User talk:Brittle heaven

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[edit] Welcome

Welcome!

Hello Brittle heaven, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please [[Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages|sign your name]] on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome!  --Gurubrahma 06:32, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

Updated DYK query Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Wolfgang Uhlmann, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--Gurubrahma 06:32, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Minor edit

Hello. I noticed your edit to the page List of strong chess tournaments, which was marked as a minor edit. You may wish to review Help:Minor edit; most people only use the "minor edit" feature to mark edits which do not change the meaning of a page (but only formatting). —ptk✰fgs 19:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mikhail Botvinnik

I agree that there are too many images on Mikhail Botvinnik, but the one you removed is the most famous one of him. I think that one should stay. Bubba73 (talk), 01:37, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please expand

I saw that you have plenty of contributions to the chess articles. Can you also expand and edit the article Rogelio Antonio Jr.. Thanks!!!

[edit] Furman

Hello. We have two articles about Semen Furman: Semen Furman and Semion Furman. Hope you can repair that situation. Regards pjahr 19:22, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hello

Just a social call. Thanks for adding my missing parenthesis to Klaus Darga. Nice to meet another chess-playing British Wikipedian :-) I touched Harriet Hunt 'in the corridoor' once, at the Portsmouth Congress. I also saw James Sherwin's winkie. Shall I add these two facts to the articles? Hmmm? :-) Joistmonkey 15:41, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

— You mean you touched her a full four or five years before I did? You have sullied my happy memories now. Thinking back though, not only did I touch her in the corridoor, but it was between the legs (the 2nd and 3rd legs of the top grouping at the Portsmouth Congress) as well. Still, if you stroked her somewhere near Sherwood Forest, when she was just nineteen...

... As for Sherwin, I think he was trying to psych me out (as I had been doing to my opponants in the tournamant by reading - what turned out to be - a 'gay porn novel' between moves). Either that or he was just taking a whizz. (n.b. for legal purposes, I must clarify that 'whizz' in this case DOES NOT refer to the drug 'speed'. Mr Sherwin was not trying to gain an unfair advantage). Joistmonkey 08:20, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anna Hahn (chess player)

It would have been better to move the page rather than doing a copy and paste rename, and easier too, since the move creates the redirect for you. The most important reason to move rather than copy and paste is that history gets moved if you do it right, and it doesn't after copy and paste. Also right now the project templates on the old Talk:Anna Hahn (chess) page are broken because the talk page didn't get moved with the article, as it should have. See WP:CPMV. Quale 05:30, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

  • You're right that it's hardly a tragedy, and the history is still pretty readily available. It becomes more of a bother if the original article was Anna Hahn as a chess player then later turned into a disambig or used for someone else, as the history is harder to untangle then. I didn't create an account here until 2005 and I think that the Move function existed then, although I'm not sure. I'm just trying to get used to using {{DEFAULTSORT:xxxxx}}.... Quale 00:26, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of chess players

Hi Brittle heaven ! In my opinion, the List of chess players ought to contain only players whose biographies appear in the Wikipedia (English version). It would make sense from merit and esthetic points of view. By the way, until now there are only 10 "potential" players to eliminate. Best wishes, Mibelz 9:50, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiproject chess

Hi, I have noticed you have done tremendous work on chess related articles. Could I invite you to join Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess? On the talk page Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chess we discuss issues relating to the overall consistency of chess related articles (for example a few days ago someone suggested the idea of an infobox for chess openings). Recently we set up a page Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chess/Review discussing the upgrade of chess articles to A-status. Also here we could use extra manpower. In any case keep up the good work! Voorlandt 10:10, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi! I replied to your question on my talk page.Voorlandt 20:23, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unspecified source for commons:Image:RustamKasimdzhanov.jpg

Thanks for uploading commons:Image:RustamKasimdzhanov.jpg. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, then you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, then a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a restatement of that website's terms of use of its content, is usually sufficient information. However, if the copyright holder is different from the website's publisher, then their copyright should also be acknowledged.

As well as adding the source, please add a proper copyright licensing tag if the file doesn't have one already. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the {{GFDL-self}} tag can be used to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Fair use, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair use. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If the image is copyrighted under a non-free license (per Wikipedia:Fair use) then the image will be deleted 48 hours after 08:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC). If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Conscious 08:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair-use images

WP:FU prohibits us from using a fair-use image solely to depict a living person even if you cannot find a freely-licensed replacement. --Yamla 23:52, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Győző Forintos

Hi. You added The Oxford Companion to Chess as a reference to the Győző Forintos page [1]. I think I have the edition of the Oxford Companion to which you refer (the 1996 pbk reprinting of the 1992 2d ed), but I can't find an entry for Forintos and no page number is given. The second edition dropped some bios from the first ed. Could you check this and either add a page number or correct the edition information if it is from the 1st ed.? Thanks. Quale 06:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  • It's a good thing you have the original version. I think maybe as many as 200 bios were dropped, so you have access to information that those of us who have the 2d ed. don't have. Quale 14:56, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anne Sunnucks

My 1970 edition (587 pages) has Sunnucks as the British Woman Champion in 1965 on page vii, but 1964 on page 447. It's a shame that it isn't a fully trustworthy source (your query made me double check that I didn't put 1965 in Anne Sunnucks), as it's difficult to find good sources for chess history. I don't think I've ever used it as a sole source for any important claims, but clearly I should be careful.

