as you think you are. As I said previously, all information can be manipulated so as to lead a reader to a certain conclusion. The fact that there are citations does not change this. As the old joke says, advertisers use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post: for support not illumination. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.202.52.145 (talk) 00:07, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Krakatoa. Sorry to butt in, but the anon poster has raised an interesting point, if de Firmian does back it up - good practical openings for sub-IM level may not be the same as those used by GMs. I remember decades ago reading a book by Leonard Barden on practical openings for club players, which featured: an anti-Marshall and the Worrall Attack in the Ruy; Nf3 and g3 against the Gruenfeld; and I can't remember what defences. Another example might be the Grand Prix Attack, and I've seen at least 1 site laud the Cochrane Gambit as a practical weapon for week-end tournaments!. There may be scope to lift a few articles to GA / FA if the anon, you and the rest of WP:CHESS could find some good refs - especially the non-native English users in WP:CHESS, for example it would be interesting if SyG could report what is successful in sub-IM comps in France. If the relevant articles are currently short, adding material might qualify some of them for DYK, e.g. "Opening X is out of favour with GMs but Y recommends it for club players".

BTW I suggest you retrospectively give this discussion its own heading, as it has nothing to do with the Fischer's library issue. --Philcha (talk) 05:23, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I posted the following on the discussion page for the Owen Defence: Thank you for your comments. I am sorry if I caused you offence. The joke about the drunk and the lamp post was just meant to get an idea across, and by no means did I want to belittle your seriousness. I believe that the inclusion of Bauer’s remarks make the article more balanced. Even small things can give an article a certain bias. For example, many people could conclude that Staunton’s ‘favourable comments’ made more than one hundred years ago, have been discounted by the ‘negative’ assessment of contemporary grandmasters, given that modern theory is considered to be more accurate. Perhaps this is not the case, but my point is that great care needs to be taken over such things. As I said, I think the article is great now and I hope that I have not tried your patience too much.

Regards.

I personally, wish more people made it clear that when a grandmaster states that an opening is dubious or inferior, it is in the context of grandmaster play. In addition, it is important to remember that theory quickly changes in its evaluations. Fine's book on openings praises the Colle and dismisses the Semi-Slav as to passive. Of course now the Semi-Slav has a great reputation and the Colle is usually portrayed as second-rate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.202.66.47 (talk) 22:04, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

194x144x90x118 RFC

Hi, due to a dispute on an article unrelated to Bobby Fischer, an RFC was opened on User:194x144x90x118's conduct (Wikipedia:Requests for comment/194x144x90x118). Since I have added a view on the RFC, where you are mentioned, I thought it best to give you a heads up on it. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:42, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. Krakatoa (talk) 23:15, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

How good are computers at correspondence?

I noticed you are a Senior Master in correspondence chess and also that you seem open to being asked questions. I had a question I'd always wondered about and thought you might be a good person to ask. I've always wondered how good computers like Deep Blue, etc would be playing correspondence. I know that they are virtually unbeatable at rapid and now have defeated World Champions in long tournament games. Computer have the advantage of the perfection of calculation and in tournament play of never getting tired or losing concentration. But in correspondence those factors are far less important and strategy and long term planning take precedence. Are you aware if there has ever been a top level computer program vs a top level correspondence player in a series of games and how the computer did. I've tried googling this question and all I ever get are questions about using computers for analysis in correspondence.BashBrannigan (talk) 05:54, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I am not aware of any match that has taken place between a top-level correspondence player and a top-level computer program. I have read claims by correspondence players that top human players would be stronger than computers at correspondence chess. However, I read such claims some time ago, probably before Deep Blue beat Kasparov. At OTB chess, of course, the top computers are now stronger than even world champions, and Rybka can give pawn and move odds to strong grandmasters (even Jaan Ehlvest). Given that, there must be few if any correspondence players (on their own, without the assistance of other computers) who could beat the top computers these days. Maybe someone like Ulf Andersson, who was a top GM OTB and then became one of the world's best correspondence players, could do it. Krakatoa (talk) 07:10, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Rybka's wins against Ehlvest are impressive. What was it running on in these matches - e.g. a standard desktop or a lab's supercomputer? In at least the 2nd Ehlvest match both players were time-controlled, so the amount of processor power available to Rybka makes a difference.--Philcha (talk) 07:23, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I would guess the latter - surely Rybka's handlers would want it to show to best advantage - but that's just my guess. Krakatoa (talk) 07:33, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I was also amazed to see that Rybka gave Vadim Milov, a 2700+ player (less than 100 points below anyone in the world) exchange odds in four games and only lost one (the other three were drawn). If Rybka can give a super-GM exchange odds with reasonable success, it wouldn't be surprising if it could give the likes of me (2200 USCF) a knight. I can scarcely believe that, but an exchange is equal to about half a piece, after all. Krakatoa (talk) 03:12, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

It's difficult indeed to believe that any computer could successfully give knight odds to a player of our strength, but 1.5/4 vs a 2700 player at exchange odds is most impressive. Hushpuckena (talk) 10:57, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes - absolutely mind-boggling. btw, we've missed you on chessgames.com! What happened - did you get a life or something? (Say it isn't so!) Krakatoa (talk) 04:24, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Something of the sort; my kibitzing was muted, though I don't know why or for how long. The recent comments re the Nina Myers poem were rather amusing-I guess we've got a new censor over there, with the power to go to others' pages and publicise complaints. All these years and it's allowed to go on without let or hindrance. Hope to rejoin you soon. Hushpuckena (talk) 23:53, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Although I'm a few years late to joining this particular discussion, the only match between a correspondence player and a computer that I have heard of was won by Arno Nickel over Hydra. Nickel did make use of chess engines himself, and apparently also other humans. In this way it was a little more like an Advanced Chess correspondence match against a computer. Quale (talk) 02:11, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Sneaky deletion

