Talk:List of amateur chess players

People to add

Nearly any chess player who has a job other than chess could be considered an "amateur", and the division between professional and amateur isn't as clear in chess as in most other sports. World Champion Max Euwe was an amateur chess player, much as Pierre de Fermat was an amateur mathematician. The article lead does a good job in saying that these people are most famous for something other than chess, which properly excludes Euwe from the list. This possibly also will exclude Wolfgang Unzicker, although his amateur status was frequently noted ("world champion of amateurs"). It would be great if the list can maintain the fine sourcing it has right now. Quale (talk) 05:29, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

• Marcel Duchamp – strong enough to play in Chess Olympiads but better known as an artist added
• Benjamin Franklin – first chess writer in the American colonies added
• several 1940s Hollywood stars – see Herman Steiner, could treat these as a group rather than individual entries (Humphrey Bogart is done)

Lenin

This list lacks Vladimir Lenin, known to be an avid chess player, and much of the later triumphant Soviet chess history is attributed to his having chess as a hobby. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.84.128.6 (talk) 15:46, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Duplication?

I have a concern that this article part duplicates the Famous people connected with chess sub-section of List of chess players. It may seem that this article is a replacement, but of course the other article has a wider catch/appeal, being equally concerned with works of art, literature etc. and not just confined to those known as actual players of the game. Another obvious solution is to remove the sub-section list and combine it with this article, but this will involve a new title and new intro; it will also look a bit odd, only a few of the entries having fuller descriptions, and I dare say some editors will prefer an article focused on players, rather than something more nebulous. Personally, I'd like to retain the 'wider interest' angle. Any thoughts? Brittle heaven (talk) 22:50, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I have taken the liberty of moving this remark to a separate section and wikilinking the section.

I would prefer that this article be retained with the rule one must have fuller descriptions of about one to two paragraphs each of the nature of the chess association, unlike the other article's subsection which is merely a list of names. It could also have a sister article of famous non-players associated with chess, but again have full descriptions, not just names. For example Woody Allen is the author of a hilarious piece of chess humor "The Gossage- Vardebedian Papers" but as far as anyone knows, he did not play the game prolifically. So he could go in the sister article, but again it should be mandatory that a full description of the chess connection be given.--WickerGuy (talk) 00:14, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Turns out Woody Allen did play chess a bit. He taught his stepson Moses how to play the game prior to the falling out between him and the Farrow clan. See The Unruly Life of Woody Allen by Marion Meade p. 206.--WickerGuy (talk) 00:16, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that duplication is to be avoided, but I suggest we give this list a little time to develop before deciding what to do. I think this small list is already much better than anything in List of chess players. To be honest, I always disliked that article. Although I edited it some many years ago, I eventually gave up (except for rare reverts of vandalism) deciding that it was a great example of a list that should only be a category (or rather a set of subcategories of Category:Chess players) and not a list. (Ironically my argument for this article is the exact opposite: in my view List of famous amateur chess players is the kind of thing that should only be a list and never a category.) The inclusion criteria in List of chess players are arbitrary and if we put every chess player of note in it it would be far too large. I think it's actually already simultaneously too large and much too small. Why do we do things like that? Just a bad idea. Quale (talk) 01:40, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Certainly happy to see how it develops. Definitely far more worth in this article with its sources. However, I'm already beginning to see a need to scrap the (rightly maligned) sub-section and adjust the title and lead here to fit a wider scope. I'm not sure 'playing a bit' and teaching your son to play makes you an amateur chess player of any note - I would suggest that Allen's link to chess is almost entirely his hilarious correspondence chess sketch, or alternatively you could say he had an 'interest' in chess. These arguments arose at the time of constructing the List of chess players sub-section and subsequently, the description of the contents there needed adjustment on several occasions. Another example will be Edgar Allan Poe - he wrote the essay Maelzel's Chess Player but no-one has yet shown that Poe was an avid or notable amateur chess player. WickerGuy's suggestion of a second article to catch the non-players is another possibility, but one article, well articulated, should avoid a "does he belong in one, or the other, or in both?" scenario. Brittle heaven (talk) 09:49, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Modification of lede

I've just modified the lede to insist that for inclusion here, chess must have affected the person's life or work in some way. This means that while you would definitely include Benjamin Franklin since he wrote an essay on chess and morality, it would be more tenuous to include George Washington or Thomas Jefferson- these founding fathers also played chess, but it has less of an impact on them. Some figures get in just barely. For example Pope John Paul II is the object of a hoax- a chess problem allegedly composed by him, but not really. (I remember seeing it back in the 1980s as #100 in a book called Chess Problems composed by famous people- #99 was by Vladimir Nabokov).

This may then be a better resolution of the inclusion issue- we don't have to ask "did they really play chess much?" but did their interest in chess impact their life and career in a definite way.

And thanks for the Poe tip.--WickerGuy (talk) 16:38, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, I think that helps. There may remain a dilemma in what is meant by "impacting on their life and career"; do we simply mean their interest in chess has been extensive enough that it has been given coverage in interviews/articles that are well sourced (Steve Martin, Eliza Dushku, Justin Bieber and Jude Law would fulfil that criteria)? Or that the interest necessarily manifested itself in some other way (e.g. Woody Allen, Edgar Allan Poe, Nabokov in their writings, Sting in his match with Kasparov, Duchamp in his art and high level of proficiency, Carmen Kass in her presidency of the Estonian Chess Federation etc.). Food for thought. We can revisit the article title at a later time perhaps. Meanwhile, can you check the Gossage-Vardebedian entry - I'm sure I read that in the days before email - sometime back in the 1980s - wasn't it just a postal game? Brittle heaven (talk) 17:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

My first thought would be to NOT include Steve Martin and company.--WickerGuy (talk) 00:27, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Order

I want to begin by saying that this is an excellent article, and I think you have it well in hand. I do not intend to criticize. That said, as the list has developed, it is more or less alphabetical by surname. There are only a few names out of place, and mostly by only one or two places. I think that in an egalitarian spirit, the only practical orders are alphabetical or chronological, and I lean to alpha. I do, however, like Lenin in the lead-off. I propose to copy/paste the elements to make the list alphabetical by surname, except for Lenin and Rock Hudson, whom I will leave as they are pending a better solution. I would just boldly make the change, but to this point the page has progressed well, so out of respect I am proposing on the talkpage. rags (talk) 12:21, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

carly rae jepsen

i guess not here since...not notable enough? Thewriter006 (talk) 12:36, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

george rr martin?

surely far far more notable than carly rae jepsen Thewriter006 (talk) 12:56, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Heath Ledger grandmaster claims are probably incorrect

The list states "...and was a few points away from achieving Grandmaster status at the time of his death" with the source being a quote from a time article, full quote:

"Ledger loved chess from a young age, and he was good at it: his father Kim says that by the time his son was 10 or 11, he was difficult to beat, and he was only a few points away from achieving Grand Master status when he died."

This must be either a misunderstanding or a misquote as I searched fide's records, both title applications and norms, and there is no record of Heath Ledger there. Someone who was a few points from achieving the grandmaster title would either have previous fide title applications or at the very least norms from past performances. Sticky Wiky (talk) 12:12, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out that bogus claim. Quale (talk) 03:49, 5 November 2024 (UTC)