There is apparently a 2d edition from 1976 that's a little longer (619 pages). I don't know if it has corrections or significant updates I haven't seen it for sale for (what I consider to be) a reasonable price. Here's the info on the two editions and the UK printing from the U.S. Library of Congress:

LC Control No.:       78106371 
Personal Name:     Sunnucks, Anne, 1927- 
Main Title:        The encyclopaedia of chess. Compiled by Anne Sunnucks, with
                     contributions from M. Euwe [and others]
Published/Created: New York, St. Martin's Press [1970]
Description:       xv, 587 p. illus., ports. 24 cm.
================================================================================
LC Control No.:       76021149 
Personal Name:     Sunnucks, Anne, 1927- 
Main Title:        The encyclopaedia of chess / compiled by Anne Sunnucks ;
                     with contributions from M. Euwe ... [et al.].
Edition Information:  2nd ed.
Published/Created: London : Hale ; New York : St. Martin's Press, 1976.
Description:       619 p., [16] p. of plates : ill., facsims., ports. ; 24 cm.
ISBN:              0709146973 :
================================================================================
LC Control No.:       73499956 
Personal Name:     Sunnucks, Anne, 1927- 
Main Title:        The encyclopedia of chess. Compiled by Anne Sunnucks, with
                     contributions from M. Euwe [and others]
Published/Created: London, Hale, 1970.
Description:       xv, 587 p., 16 plates. illus., ports. 24 cm.
ISBN:              0709110308

It looks like I have the first of these and you the last. (At least the UK printing has an ISBN—the New York:St. Martin's Press printing is identified only by LCCN, both by the Library of Congress and on the book itself.) Unfortunately I'm not very close to Washington, D.C. There's a good college library only minutes from where I live, but it only has the same 1st edition that I have. Quale 00:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

  • I was fortunate to stumble across a copy of Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess at a local used bookstore. I think it's pretty good, and definitely worthwhile for anyone interested in chess history, although I think Edward G. Winter is critical of it. Unfortunately it only takes us up to 1977 or so. Nathan Divinsky has a newer chess encyclopedia that I've never seen, but Winter really doesn't like it at all. Quale 01:58, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Winter harshly criticizes almost everything, and his criticisms can verge into the nearly trivial at times. Still, I've never seen anyone question his scholarship (although his close relationship with Capablanca's widow makes me not sure he's always entirely objective when discussing the Cuban champion), and there is a lot of bad chess writing out there, especially anecdotal "histories". Calvin Olson's The Chess Kings seems to be a very careful and scholarly account of chess champions up to 1940, and it has a very nice annotated bibliography. I intend to use it as a source to do something about wikipedia's complete lack of any account of championship chess before 1963. I agree with you—I think wikipedia could become the most encyclopedic source for chess history, but it will take a few more years of work before we get there. I think that is an excellent goal to aspire to. Quale 18:11, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hungarian Chess Championship

Hi! It is a problem with actual numbers of Hungarian championships. Of course, the history does not begin in 1945. Best wishes. Mibelz 18:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

The case of Yugoslav Chess Championship is perhaps a good example of such a problem, which has been solved by Ikaria. Best wishes, Mibelz 19:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] European Junior Championship

Hi, I have created an article on the European Youth Chess Championship and European Junior Championship (same link, but I probably split the article in two once i am done with it).

From having a look at the articles of the winners of the European Junior Championship, I think you might have a very good source on it. The data in those articles are remarkably accurate. I used as source mainly the german wikipedia, which took it from the 2007 manual of chess by the ECU. However, as I started to discover, the ECU made a lot of mistakes. I have tried to correct them using the tournament finder of scid/chessdb. Now, I think I got most of it right now, but if you have a good source, would you mind checking that table? For clarity, I am talking just about the Junior Championship, not the Youth Chess one. Thanks in advance Voorlandt 21:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your quick reply! It is nice to have this list double checked and to have some more context. I have incorporated all what you said and moved it into its own article European Junior Chess Championship. Now all the winners need to be linked back to that article and we are done. Voorlandt 07:24, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bukhuti Gurgenidze

Thanks for fixing my botched spellings of Tbilisi and Olomouc. I should be more careful. If I had tried to link them, that would also have tipped me off. Quale 02:25, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edgar Allan Poe and Chess

Hi! Would be so kind to answer Midnightdreary on the "Famous people who were/are avid chess players - The people in this list are famous in other areas of activity, but are known to have played chess or maintain a current interest in chess." (List of chess players, see: History). He demurs at Poe as an avid player.