I saw your revert label on my revision and seeing as you seem to voice an objection to sneaky deletes I urge you to review if I indeed performed any sneaky deletion and then to voice your objections to the user who truly snuck something into the article without labeling his edit in that manner.--194x144x90x118 (talk) 22:02, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Edward Winter

I should have been more careful in my explanation. The Edward Winter of the article is NOT a "player". His profile in ChessGames.com correctly describes him as a "journalist, archivist, collector, author and ... historian". There exist no records of Edward Winter's competitive games. There do (and did) exist other Winter's, who were indeed chess players (e.g. William Winter). Perhaps you can do the honors yourself and remove the word "player" from the text of the aforementioned link. Simply "profile" would do. -The Gnome (talk) 07:26, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

That's how the template sets it up - to say (for example) "Joe Blow player profile at ChessGames.com". So there's no way to remove "player". Since the "player profile" for Winter has a game (only one), which apparently really was played by Edward Winter in his youth (yes, I'm well aware of the distinction between Edward Winter and William Winter), the word "player" doesn't seem misplaced in that context. Krakatoa (talk) 13:39, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Since when one (1) game played "on the record" qualifies someone to be named a "player" in Wikipedia? This falsifies the meaning of the term "chess player" in the encyclopaedia. If the template has this attribute, then it is defective and should be amended -- or not be used when not appropriate. Edward Winter surely knows about and plays chess but Wikipedia cannot list him as a "chess player" because he has not played competitive chess. There can be no two ways about it. Invoking the contents of a template to justify an erroneous entry is absurd. -The Gnome (talk) 06:31, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

To state the obvious, someone who plays chess is a "chess player". That's not the same as "professional chess player". In any event, it's one word, and hardly seems worth getting in a lather about. Winter is indeed a "player" in the sense that he played the game in question, even though he obviously is not famous as a player, but as a historian, author, etc. I haven't checked, but ChessGames may well have "player profiles" for people like Humphrey Bogart who liked to play chess and had some recorded games, even though they were far more famous for other things. Krakatoa (talk) 20:33, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Right. So, let's see. Are you suggesting that the description of Humphrey Bogart in Wikipedia should include "chess player"? Should we perhaps add "actor" in the description of Winston Churchill because he participated in school plays? Or (here's an idea) maybe we should add the description "English writer" to anyone who, as Edward Winter "knows how to play" chess, knows "how to write English". But there is a reason why we don't go about descriptions in Wikipedia this way. The reason is that descriptions denote the prominent, certifiable and most well known (see WP) attributes of the person in question. Edward Winter was never (and probably shall never) be known as a chess player. You may continue to keep that erroneous template up in his Wiki entry but it is a false one. The whole thing is trivially obvious but your mysterious persistence (even if that template was your creation, the persistence is inexcusable) makes it more important than it should be. Well, the lather is all at your side of the table. I'm done here. -The Gnome (talk) 06:38, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I looked at the article in question, and I don't think the article is calling Mr. Winter a player. You need to distinguish between a description of the person, and a description of the linked website. The term "player" in the external links section is not meant to describe Winter's career, rather it is an accurate description the website since it contains a profile of Winter as a chess player, albeit with only one game. The article which describes Edward Winter as a person calls him a chess historian and not a player, and so that is accurate too. Nobody here suggested describing Humphrey Bogart as a chess player in the article, but if a ChessGames link for some reason were in the external links section for his article, calling this page a "player profile" is an accurate description of the website. Also note that the prominence of the text matters a great deal. What is perfectly accurate and correct in the body of the text, or in a footnotes or external links section may be very misleading if placed in the lead section. For some examples:

• Simen Agdestein is described as both a football player and chess player in the lead. Perfectly proper, as he had distinguished careers in both, and is well-known for his exploits in both games/sports.
• The Norwegian poet and author Andre Bjerke is described as a poet and author in the lead, as is proper. Writing and poetry is what Bjerke is best known for, and is what made up his career. But he was a strong amateur chess player as well, and wrote a book about it. He is described as a chess player further down in the article, but not with the same prominence as his lyrical and literary achievements. A description of his chess playing belongs in the article, but it does not belong in the lead because he was not first and foremost a chess player.
• The chess playing of conservative journalist and editor Vebjørn Selbekk is not in his bio, and if it were included it would at most be a passing reference since chess playing is completely peripheral to his main career, no matter how much stronger than me he is (Elo 1803 v. 1396).

In the case of Edward Winter's chess playing, it is more peripheral than Bjerke, but not totally unrelated to his main claim for fame. That the word "player" appears to describe a single webpage link does shouldn't mislead anyone who reads the article. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:37, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:Hornbook -- a new WP:Law task force for the J.D. curriculum

Hi Krakatoa,

I'm asking Wikipedians who are interested in United States legal articles to take a look at WP:Hornbook, the new "JD curriculum task force".

Our mission is to assimilate into Wikipedia all the insights of an American law school education, by reducing hornbooks to footnotes.

• Each casebook will have a subpage.

• Over the course of a semester, each subpage will shift its focus to track the unfolding curriculum(s) for classes using that casebook around the country.
• It will also feature an extensive, hyperlinked "index" or "outline" to that casebook, pointing to pages, headers, or {{anchors}} in Wikipedia (example).
• Individual law schools can freely adapt our casebook outlines to the idiosyncratic curriculum devised by each individual professor.

• I'm encouraging law students around the country to create local chapters of the club I'm starting at my own law school, "Student WP:Hornbook Editors". Using WP:Hornbook as our headquarters, we're hoping to create a study group so inclusive that nobody will dare not join.

