User talk:FrankEldonDixon
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[edit] Notability guidelines for organizations
Hello, Frank--
You created several new pages about organizations. You may want to check out the relevant notability guidelines. Cheers, JChap2007 20:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Golden Gaels
Thanks for the changes in the Golden Gaels article: I didn't modify anything in the first paragraph in my edit, so I missed the capitalization errors that were already there. Also, thanks for fixing my "dcan" typo! - RogueNine
[edit] Edit summary
I have noted that you often edit without an edit summary. Please do your best to always fill in the summary field. This is considered an important guideline in Wikipedia. Even a short summary is better than no summary. An edit summary is even more important if you delete any text; otherwise, people may think you're being sneaky. Also, mentioning one change but not another one can be misleading to someone who finds the other one more important; add "and misc." to cover the other change(s). Thanks! -SpuriousQ 18:35, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Chess biographies
Thanks for your nice work on chess bios. It's much appreciated. 24.177.112.146 07:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] References / Citations
Hi Frank. I really appreciate the excellent work you've done in chess-related articles. But please use citations or references wherever possible, especially for little-known facts (like your recent comment that Botvinnik largely devised the FIDE cycle system), or things that could reasonably be called matters of opinion (like the comments Bronstein's opening repertoire). I can be a hard habit to get into but believe me, it helps in the long run. At least once I've had to go an deleted a "fact" I inserted because I couldn't find the reference. Also there's a lot of "facts" on Wikipedia which are just plain wrong; adding citations helps checkers to verify or ascertain stuff. Rocksong 03:51, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Hello, Rocksong!! I wish I was in Australia right now; it is in the middle of the Canadian winter. Thanks for the kind words; they are appreciated. The information about Botvinnik's influence on the FIDE World Championship cycle design is mostly from Bronstein's book "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". Botvinnik was not only a world-class player, but he was the favourite of the Soviet chess establishment, and he had a huge amount of influence. This became clear from the early 1940s, when Botvinnik played badly in the 1940 Soviet Championship, yet was able to get a new tournament organized for the top players, the 1941 Absolute Championship, which he won. Botvinnik was seen as the best hope to claim the World Championship for the Soviet Union; the world champion at that time, Alexander Alekhine, was of course a renegade Russian of noble background who had fled his homeland for good in 1920 following the revolution. Botvinnik was very privileged during the war, when he was able to play private matches in comfortable conditions far from the front. Of course, he was an engineer, and he contributed his skills to the war effort in that way. Then, when the war finished, Botvinnik was able to go to the first big tournament, at Groningen 1946, along with Smyslov, but Keres was not sent, because of political problems (see the Keres article). Keres might very well have won, had he gone, and hence outshone Botvinnik. Keres was an Estonian, not a Russian. Then, the Soviet Chess Organization joined FIDE in 1947, and almost immediately they were able to impose their program on the other nations. FIDE accepted the Soviet proposal in 1947 (this is noted in the introduction to Botvinnik's book on his best games, volume 2, covering 1947-70; Batsford published it in the early 1970s). The proposal had been largely put together by Botvinnik, who had been frustrated in his own attempts to get a world title match with Alekhine in the early 1940s, because of the war and because of Alekhine's ducking challenges from other players. Botvinnik wanted an established structure, and in fact the FIDE system was a big improvement, since it mandated the champion to face his toughest challenger every three years. Bronstein is actually quite bitter about Botvinnik's influence, and he has some valid points. Bronstein criticizes the holding of the World Championship tournament of 1948 BEFORE the Interzonal of that same year, instead of in the reverse order, since the top players from the 1938 era were seeded in (not Fine, who declined), except for Smyslov, who had become prominent in the meantime. Other top players of 1948, such as Najdorf, Boleslavsky, and Bronstein himself, who had come up in the war years, had to go through the 1948 Interzonal stage, and then the Candidates' tournament of 1950, while Botvinnik, who won the 1948 tournament against a strong but reduced field, composed of players against whom he had substantial experience, was sitting home in Moscow, waiting for his challenger to be determined. Bronstein is almost saying that if he had had a chance in 1948 at the World title, he might have won then, and he has a point, since his style was new, very sharp and tactical, and tough to deal with. The extra time allowed Botvinnik to come to grips with it, and he drew the match in 1951. The point on Bronstein's openings in the 1951 match is also from the introduction to Botvinnik's second book and from Bronstein's own book; Bronstein wrote that he surprised Botvinnik by playing the openings that Botvinnik himself liked to play. This can be a powerful psychological strategy as well, taken up by various strong players throughout chess history. Bronstein changed his repertoire prior to the match, and this threw Botvinnik off; Botvinnik hadn't played competitively for three years since winning in 1948, and he likely prepared for the lines that Bronstein had played earlier. Boleslavsky assisted Bronstein in 1951, as Bronstein writes. Fischer did the same thing prior to his 1972 match with Spassky; he played many variations for the first time in his life, to avoid Spassky's preparation. He won the match convincingly. Cheers from Kingston, Ontario, Canada. FrankEldonDixon 1132 p.m., GMT+5, February 26th, 2007.
- Thanks for all that! But I hope you haven't misunderstood me: what you should do is insert references (Bronstein's book or whatever) in the article itself. Note that, although most Wikipedia references are to web pages, references to archaic things like books are OK too. e.g. there are a few in Comparing top chess players throughout history. Rocksong 11:23, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Origins of GM Title
In the Salo Flohr article, you say FIDE first awarded GM titles in 1949, not 1950. I assume you're using a source for that... if so, would you be able to correct the information at Grandmaster (chess)? (citing your source, of course). Rocksong 03:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
The 1949 date is given in Bronstein's book in an article there by Smyslov, who was one of the first recipients of the GM title at that time. I could check the FIDE history at their site, to see if I can confirm it. User:FrankEldonDixon, 5 March 2007, 10:46 p.m., GMT + 5
Let's stay with 1950 as the official year of the introduction of FIDE GM titles. I examined a number of sites on the web, which all said 1950. The FIDE site itself doesn't have the information, at least not that I could find. It may be that Smyslov is wrong. In any case, it really isn't that significant, one year or the other. If we stay with 1950, then that avoids a lot of changes to other articles. Perhaps someone else will comprehensively prove 1949, so let's wait for that. User:FrankEldonDixon, 5 March 2007, 11:40 p.m., GMT + 5