I wrote: "Hi! There is an article on E. A. Poe in a Polish chess encyclopedia - Litmanowicz, Władysław & Giżycki, Jerzy (1986, 1987). Szachy od A do Z. Wydawnictwo Sport i Turystyka Warszawa. ISBN 83-217-2481-7 (1. A-M), ISBN 83-217-2745-x (2. N-Z), pages 923-924. 1. "Zabójstwo przy ulicy Morgue" (checkers and chess) 2. "Maelzel's Chess Player" ("The Southern Literatury Messenger", April 1836) - see, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk Best wishes, Mibelz 18:28, 27 October 2007 (UTC)"

He wrote: "Hi! I'm fairly well aware of Poe's "Maelzel's Chess Player" but I still don't see evidence that he should be included on a list of "avid" chess players. Just because he wrote an article on hot air balloons, for example, doesn't make him a balloon expert. Unless I see a source that says explicitly that he not only played chess, but that he was an avid player, it just doesn't seem like an appropriate listing. Thanks! --Midnightdreary 15:46, 28 October 2007 (UTC)"

Best wishes, Mibelz 16:50, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] from Voorlandt

Thanks a lot for your kind words! Would be great if you could correct the lead of the Hungarian Chess Championship, perhaps also include something on the super championships (see talk page). I agree with the post war hypothesis on the numbering. On the golden book: I emailed Iclicki more than a month ago (iclicki@netvision.net.il), he has not yet responded -- maybe my email was a bit short. I am very curious whether your efforts will be successful. Richard Foster told me that the book contains a lot of mistakes, but is still very useful. On another topic, do you have any news on the missing years from the World Youth Chess Championship? I haven't raised the topic on the Wikiproject chess talk page, but there is another similar article which also has winners missing; that is the European Junior Chess Championship. Do you have any info here? All the best Voorlandt 20:35, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Re: Hi!, Hmmm the TWIC numbering is indeed puzzling (that is 49th = 1999); I suspect it is wrong. I converted the image that IM Gyula Fehér send me into text using OCR software, here it is (as you can see the conversion isnt 100% correct, but at least it shows you some more detail). The original looks very neat, and I cant imagine he made that especially for me; so I suspect it is a copy from a page of his magazine.

MAGYAR FËRFI EGYENI BAJNOKSAGOK 1991-töl                                                                   
num.    year    site            part    avrrat  winner          p       2nd                     3rd                  p.
42      1991    Budapest        10      2530    Polgarjudit     6       Adorjan Andras  5'/2    S as Gyula                     S1/;
43      1992    Budapest        12      2504    Adorjan Andras  T/2     CsernyinAlekszandr      6'/2    Horvathjózsef           6VS
44      1993    Gyula           12      2511    Adorjan Andras  71                      
45      1995    Budapest        12      2491    Horvath Csaba   TA      GrószpéterAttila        6l/2    Horvathjózsef             6
46      1995    Budapest        10      2520    Almasi Soltan   61/2    Gyimesi Zoltan          51/2 Tolnai Tibor 5
47      1996    Budapest        11      2474    Varga Zoltan    6       Horvath Csaba   6       Lukacs Peter                 6
48      1997    Budapest        5       2610    AlmasiZoltan    5       CsernyinAlekszandr4     Lékó Peter                     4
49      1998    Budapest        128             Horvath Csaba           Ruck Róbert             IzsakGy.-FaragóI.
50      1999    LiUafüred       10      2551    Almasi Zoltan   6       S as Gyula      S1/!    Varga Zoltan               S1/;
51      2000    Budapest        128             AlmasiZoltan            Gyimesi Zoltan          CsernyinAlekszandr
52      2002    Balatonlelle    12      2537    Ruck Róbert             Acs Peter               Cao Sang
53      2003    Hévfz           10      2565    Almasi Zoltan   7       Ruck Róbert     S1/!    Portisch Lajos             S1/;
54      2004    Budapest        10              Berkes Ferenc 6         Gyimesi Zoltan  S1/!    Almasi Zoltan             S1/;
55      2005    Kazincbarcika   10      2553    Gyimesi Zoltan  6       AlmasiZoltan    6       Ruck Róbert               4V4

In his email he also writes: Championship was organinzed k.o. system in 1998 and 2000 (and will this year). Hungarian Championship (with number) no was organized in 2001.

Note that I have no information inbetween 1962(2)= 21th and 1991=42th (those two are 100% confirmed). In particular I haven't got confirmed that there was no championship in 1990 (he seems very busy, so maybe he will come back to me about that one). In conclusion: it all depends who you believe TWIC (Zoltan Blazsik) or Gyula Fehér!Voorlandt 10:23, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] William Watson (chess player)