What you can do now:

1. Add WP:Hornbook to your watchlist, {{User Hornbook}} to your userpage, and ~~~~ to Wikipedia:Hornbook/participants.

2. If you're a law student,

• Email http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:Hornbook to your classmates, and tell them to do the same.
• Contact me directly via talk page or email about coordinating a chapter of "Student WP:Hornbook Editors" at your own school.

(You don't have to start the club, or even be involved in it; just help direct me to someone who might.)

3. Introduce yourself to me. Law editors on Wikipedia are a scarce commodity. Do knock on my talk page if there's an article you'd like help on.

Regards, Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 20:05, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#194x144x90x118

Hi, although neither you or I have been listed as parties to this ArbCom request, but I think you may be interested in it. Beware that arbitration is a rather depressing corner of Wikipedia, so you may want to stay out of it as well. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:29, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for alerting me to this. My views on 194x's disruptive conduct are essentially identical to yours, I think. Since you've indicated that you intend to submit evidence to the arbitrator(s), I don't think I would have much to add. I think I will (as you suggested) avoid further depressing conflicts with 194x and stay out of this matter. Krakatoa (talk) 13:02, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Possible typo in a note in Chess theory

Note 55 says "... Soltis writes that since this position began appearing 30 moves ago ..."—is this supposed to be "30 years ago" instead? Unfortunately I don't have any recent Chess Lifes to be able to check this myself (specifically Oct 2006, p. 10). Your work on this article is excellent, as usual (although I'm a little late in saying that since it was last year). Quale (talk) 21:00, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Your surmise about the typo is correct. I have fixed it. Krakatoa (talk) 07:47, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Howard Staunton

Hi, Krakatoa, you've deserved more than 1 Half Barnstar for your work on Howard Staunton in the time since the GA review. I know we had a hell of an argument, but we also found time to have fun in the thick of it, and that's now the part I remember best - plus your knack of finding even more sources on anything chess. Hope life's treating you well. --Philcha (talk) 18:13, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Where?

The arrogance that demands that every Wikipedia reader in the world is familiar with the names of every state in the United States is unbelievable. This is a world wide encyclopedia. Do you know the whereabouts of Bloemfontein, Orissa and Clackmannanshire? Amandajm (talk) 11:51, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I commend to your attention Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#United_States, which states, "Do not use the country name, as in "Detroit, United States" or "Kansas City, Missouri, USA"." Krakatoa (talk) 11:56, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Amandajm, that's what wikilinks are there for. You can't add explanatory for every name, as that would make articles too long. --Philcha (talk) 13:25, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

There is a misunderstanding here. The Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#United_States, refers to the naming of articles. Most city names (of the U.S.) are qualified by having their state included as part of the name of the article. For a few cities, San Francisco, Detroit etc, this is not required.

In practice, and therefore in precedent, every city on the list that is stated as not requiring a country name in its article title, has staed within the first or second sentence that it is either in the United States, or in the U.S. state of whatever. In other words, "United States" or "U.S." appears as essential info.

Within the body of an article, what is required is clarity. If something (anything) is part of the culture, history, or geography of a particular country, then it needs to be clear. Regardless of wikilinks, the reader cannot be expected to make hops out of the very first paragraph to discover the location of something that can be made clear in two words. The country of a place, person, custom or object is hardly what one would call "additional information". Amandajm (talk) 07:08, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I think you're right that I misinterpreted the scope of the convention I cited. That said, I still don't think "United States" should be added. (Big surprise, I know.) The clause immediately after the offending Montgomery, Alabama refers to Zelda as an "American novelist". In the next sentence, her husband is quoted as calling her "the first American Flapper". Two sentences after that, the opinion of the newspapers of New York about the Fitzgeralds is cited. From all of this, almost any reader who didn't already know that Alabama is in the United States will figure it out. The tiny number of readers who don't infer that can, as Philcha says, take a few seconds to click on Montgomery, Alabama and glance at that article. The cost of adding "United States" is that it makes the lede denser. It seems to me that the benefit of adding "United States" would be minimal, and be considerably outweighed by the cost - perhaps a few readers out of a hundred both (a) won't know that Alabama is in the United States and (b) won't readily infer it from the context, so will (c) have to click on Montgomery, Alabama to find that out. That's my take, anyway. Incidentally, Philcha is a Brit, so unlike me he can't be accused of America-centrism in this regard. Krakatoa (talk) 12:12, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for acknowledgement. I do agree that much can be drawn fom the content, but regardless, I think that the inclusion should be made as a matter of convention. Surprise! ....Well, you're not going to do it, I can tell, but I'm sure that with a bit of ingenuity you could insert the words without being too obvious. Nevermind! I have a nice little book of designer Sudoku. I'll sign out and go and thrash out a couple of those!Amandajm (talk) 11:11, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

For the reasons I've stated, I would not add "United States". No doubt my view is somewhat influenced by the fact that I am a life-long citizen and resident of the United States, and of course know that Alabama is one of those states. However, I think if the article said, say, "Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald (July 24, 1900 – March 10, 1948), born Zelda Sayre in Bloemfontein, was a South African novelist", I would equally say that "South Africa" does not need to be added, since the "was a South African novelist" immediately answers the reader's question "where is Bloemfontein"? But I don't particularly care about the Zelda Fitzgerald article and can't prove that your contrary position is "wrong". If you want to put in United States, go ahead and I'll let others (if there are any) thrash it out with you. Krakatoa (talk) 15:04, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a chess player. I've only won one single game in my life. That was against the reigning champion at North Netwtown Public School and my prize was two jelly babies. I was, at the time, dressed as Neville Longbottom's Grandmother. (Maybe my appearance distracted her.) Anyway, what I want to ask you is, is our current position check or checkmate? Amandajm (talk) 10:24, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent) I think both of our positions are supportable, and (predictably) prefer mine. I think I've explained my position reasonably lucidly - although as I acknowledged, you appear to have caught me in a misinterpretation of a provision of WP:MOS. As far as I can (now) see, WP:MOS doesn't address this issue - although it should. As I say above, I think that my position would be the same even if we were talking about Bloemfontein, South Africa rather than Montgomery, Alabama, United States. Philcha, a Brit, agrees with my position, so I don't think my view can just be attributed to U.S.-centrism. If you nonetheless choose to believe that you have "checkmated" me, go ahead. Krakatoa (talk) 11:28, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

The reference to chess was a joke, silly! If I still had the two jelly-babies, I would mail you one as a boobie-prize, but they have gone! As for the US, if I wanted to push a serious argument against your position, then I would have been back to the page and changed it. I merely suggested that you did, creatively. As for Pilcha, I think he/she probably misinterpreted the MOS as you did. Amandajm (talk) 02:25, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

You'd have to ask him. Since he didn't rely on that provision after I'd cited it, he may have realized that it didn't apply, but agreed with my position for other reasons. Krakatoa (talk) 02:37, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Note to self

En passant ACO 153 (Blackburne’s view on); CFF 98-99 + C.N.s 4153 (deferred capture), 5092 (early occurrence of term), 5284 (problem by C.G. Watson), 5895 (obligatory or compulsory), 5896 (poor explanation), 5920 (problem showing obligatory nature) + ‘Stalemate’ feature article

Napoleon Marache (DYK)

Charles Ranken (DYK)

William Wayte (DYK)

Fair use rationale for File:Hugh Myers An Opening Explorer (3).jpg

Thanks for uploading or contributing to File:Hugh Myers An Opening Explorer (3).jpg. I notice the file page specifies that the file is being used under fair use but there is not a suitable explanation or rationale as to why each specific use in Wikipedia constitutes fair use. Please go to the file description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale.

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Congrats on Gossip

I just read the Gossip article. I noticed this appeared to be mostly your work so I wanted to offer my congratulations. I'd thought I knew everyone in this history of chess, so reading this was fascinating. Also to make an interesting article of someone who was largely unsuccessful is quite an achievement! BashBrannigan (talk) 07:03, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Yes, it was a challenge writing this article because Gossip is so obscure. Three of the four English-language chess encyclopedias don't even mention him. I couldn't possibly have put the article together without Winter's online article and Diggle's BCM article. Gossip is quite a character, and strikes me as kind of Forrest Gump-like - he wasn't a significant player himself, but he played almost all the greats. Krakatoa (talk) 07:28, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Imperial Triple Crown

Your majesty, it gives me great pleasure to bestow these Imperial triple crown jewels upon Krakatoa for your tactical contributions to articles chess-related in the areas of WP:DYK, WP:GA, and WP:FC. Well done, Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:56, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much! I am most honored. Krakatoa (talk) 11:28, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for File:American Chess Quarterly.jpg

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You are the first Wikipedian ever to be awarded the Chess Barnstar !!

		The Chess Barnstar
		For having brought once again a chess article, George H. D. Gossip, first to FA-class then on the Main Page, I award you this Chess Barnstar. Thank you so much ! SyG (talk) 15:42, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you so much! I'm honored! Krakatoa (talk) 19:54, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Phillidor

It's not a typo, see amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Final-Theory-Chess-Michael-Danelishen/dp/0981567703/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208572416&sr=8-1 SunCreator (talk) 20:34, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction. I hope they chose "Phillidor" because there already was a "Philidor Press", rather than an inability to spell. Krakatoa (talk) 20:39, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I guess that name was choosen for a reason. I'm tempted to get this book. It's more or less the system that I use myself to evaluate openings. Start at about move 10 in a main line opening, and then spend time using a 3000+ rated computer. With the combination of computer and human(for positional and long term ideas) ability (see advanced chess) in only a few days you can resolve at least to your own satisfaction, that white hasn't got the slightest chance of making headway in any line. That only leaves about a trillion other positions to look at from move 10, but you can see that resolving this way could be possible.

I'm tempted to put back the wiki link edit I removed. It seems a good idea, but the downside is that not got a lot of information. What do you think?

Do you have acces to the USCF grading? Would it be possible for you to check the USCF of this Michael Danelishen writer? I believe he is american. I can't find a USCF chess rating database online. There is for the English Chess Federation at ECF grading list, is there something similiar for the US? SunCreator (talk) 21:19, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I suspect this writer has a lower rating then both of us. I say that because of the openings that don't survive in top level correspondence chess such as Blackmar-Diemer Gambit and King's Gambit. SunCreator (talk) 21:31, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

OMG - the guy is rated 1677. Go here and put in "Danelishen". Krakatoa (talk) 22:21, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

O dear yes, seriously appauling for a chess author. I was that rating when 12 years old. SunCreator (talk) 22:39, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, now I feel embarrassed that it took me until almost age 15 to get the same rating as this guy. I completely agree with your edit. As discussed on the article's Talk page, I have deleted Danelishen as not being a reliable source. Krakatoa (talk) 23:07, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not as though he just started playing, either. The Ratings History Graph for Danelishen shows that he's been playing since 1999. By the time I'd been playing in tournaments for 10 years, I was a master. Krakatoa (talk) 23:16, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