I just put a fact tag on William Watson (chess player). I think you added that great bit from Spassky. Since you added it I know it's true, but it would be best to have a reference because of WP:BLP and general Wikipedia principles. (I know you know this, but I didn't want you to think I was challenging the accuracy of your contribution.) Quale (talk) 16:04, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Super, thanks. I understand that including refs isn't always the most fun part of editing, but it can be a problem for material that might readily be questioned. I can also understand your reluctance to include colorful (in this case I should write colourful) material in articles, but I think that would be a shame. It's easy to write overly dry articles—for an examples, just look at any of my contributions. I welcome addition of humorous and colorful details in articles if they are referenced, although I share your concern that many colorful anecdotes are embellished or simply made up. This is a problem in chess history, because many of the great chess stories and anecdotes can be referenced but simply aren't true. Some take this very seriously (William Winter), many don't (Horowitz, Soltis, ...). Specifically concerning Spassky's amusing characterization of Watson: I don't consider it an insult and I'm sure it was never intended as an insult (it's really a compliment), but as you point out, a random reader might not understand that. I had not heard of it and my quick googling wasn't enough to find a ref, so I thought I'd ask. Quale (talk) 00:03, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Frank Parr

Your comment induced me to create a brief article for Frank Parr. My sources of information about him were very limited. If you know more, you might be able to improve the article. Quale (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 05:20, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

i added an image to Frank Parr and created an article on Nikola Bochev Padevsky to help out with your Bulgarian Chess thing. You may want to tag it or add categories etc. Have a nice christmas! ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ Talk? 17:07, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I met Frank Parr several times and remember playing in the same competition as him at Paignton Chess Congress. I also have a contact that played him years ago(1950 time??) in the British Chess Championship. If there is any specific question I might be able to find out. ChessCreator (talk) 00:45, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World

You've reverted my change and restored in the article the text "the USSR had raised standards to a level that other nations could only aspire to. Aside from the brief intervention of Max Euwe, they had produced an uninterrupted line of world champions stretching from 1927 to 1970", claiming in edit summary that Alekhine "certainly was a product of the USSR; born in Moscow, taught by mother, modelled on Chigorin and 28 before he emigrated". That's mistaken: 1. USSR and Russian Empire aren't synonymous. 2. A. emigrated in 1921; USSR was founded in 1922. 3. A. was one of the strongest players in the world already by 1914. 89.201.57.201 (talk) 20:51, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Thanks Brittle heaven for letting me know that characterization of Russian vs. Soviet was a point of discussion. I respect your work on wikipedia and I hope my edit didn't seem harsh or dismissive. This explanation is directed to the anon who commented about Alekhine's Russian roots rather than being aimed at you. It is true that Alekhine can be reasonably considered Russian, but this doesn't have anything to do with Soviet dominance of chess for much of the 20th century. Chigorin and Alekhine didn't represent Russian dominance in chess, full stop. Really there's nothing else to discuss here, as I think the anon's complaint is based on a misreading of the text. The string of world champions is just an example of the dominance of the Soviets, not proof of it. One great player (Chigorin) and one world champion (Alekhine) doesn't make a nation dominant. It wasn't seen that way at the time and it still isn't now. Many people didn't even think Alekhine was the best chess player when he was world champion. Although he had a splendid string of tournament victories he spent most of his time as world champion dodging a rematch with Capablanca, which many people though Capablanca might well win. When Alekhine was alive, the Soviets basically disowned him. Alekhine declined to return to Russia, and later the Soviets challenged him to a match with Botvinnik. It wasn't until 25 or so years later long after Alekhine's death that Averbakh claimed a rehabilitated Alekhine was one of the founders of the Soviet School of chess. This was (and is) pure historical revisionism. In any case, the Soviets weren't recognized as dominant in world chess until they crushed the U.S. team in the 1945 radio match. It's sometimes hard to believe now, but the U.S. team was extremely confident that it would win that match easily and it was a tremendous shock when the Soviets crushed them. It's clear that the Soviet Union became the strongest chess nation sometime during WW II. I don't think there's any way to know precisely when the Soviets surpassed the rest of the world in chess, but it was no earlier than 1939, more than 20 years after the Russian Revolution. This is clearly Soviet dominance, not Russian dominance, and to say otherwise would just be wrong. Quale (talk) 18:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Happy new year

I have added an image to Akiba Rubinstein; this one was easy, as it was on commons. Btw, I like the idea very much of having a list of pictures to find. Perhaps we can copy the list from talk to main WP:Chess? That way, people keep getting reminded. One player that really needs a good picture is Bobby Fischer. Happy new year! Voorlandt (talk) 11:08, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok and a little more work, I have uploaded and added a picture to Richard Réti. I hope it will not get deleted though. The license is a bit dodgy :) Voorlandt (talk) 11:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] World Junior Chess Championship

Thanks for adding the notes that give a brief description of some of the individual tournaments. I think you commented to Voorlandt that the notes are brief (probably concerning the similar work you've done on World Youth Chess Championship), but I think they are exactly right. We probably don't want a really long discussion of each individual year, but brief notes are perfect. I want to do the same for other tournament pages as practical. Quale (talk) 00:39, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I would like to second this. Great job on the championships! Also kudos on the new photos. Voorlandt (talk) 20:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] YYYY in chess