(Unindent) I got the book from Amazon, then sent it back. The book is really just an analysis by various iterations of Fritz of Danelishen's repertoire, which consists mainly of the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit as White (starting with 1.d4 d5 2.e4 or 1.d4 Nf6 2.f3), and the Dutch Defense and 1.e4 e5 as Black. Each column concludes with Fritz's assessment of it ("+1.34" or whatever), with very little in the way of human commentary. Krakatoa (talk) 22:17, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, so it's computer analysis of a poor opening, with a poor computer. I used to play the BDG regularly at quick play. After 1.d4 Nf6 2.f3 d5 3.Nc3 c5 or 3. e4 dxe4 4. Nc3 c5 black is equal and possibly better. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 22:55, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

3rd Battalion 3rd Marines

I fixed the dead link problem, so is there a chance you would reconsider your vote? Palm_Dogg (talk) 19:59, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

You're almost there, but there's still one, as I've noted on the TFA Request page. Krakatoa (talk) 23:47, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Solving chess

Given your involvement with First-move_advantage_in_chess could you comment on Talk:Computer_chess#Solving_chess_-_new_article_suggestion. Consensus seems divided at the moment so not sure where it's going. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 02:00, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I have responded. Krakatoa (talk) 22:09, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Red-links

I was under the impression that you went through a process of removing/creating red link pages and even improving stubs so you could get articles your involved with to FA status. Is this something that is written to be done or was there some consensus talk somewhere for this? Or maybe you just choose to do it or I got the wrong idea. Thanks for any pointers on this. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 18:08, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

You are right that I have done that. Before I nominated George H. D. Gossip (and to a lesser extent First-move advantage in chess) for FA I created a number of articles so that there would be no redlinks in the FA-nominated articles. AFAIK, that is not actually required. There definitely have been FAs that have redlinks in them. I don't know what the current rules (if any) are on this. Krakatoa (talk) 21:32, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thank you. It seems there isn't any requirement. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 21:58, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Chessmetrics and George H. D. Gossip

Hi Krakatoa, I reverted your edit here. Personally I don't have a problem that Chessmetrics rating ≈ Fide rating (although others do, see this). My issue is that when challenged the burden of proof is to verify the information and currently the article does not have a reference to this claim of 'close to grandmaster strength' based on a Chessmetrics rating. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 22:33, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

The article says, "Today FIDE, the World Chess Federation, often awards the Grandmaster title to players with Elo ratings of 2500 and above [...] Another assessment system, Chessmetrics, calculates that Gossip's highest rating was 2470 (number 50 in the world) in April 1889." 2470 is close to 2500, last I heard. Krakatoa (talk) 23:56, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, FIDE often awards Grandmaster title to players with Elo ratings of 2500 but it does not award the title to players with Chessmetrics ratings of 2500. You could claim that a Chessmetrics rating equals a FIDE Elo but again this is something unsupported with a source. Quale, Bubba73 has said they do not think they are convertible. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 00:51, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I had thought they were pretty comparable, but it appears that I was wrong. I agree that this is a problem with the Gossip article, and unfortunately others where (as Quale I believe pointed out) I inserted language treating ratings under the two systems as comparable. Krakatoa (talk) 20:27, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

You are now a Reviewer

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, will be commencing a a two-month trial at approximately 23:00, 2010 June 15 (UTC).

Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under flagged protection. Flagged protection is applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial.

When reviewing, edits should be accepted if they are not obvious vandalism or BLP violations, and not clearly problematic in light of the reason given for protection (see Wikipedia:Reviewing process). More detailed documentation and guidelines can be found here.

If you do not want this userright, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. Karanacs (talk) 17:14, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Disputed non-free use rationale for File:American Chess Quarterly.jpg

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FAR for Chess

Hi, Krakatoa. For some reason no one has told you of the Wikipedia:FAR#Chess, despite your large library. Go for it :-)

I expect Alekhine may soon be up for FAR, and your library will find sources to replace Wall's ones. --Philcha (talk) 01:56, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Botvinnik also has some Wall "sources", but Yuri Averbakh can replace most of that. Averbakh also says, in the same PDF, "Botvinnik was a killer in chess", referring to the 1940s. And in the same PDF Averbakh describes how Vainstein was a "colonel in the KGB, and at the same time he was president of our chess federation", and "Botvinnik made every effort to get Vainstein discharged from his position (of the chess federation), and he eventually succeeded". Botvinnik's career always came with politics - often to help him, e.g. in his proposal for the World Championship after Alekhine died; but Botvinnik would defy his KGB minders if he disagreed with them. Botvinnik had powerful backers in the electricity industry (Botvinnik worked as an electrical engineer from the 1920s) and, until purge, from Nikolai Krylenko. But Botvinnik could defy even Krylenko - see Achieving the Aim (book), The Keres–Botvinnik Case: A Survey of the Evidence – Part II for the Rabinovich incident, from Chess Cafe. This is now a 404 but the Internet Archive usually finds these cases - provided Chess Cafe has not blocked Internet Archive with a robot.txt. --Philcha (talk) 09:17, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for File:Hugh Myers Nimzovich Defense.jpg

Thanks for uploading or contributing to File:Hugh Myers Nimzovich Defense.jpg. I notice the file page specifies that the file is being used under fair use but there is not a suitable explanation or rationale as to why each specific use in Wikipedia constitutes fair use. Please go to the file description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale.

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The best chess article on wikipedia

I was just rereading first-move advantage in chess, with great pleasure. Thanks for writing the best chess article on wikipedia. I like your other articles too, so I should say "thanks for writing the best chess articles on wikipedia". Quale (talk) 04:31, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Krakatoa (talk) 16:51, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Quale, it's the best chess article. It's also a subject that some ponder on seriously for years. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 19:25, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Made me chuckle Chess software has advanced to such a degree that "chess may be close to being solved, if it hasn't already been." - Steve Immitt, National TD and USCF’s "Tournament Director of the Year" for 2005. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 16:10, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, SunCreator, for your praise of the article, and for the link. Immitt's comment (from 2007) is indeed amusing. One hopes he was using "solved" in an extremely loose, non-technical sense. Even if that's the case, it strikes me as a weird statement to make. Krakatoa (talk) 07:15, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Immortal losing game

Immortal losing game is up for deletion(not by me). As creator perhaps you have some reliable sources? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 19:20, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. I see that Bubba73 has fended off the challenge and gotten the nominator to withdraw the nomination. Good job! Krakatoa (talk) 07:17, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

A tiny puzzle

I am trying to figure something out and thought you might be able to help. I recently bought a used copy of Chess in Literature, Marcello Truzzi ed., 1974. The last item in the book is a very interesting (at least to me) short story about computer chess: "The 64 Square Madhouse", Fritz Leiber, from The If Reader of Science Fiction, 1966. Although computer chess considered in the 1940s by Turing and the 1950s by Shannon, this is pretty early speculation. The author clearly was either very familiar with chess or did great research, as many details are very realistic.Our article on Fritz Leiber explains: he was a chess expert. I find it interesting that the author anticipated Advanced Chess ("The future grandmaster will inevitably be a programmer-computer team, a man-machine symbiotic partnership") and discusses computer opening books and the possibility that the program would allocate different amounts of time analyzing on different moves throughout the game depending on the complexity of the position. The story describes a tournament with human GMs and a single computer entrant, "The Machine". Although the tournament is entirely fictional, the players are real people with their names lightly scrambled in the style of a roman à clef.

• William Angler (USA). Tall, thin, hatchet-faced, was US Champion as a child
• Bela Grabo (Hungary)
• Ivan Jal (USSR). Former World Champion.
• Igor Jandorf (Argentina). Formerly of Poland. Boasts of playing 50 simultaneous blindfold games.
• Dr. S. Krakatower (France). Oldest player in the tournament. (An anachronism, as Tartakower died a decade before the story was published.)
• Vassily Lymov (USSR). Former World Champion.
• Simon Great (USA). Formerly a world championship contender, but gave up chess for psychology. Programmer of "The Machine".
• Maxim Serek (USSR)
• Moses Sherevsky (USA). Short, balding, former US Champion, Orthodox Jew who won't play before sundown on Friday and Saturday
• Mikhail Votbinnik (USSR). Current World Champion, favors the French Defense.
• Dr. Jan Vanderhoef. Tournament director. Was World Champion long ago.

Most of these are pretty transparent, but if the TD is a real person I'm not sure who it is. Max Euwe? The story comments that the TD played several games with the computer but the scores weren't released. Euwe did play a few games with one or more early programs. (Maybe Kaissa or MacHack, I'd have to look it up.) There aren't many other clues in the story about who this might be. Any thoughts? Quale (talk) 05:06, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't know who it could be besides Euwe, although "Dr. Jan Vanderhoef" is not very suggestive of that, apart from the "Dr." and the name being Dutch. The only world champions alive in 1966 were Petrosian (the actual reigning champion), Botvinnik ("Votbinnik"), Tal ("Jal"), Smyslov ("Lymov"), and Euwe. His predecessors Alekhine, Capablanca, and Lasker had of course all died in the 1940's, and their names are even farther from "Dr. Jan Vanderhoef" than Euwe's name is. Euwe was the only living world champion who had been "World Champion long ago." Krakatoa (talk) 15:20, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Bubba's Q

Hi, I see you added the source refs here, would you be able to answer Bubba's question here? Thank you. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 08:04, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Done. Krakatoa (talk) 08:58, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Danke (x 2) for that complete report! Ihardlythinkso (talk) 09:58, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Help fixing and source possible error in your edit to "Promotion (chess)"

Under the "1862 British Chess Association rule" heading there is a paragraph and diagram:

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

White to move

If White plays 1.bxa8(Q)?? (or any other promotion), Black wins with 1...gxh3, when White cannot stop Black from checkmating him next move with 2...h2#. Instead, White draws by 1.bxa8(P)!, when 1...gxh3 or 1...Kxh3 stalemates White, and other moves allow 2.Bxg2, with a drawn endgame. Steinitz wrote, "We approve of the decision of the London Chess Congress, of 1862, although the 'dummy' pawn rule was denounced by some authorities." The same rule and explanation are given by George H. D. Gossip in The Chess-Player's Manual (Gossip & Lipschütz 1902:17–18, 33).

There are two sets of "basically empty" ref tags and the description does not match the diagram. Specifically, White cannot stop Black from checkmating him next move with 2...h2#. Both originate from your edit here [15] so I was hoping you could help me fix the error if you have the sources in your possesion. --178.208.207.204 (talk) 18:22, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Although the example seems correct to me, I can see where the cites could cause confusion. It's very difficult to use Id. in wikipedia since subsequent edits can mess it up. In this case I don't even think it's subsequent edits, but just the confusing combination of inline Harvard cites and notes. Normally id. indicates that the reference is the same as in the previous note, but note 7 is to a Tim Krabbé web page so the Id. in note 8 refers instead to Steinitz which doesn't appear in the notes at all. I don't think id should ever be used in wikipedia so it might be better to just use Harvard cites (Steinitz 1990:xxii) and (Steinitz 1990:xxiv) rather than the notes. If the id. were kept it should be in the running text rather than in the note, as in the running text it really would refer to the same as the previous. Quale (talk) 00:19, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Quale that the use of "id." in Wikipedia is likely to lead to errors in the text after it is edited by later editors (although it did not in this instance). I have accordingly changed the text in question to use just inline Harvard cites. I hope that allays your confusion about the diagram - which, as Quale says, is correct. After White takes the rook on a8 and promotes to a pawn (as was allowed under the 1862 rules), if Black responds with 1...gxh3, the game is immediately drawn by stalemate, since White has no legal moves. Krakatoa (talk) 09:12, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Parham Attack Naming