Thanks for the kind words. Feel free to dive in anywhere you like, if you care to. I've been putting a lot of work into these in the last few days, but a little fatigue has set in and my rate of progress has already slowed considerably just half way through 2007, nowhere near pre-TWIC years. It's fun for a while, but gets somewhat tedious. I actually think that so far I have relied far too much on TWIC (and to a lesser extent ChessBase News)–a greater variety of sources would be better, even for recent years. I agree that there won't be nearly as much detail available past the last decade or so, which is a shame, but I think we can do a fair job just summarizing Chess Life and BCM. If you have old issues of New In Chess, so much the better. About the level of detail, I think in a certain way there's already too much. I don't think the Events section should be trimmed. The month-to-month detail is nice, and if anything even more could be put in. (Although I have included all the national championships I could find, I have passed over some strong tournaments. It wouldn't be unreasonable to include all tournaments category 15 and above, for instance.) On the other hand, sometimes just the true highlights are wanted. Maybe we should have a summary section at the top of the article of just the very most important news (world championships, top 3 to 5 tournaments of the year). I absolutely agree that photos and diagrams would be great additions. Articles with a little bit of color and art are a lot more appealing. Right now 2007 in chess suffers a bit from being an uninviting wall of text, and it will only get worse if July through December are filled in the same way. Make any improvements that you see, as I'm not set on the current format. I was wondering if some of the prose wouldn't be better as small tables, for instance, a table with the ratings of the top 10 players would be more concise and readable than the dry prose I put in. I wasn't sure how to include a table without kind of messing up the brief item format of that section, but maybe if the table were small and floated to the right ... Wikipedia gives a great opportunity to experiment with different layouts and organizations, and I think if anything we tend to let articles ossify a bit too much after they are started. Although I hate to see a good article made worse, I think that the suggestion made on the Talk page to shake up chess might have lead to something interesting. There's a category searching tool that's a godsend for the Deaths section (and eventually Births once we get back to 1985 or so). There are probably other ways to get this info from the births and deaths categories, but I found this very helpful: http://tools.wikimedia.de/%7Edaniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php. It's broken right now but it was working well earlier. I used it to put deaths in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 before starting the rest of those articles. Quale (talk) 12:10, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] William Fairhurst

That's a very nice, well written article. It's the best new chess bio I've seen recently. Quale (talk) 08:00, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

  • The 2nd edition (1992) of Hooper & Whyld appears to have even fewer biographies than the 1984 edition. It's supposedly greatly expanded, but apparently some of that expansion came at the cost of some biographies. Really what would have been great would be a two volume Chess Companion: one volume with only bios, and a second volume with everything else. Quale (talk) 05:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Croatian Chess Championship

Hi, Thanks for adding the 2003 winner. I presume you used this link [2]. However, here not all games are listed. For instance Fercec, Nenad is listed with 6/8, which could mean he was the actual winner. Do you know what it means if FIDE doesn't have complete records? The wikipedia site [3] does agree with zelcic as 2003 winner. On the other hand this website says he won the 1998 edition and the otvorenim prvenstvima 1996. i 2003, which means something like the open championship of 1996 and 2003. If he won the closed section, I wonder why they don't mention it. Or maybe some editions are open, some are closed? A lot of questions :). Anyway, it is just that I don't trust FIDE very much. Thanks a lot for adding the venues; I'll have a look through the other TWIC issues for the remaining ones. Regards Voorlandt (talk) 20:32, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your reply! For translation, I normally use google translation, bablefish and for the more exotic language intertran. In this case I also used translationbooth. They translate the sentence as and the at an open-loop primary 1996 and 2003 intertran gives: plus at an unreserved legitimate 1996 plus 2003.You are probably right that it doesn't matter whether it was open or closed. I also did spend a lot of time trying to track down a complete list (before creating the article). The usually way I find complete lists is entering in the google search box some winners together with a bunch of dates like 1999 2000 2001 2002. Anyway the closest I got was hr.wikipedia site. On a positive note, I just had a look for the women winners and found a complete list: [4]; I'll add it later. There were also championships before Croatia's independence. Would be nice to have a complete list there, and split it up like in the Slovenian Chess Championship. Anyway, only 4 winners left, should be doable. Thanks again for your work at Euro/World Junior/Youth Championship! I have a question, do you think the information on the start of the Youth Championships would be answered in the bound volumes of the British Chess Magazine? The years 1979-1985 might have the answer. The bound volumes are not that expensive, so I might end up buying them. Voorlandt (talk) 22:31, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Btw, I think we have come a long way with the national championships, and many pages are complete now. One page I would like to see completed is the Belarusian Chess Championship. Again, a complete women's winners list is available [5], but I didn't find such a list for the men's champions. Another championship which proves elusive is the Portuguese championship (literally I have only found a handful of champions); I posted a question on the portuguese wikiproject chess, but so far no replies [6]. What we could do, maybe not now, but in a few years time, is to compile a list of 100 top wanted chess questions, and perhaps some chess website would be so kind enough to publish it. Voorlandt (talk) 23:05, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you so much for the info, I really appreciate it! Just a quick reply on the golden book: you are right, I never got a reply from Iclicki. It would be great if you could write Stewart Reuben. Regards, Voorlandt (talk) 19:55, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Zealand Chess Championship