There's presently a discussion on the Parham Attack Talk Page about the origins of the name. Neither myself nor the other editors were able to find a credible source for 1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 being called the Parham. (At the same time, it's hard to find many credible publications covering this sequence of moves, period!) Since you were the one that initially wrote the page, I was wondering what your source was? Thanks a bunch in advance. ChessPlayerLev (talk) 01:58, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Zugzwang

Hi. Someone raised an interesting point about the Harper vs. Zuk example in Zugzwang. I see that you are familiar with this game. Can you offer any insight at Talk:Zugzwang#Harper vs. Zuk is not Zugzwang? Quale (talk) 22:48, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

WP Chess in the Signpost

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Chess for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. –Mabeenot (talk) 04:50, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Korchnoi

Thanks for the update on Korchnoi. Sad news. With Spassky in poor health it seems soon all my childhood chess heroes will be gone. Quale (talk) 01:56, 5 March 2013 (UTC)ru

Sad but true. Stein, Keres, Botvinnik, Tal, Petrosian, Reshevsky, Fine, Fischer, Smyslov, Lilienthal, Larsen, and Gligoric are all gone. At least Fridrik Olafsson just got a +2 score in the Reykjavik Open. Krakatoa (talk) 08:00, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and Bronstein and Najdorf too. Looking at List of chess grandmasters, we still have Averbakh, Taimanov, R. Byrne, Benko, Portisch and Lombardy. And I can't bury Korchnoi and Spassky just yet, even if they are retired from the chess battlefield. Quale (talk) 04:36, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Robert Byrne, R.I.P. I hope I wasn't a jinx. Quale (talk) 06:58, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Alas, they're going to keep dying off irrespective of what we say or don't say. Krakatoa (talk) 03:33, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Napoleon Marache

I just stumbled across Napoleon Marache. I don't know how I missed it before. I wasn't surprised to find that you had written it, as no one here can research and write about nineteenth century chess players the way you can. Quale (talk) 23:16, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. You're very kind. Krakatoa (talk) 05:50, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Modern Chess Brilliancies

I finally noticed that you mentioned that Gossip wrote Modern Chess Brilliancies in 1892. I wonder if Evans knew that he was cribbing Gossip's book title when he wrote Modern Chess Brilliancies (1970). I really enjoy Evans' book, but I only have it in paperback (Fireside) and the binding fell apart long ago. I find the introduction interesting as well. The Chernev quote on Petrosian ("you get the impression that he regards a King-side attack as a primitive attempt to force a win") makes me smile, even though I think it's somewhat unfair like much of what has been said about Tigran. Quale (talk) 06:44, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Impossible to know if Evans knew. It's certainly not one of Gossip's better-known titles (until you mentioned it, I'd forgotten that he'd written it), so it's very possible he didn't. Not that I'd fault him for "stealing" a 78-year-old title by someone long dead that is a pretty obvious phrase. Cf. "The Art of Defense in Chess" (Soltis) and "The Art of Defence in Chess" (Polugaevsky and Damsky). Krakatoa (talk) 08:57, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

I know that "cribbed" has a negative connotation, but I really did not intend any disapprobation. I really meant it as a mild joke. I was actually struck by how odd the title "Modern Chess" seems to me in a 1892 work. It's just snobbery. If they're still writing chess books 120 years from now (and I hope they will, although we won't be around to read them), probably our conceit in labeling our chess knowledge as "modern" will seem quaint as well. Maybe quantum computers will solve chess by then, or at least be able to determine whether to play 1.e4 or 1.d4. (1.f3!!! 0-1, as White mates in 173....) Quale (talk) 03:45, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, yes - any book title containing "modern" will seem silly to anyone thinking about that book decades later. Kaufman or maybe Watson has remarked on the incongruity of the term "Modern Defense" these days, given that the opening became popular in the 1970s. And then there's "hypermodernism," which is almost a century old now. Krakatoa (talk) 01:39, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Chess handicap/GA1

Chess handicap, an article fort which you are the main contributor, has been nominated for Good Article. The review is on hold to allow time for issues raised to be discussed or addressed. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 17:44, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

IIT alumnus

For whatever late night drunken reason I thought it interesting to say hello to the only other IIT alumni to rank on Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits. So hello Jovianeye and Krakatoa :) --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 07:02, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

A Barnstar for You!

		The Minor Barnstar
		In recognition of continued steady work on our chess articles, particularly a large number of minor edits that combine to form a major contribution. RomanSpa (talk) 09:25, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! Krakatoa (talk) 11:23, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

August 2014

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Chess Portal listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Chess Portal. Since you had some involvement with the Chess Portal redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 15:08, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Global account

Hi Krakatoa! As a Steward I'm involved in the upcoming unification of all accounts organized by the Wikimedia Foundation (see m:Single User Login finalisation announcement). By looking at your account, I realized that you don't have a global account yet. In order to secure your name, I recommend you to create such account on your own by submitting your password on Special:MergeAccount and unifying your local accounts. If you have any problems with doing that or further questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Cheers, —DerHexer (Talk) 16:32, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Triple Crown

Five or more years have passed since First-move advantage in chess and George H. D. Gossip were promoted, so it's my pleasure to award this Timeless Triple Crown to Krakatoa. Well done. Freikorp (talk) 06:38, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Chess Curiosities

Hi, if you're having trouble contacting me by email using the in-wiki facility maybe you could just upload the scans of the relevant pages from Chess Curiosities to an image site like imgur.com and give me the link? I have a strong preference for anonymity on wikipedia. MaxBrowne (talk) 09:29, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I am not familiar with that site, but will see what I can do. Krakatoa (talk) 19:02, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Quixotic plea

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Wikipediholism test. Thanks. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 06:34, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Dice chess

Hello, dear Krakatoa, you are at the time wrote an article Dice chess.

In this article you referred to the book: Anne Sunnucks, The Encyclopaedia of Chess.

This book is spoken that "there is evidence from the literature of the period that dice were used to play chess in Europe between the 11th and 14th centuries".

If you do not mind, then please tell me. What sources call Anne Sunnucks on this issue? What is the Latin name of the game Dice chess?

Sorry for my bad English. I live in Russia and speak in Russian. Wlbw68 (talk) 11:10, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Grob's Attack dispute

Hi Krakatoa, there's currently a dispute regarding the Grob's Attack being the worst possible opening move for White: [16]. Since you added the material to the article, can you give more context on what John Watson actually wrote in the book? Banedon (talk) 01:11, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

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Mir Sultan Khan year of birth

A recent edit to Mir Sultan Khan updated his year of birth from 1905 to 1903. My sources give 1905 as his birth year, but no month or day is given so I think it's certainly possible that 1905 isn't correct. The source "CHESS:The Wrath of Khan" is interesting, published last month and written by some of his descendants. I only skimmed the source but I did see one misstatement. "Unfortunately, while many of the players he defeated (including Rubinstein), were posthumously given the title of Grandmaster (a practice that began in 1950)", but of course FIDE has never issued posthumous titles (unless you count the posthumous recognition of Steinitz as the first WC). But FIDE did issue retrospective titles to Rubinstein and others, honoris causa, and since Sultan died in 1966 he should have been recognized. I wholeheartedly agree with the final phrase, and I suspect you do too: "Sultan himself was, rather unfairly, never awarded the title." Quale (talk) 16:30, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Quale. Long time no hear. I just this second took the plastic wrap off a book I received today, "Indian Chessmaster Malik Mir Sultan Khan" by Ulrich Geilmann. It is surprisingly hard to find mention of his birth year in it, but in the Foreword on page 7, Parimarjan Negi says he was born in 1905. Daniel King writes on page 16 of "Sultan Khan: The Indian Servant Who Became Chess Champion of the British Empire," the other book on SK that I have at hand, "The future champion was born into a poor Muslim family in 1905 in a remote part of the Punjab, which was then part of the British Empire." As for "retrospective" titles, it depends what you mean by that word. FIDE in 1950 awarded titles to Rubinstein and other living persons who were no longer active, or no longer playing at top strength, who had been of GM (or IM) strength at their peaks. To my knowledge, FIDE has never awarded a GM or IM title after death: Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, etc. are not GMs by FIDE's lights. As you say, Sultan Khan lived for 16 years after 1950, so FIDE certainly could have awarded him the title. I emphatically agree that it should have done so. Krakatoa (talk) 18:57, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Verb tense in Judit Polgár

Removing "has" in one sentence, did you consider removing the other instance of "has" in the same sentence? Also, there is a similar sentence in the fourth paragraph of the section Judit Polgár#Chess professional. Bruce leverett (talk) 17:04, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Dragoljub Minić date of birth

Hi, Krakatoa. I hope you and your wife are staying safe and healthy during the pandemic.

There is a question about Dragoljub Minić's birthday. You may be able to help resolve this since I noticed that you created the article in 2006, and I know you have a chess library that may be useful. All the dead tree sources I have indicate Minić was born on 5 March 1937, but some online sources at the time of his death in 2005 indicate he was born on 5 April 1936. I lay out everything I was able to find about this at Talk:List of chess grandmasters#Dragoljub Minić birthday. If you know how to resolve this question or have any more data points, any assistance would be appreciated. Quale (talk) 05:00, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Quale. So far we are surviving the pandemic without major incident. I hope you and yours are, as well. I commented about Minić's birthday on the talk page you mentioned. The sources indicating March 5, 1937 are more numerous and more authoritative than the online sources, so I would go with that date. (As I note there, the Oxford Companion to Chess (1st ed.) also says 1937, albeit without an exact date.) Krakatoa (talk) 13:56, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Pawnless chess endgame

In Pawnless chess endgame, about queen versus rook, I think you added a sentence years ago about the 130-page book about this ending. Is this sentence in the right place? That is, is it all about the third-rank defense or queen versus rook in general? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 20:53, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Bubba73. Freeborough's book is about queen versus rook generally, not just the third-rank defense. I accordingly moved the sentence in question, which implied the contrary. Krakatoa (talk) 13:58, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

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Proposed deletion of Carsten Hansen (chess player)

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Question about a source for George H. D. Gossip

Someone posted a question at WT:CHESS#Anyone with access to July 2001 edition of British Chess Magazine about a source used on George H. D. Gossip. Just wanted to make sure you had seen this. Quale (talk) 16:03, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

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FCO to rival MCO

I just removed the mention of FCO as a rival of MCO. Looking at the page history I see you were the one who added the mention of FCO. I respect your judgment on such chess matters above my own, so feel free to revert me if you think my edit was incorrect. I actually wasn't aware of FCO until I read about it in the MCO article. Now that I have a copy of FCO in hand I admire it and am enjoying it a lot, but I don't really see it as the same kind of thing as MCO. I see it as more of a greatly modernized and improved "The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings" than an MCO/NCO/BCO/ECO type of encyclopedia, but I respect any differing opinion about that. Quale (talk) 03:59, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

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File:Gossip's Vest-Pocket Chess Manual.jpg listed for discussion

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