Thanks for looking up all these first names. I will have a look at your comments/concerns when I have time later this week. I will add the remaining first names (only a few left and all recent players, so shouldn't be a problem to find them online) and remove the (2nd), (3rd), (4th) stuff, unless you object. Regards Voorlandt (talk) 22:16, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 1999 in chess

Thanks, looks good to me. I had imagined that the year articles would contain more detail, and much of that detail wouldn't be in any other articles. It would be a shame to lose something like the January 11, 2007 entry, an item that I think really needs a date and probably doesn't really fit in any other article in Wikipedia. (It doesn't merit a mention at Anatoly Karpov, and probably not even at Nigel Short. The ice chess match was part of the Russian Winter Festival or something like that, but I doubt we have an article on that event.) On the other hand, the day to day detail makes it too hard to get the overall picture, can be tedious to read and is certainly tedious to write and source. An anon enhanced the presentation a little by bolding the most important events. This helps, but probably a redesign along the lines you propose is needed. You should move your 1999 article out of the sandbox and put it in article space. I suspect that your format which is certainly friendlier for the reader will also be friendlier for editors, and is more likely to attract contributions. We can still experiment with this. What will 1922 in chess look like? I suspect that it will be a lot more like User:Brittle heaven/Sandbox than 2007 in chess. Quale (talk) 05:05, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

... for leaving a kind message on my German talk page. I'll do my best :-) Regards, Stefan64 (talk) 23:42, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] AfD nomination of 1998 in chess

I have nominated 1998 in chess, an article you created, for deletion. I do not feel that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1998 in chess. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time. Fritzpoll (talk) 12:42, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 1997 in chess

These keep looking great, really good work. A formatting suggestion: the WP:MOS discourages linking in headers (because the blue links are unattractive in section headers), "FIDE top 10 players by Elo rating - January 1997" is an ungainly section title which will change every year, and as a minor style point it's better to have some prose after a section heading before a list or table (although I violate that all the time). How about titling the section "Top players", and then make the first sentence "FIDE top ten players by Elo rating, January 1997:"? Quale (talk) 17:06, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

  • The category intersection tool is pretty neat. Eventually it will help in finding birthdays as well, possibly starting as recently as 1995. I'll take a look at the deaths entries from Burgess and Wall that we don't have articles for to see what I can find. The "by year" articles are hard work, but the good news is that the hardest part is getting them started. Once the skeleton and most important entries are in place, they can be expanded leisurely simply by adding individual items. I hope that the US/UK bias can be lessened too. I think there's a good chance that these articles will get some contributors once we have a few more years in place. Also it might help to rearrange the 2007 and 2008 articles to be organized more like your pages. It's relatively easy to add individual items to 2008 as the year goes along, but the detail of the page may scare some potential contributors away. Unfortunately when we don't have Burgess to draw on it's harder to decide the very most important items for a year since we have WP:NOR to contend with. It becomes easier the farther we go into the past as most of those pages will be shorter anyway. (Many fewer events and less accessible coverage.) Quale (talk) 18:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Genrikh Gasparyan

I support that move. I know almost nothing about chess problems or problemists, but Kasparian is famous enough that even I am familiar with the name. I suspect that a move might meet with resistance from some Armenian editors who consider the Russified transliteration of Armenian names to be insulting. I'm sympathetic to this, but I think that wikipedia isn't the right place to wage that fight. In this area wikipedia should follow what the rest of the English speaking and writing world does, not try to lead it. The article itself admits that outside Russia he's known as Kasparian/Kasparyan. English wikipedia is outside Armenia. Inside Armenia has http://hy.wikipedia.org, which might not even have an article on Gasparyan yet. These sorts of issues are annoying, and I'm getting fatigued by the fights at Talk:English Defense and Preston Ware, and past struggles at Arpad Elo and Pal Benko. While I welcome friendly competition of ideas to foster improvement, I prefer collaboration to conflict. Despite my general grouchiness on these points I feel like avoiding controversy for a while and just working on improving chess articles. Quale (talk) 11:53, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template:year nav topic

I knew there must be a suitable template we could use somewhere, so it was just a matter of poking around until I found one. The template seems a little odd to me, since I don't really get the point of List of years in chess and Table of years in chess (both redlinks in the template), but List of years in music and Table of years in music provide examples of what another (much larger) wikiproject has done. Quale (talk) 22:41, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vladimir Liberzon

Our page on Vladimir Liberzon says he died in 1996, but this is unreferenced (see Talk:Vladimir Liberzon for details). I notice that you didn't put him on 1996 in chess#Deaths, which suggests that Burgess didn't list him. (He was still in Category:Living people instead of Category:1996 deaths so he wouldn't have shown up in your CatScan.) Unfortunately this isn't enough to know even if Liberzon is actually deceased, let alone the date. Any ideas? Quale (talk) 03:44, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Thanks. If several people thought he was alive in 2006 then it's unlikely that he died in 1996. Since the edit was by an anon, I'm going to exhume him and put the article back in Category:Living people. Quale (talk) 10:58, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Forgot to mention that this sort of thing comes up every once in a while. There were two cases in 2005 that eventually were resolved with the assistance of a Bulgarian speaker (Talk:Georgi Tringov and Talk:Milko Bobotsov). We might need someone who can read Hebrew to help us lay this one to rest. Quale (talk) 11:10, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Forgot one final thing: I can't find Liberzon on the FIDE website (http://www.fide.com/ratings/seek.phtml?idcode=&name=liberzon&offset=0) which suggests that he may be deceased, but that sort of negative evidence isn't reliable enough to go on. Quale (talk) 11:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Hmm. Gaige indicates that BCM is the best source for chess obits in English and he relies on it heavily. I don't have any BCM issues, and the libraries near me aren't any help either. (The local university library has some old BCM, but only until about 1910. That might be great for some uses, but not so helpful here.) If they offered scans of old issues on CD or DVD for a reasonable price I'd considering buying them, but I'm not aware of these being available. Quale (talk) 11:30, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
  • BCM is a good source, they used to try selling off back issue years cheaply, that may still happen, although I've not read a copy for many years to know. If you are very keen then perhaps contact BCM and ask. They will likely be able to answer about Vladimir Liberzon by email. Website: http://www.bcmchess.co.uk/. ChessCreator (talk) 14:05, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] William Fairhurst

Hello! You mention that "A gifted blindfold player, he held a twelve-board simultaneous blindfold exhibition in 1932 at the Glasgow Polytechnic Club, winning nine games and drawing three; this was also the year that he was awarded his International Master title." You are probably aware that the title did not exist before 1950 so I do not think that this detail could be correct. Could you please check? By the way - as a Hebrew speaker I promised to look into the death of Liberzon (I know that he passed away some 10-12 years ago and I will check the specific date). --Niemzowitsch (talk) 13:49, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I found the correct date - it was 1953 : [7] --Niemzowitsch (talk) 14:14, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

IM year – sorry, you're right. Somehow I missed your message. It would be nice to think that it was because I had two edits to my talk page near the same time, but in any case I should have spotted it. I'll look into fixing up the reference. Thanks for pointing that out. Quale (talk) 02:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Erich Gottlieb Eliskases

I read in the article Erich Gottlieb Eliskases "He played under the German flag at the 1939 Buenos Aires Olympiad and this coincided with the outbreak of World War II, when Eliskases (along with many other players) decided to stay in Argentina (and for a while in Brazil) rather than return to the scene of the conflict. This, of course, incurred the displeasure of the nazi party and the wrath of the Brazilian authorities, whom had severed all links with the Germans."

I find that the last part is not logical: why should it incur the wrath of the Brazilian authorities, whom had severed all links with the Germans? Could you please add the reference to this? --Niemzowitsch (talk) 04:51, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] World Youth Championship

Hi! Thanks for the great work you are doing on this championship. A couple of weeks ago I bought the BCM 1984-1987 bound volumes. They are beautiful works, packed full of information, but unfortunately, I couldn't find anything from the Youth Championships. I will search again when I have more time. For now it seems that the magazine Chess is the best resource. Do you have the volumes from 1984-1987? If not, I might try to buy them. I posted some comments on the U16 vs cadets on the WYCC page. Including a link to this pretty picture [8]. It is amazing how hard it is to find information on world championship tournaments, played less than 30 years ago! Voorlandt (talk) 16:17, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much for pointing this out! I had a really good laugh. Perhaps Ignatius could add a few lines asking readers for additions/corrections on that history section. I will write to him. He should also be able to tell when FIDE first recognised these championships. This already would be nice info to have. All the best, Voorlandt (talk) 17:56, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ernő Gereben

Does the BCM obit from July 1988 include date or place of death? Currently all we have is 1988 and Switzerland. That may be all that is known since that's all that http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=10685 has as well. Quale (talk) 06:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Thanks, checking Winter is a good idea, maybe I'll give it a try later. You and Voorlandt are doing a remarkable job of research on World Youth Chess Championship. I would like to help but I've stayed out of it as I don't have any references at hand that would help. The page is already the best available single source for results of these tournaments. Quale (talk) 07:06, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More mud in the water

Thanks a lot for your comments, you found a lot of useful information The most sensible thing to me seems to put the cadets (1974-1980) in a different section, and not as a subsection of the U16. Then for each year, add the age limit (I am pretty hopeful this is doable with the information you have and what we found online, it will just be a matter of looking up the players). Now for the mud:

From BCM No 6,Vol 104,1984. A huge festival at Champigny sur Marne near Paris,1-14 April, had a number of junior events on the program.:

  • World Cadet Championship (U-17), 42 players, 11 rounds, won by Alexei Dreyev (USSR) 81/2 ahead of J.Piket etc......
  • Girls World Cadet Championship had 24 players for 11 rounds. The title went to the Hungarian girl Ildiko Madl who finished on 8 points...
  • The international U-17 event was a Swiss of 9 rounds for 18 players. Angus Dunnignton scored 7 to share first place with West German O. Schulte, but the Yorkshire player was placed second on tie-break.

Perhaps because it was played in France the U17 cadet was revived for just that one year? Note that all other sources say 1984 Alexey Dreev was U16. If not, this really messes things up! Voorlandt (talk) 20:41, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the info. It seems that the wikipedia article is getting pretty complete. Would be nice to have good picture though. I wrote to the author of the article that has this nice photo of Bucaramanga 1983. Perhaps, if he answers, I can ask him to upload the photo on wikipedia. Some comments:
  • 1983 U16; Mexico 1-2 F.Khasanova USSR, Arbunic CHI. Khasanova was born Jan-23-1964 and therefore about 19. Most likely the author confused this championship with the World Junior Chess Championship played in 1983 which Khasanova won (and which was played in Mexico City).
  • Quite a while ago, I asked Richard Forster on info on the WYCC. Among other things he writes: The Fide Golden book has a reference to those Girls' Championships in the 1920s and 1930s: "Shortly after its foundation FIDE sponsored the FIDE Girls' Open Chess Championship, but the pre.war entry was almost entirely British." Then events from 1926 to 1936 are listed, all taking place in London. The winners were V. Menchik (26+27), R. Gregory (28-30), H. Bullen (31-33), M. Ballard (34), R. Dew (35) and E. Saunders (36-37). It's not clear whether it means there was an event each year or whether when multiple years are listed, those persons were simply the "reigning" champions. He also says: 'Just keep in mind that the book is riddled with errors - hardly a page without.' Do you know the age category of these championships?
  • I think to complete the article (and to clear out the conflicts), the best we can do is write to different people. And once we have a picture and notes for every edition, I think the WYCC will be a very nice article. Fortunately, with wikipedia, there is no time rush. Regards, Voorlandt (talk) 17:03, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stoltz - Spielmann

I found mention of the Stoltz–Spielmann match in Chess Review, April 1933, p. 3. "Rudolf Spielmann the Austrian master, had an extended tour in Sweden recently. During his stay he contested several matches with the younger Swedish experts, with varying success...." It goes on to say that Spielmann beat Stoltz 4½–1½, then lost to Erik Lundin 3½–2½, and then lost to Gideon Stahlberg 5–3. Unfortunately it doesn't say exactly when these matches occurred, so either late 1932 or early 1933 is possible, and the matches may even have spanned both years. As you note, Gösta Stoltz says a Spielmann match happened in 1930 with a different score. This needs some investigation and confirmation.

This site has some results for 1932 and 1933 that partially match what we are looking for. (Single games are given in what are described as matches.) It also has more complete results for a Spielmann–Eliskases match in 1932. This might be worth noting in the article, if we can find a good source to confirm. Quale (talk) 01:02, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 1932 in chess

Burgess' comment that 1932 was a weak year for tournaments agrees with what Kashdan wrote in 1933, so it seems that we still see it about the same way that the participants did at the time. I have a reprint of Eales' Chess: The History of a Game and I recommend it. It has very good and readable coverage of all of chess history up to about the time the book was published. It's a lot more compact than H.J.R. Murray's opus but covers more ground more evenly (Murray is very strong on the Indian and Arabic orgins of chess and on chess in the Middle Ages, but weakens a lot around 1800 and disappears around the middle of the 19th century), and offers a more modern perspective. I haven't used it as a source in articles very much yet, but that's mostly because recently I haven't been writing about the topics it would be most useful for. There is some good critique (mostly praise, but Eales points out some flaws) of A History of Chess that I should use to improve that article. It would be an excellent source for many chess articles (ones we already have, and ones yet to be written). For instance, I think he has some good information on the evolution of the rules to their modern form. Our articles are getting better on this, but they could still be improved.

I enjoy writing these, but I'd say tedium is the biggest obstacle to getting these done so I'd say you should expand Category:Years in chess next wherever you like. I started working backward from 2008 but got bored scouring TWIC and ChessBase News, so I thought I'd try something different. I jumped in at 1932 because Chess Review started in January 1933, so that was the first year for which I had a reasonably complete source (the January 1933 Chess Review has a "1932 in Review" article). My intent is to work forward from 1932. If I make it to 1946 I may be able to start to use ancient Chess Life, but I haven't looked at those early newspaper format issues to know if they will be much use. (Krakatoa has pointed out that Chess Life is available as scanned images in PDF format on DVD. In fact the USCF sells a 4 DVD set that includes all issues of Chess Review (1933–1969) and all issues of Chess Life through 1975 (1946–1975). Since it's less than US$50, I bought it, and they actually shipped the thing fast enough so that I got 2 days after ordering. All scanned images, so no text search, but it should be good enough to scan issue by issue through a year to produce a year overview article.) Quale (talk) 00:00, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 6/3 DYK

Updated DYK query On 3 June 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Viktorija Čmilytė, 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.

--Bedford Pray 07:01, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Orphaned non-free image (Image:TheWildSwans1.jpg)

⚠

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