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John Emms (chessmaster)

Improved article, added a fuller list of books he has authored as well as establishing a picture and info box. Please visit this page and contribute with information and references. I have found it extremely difficult to find information on him (although well known). most of the accredited to the amount of boks he has written and therefore many results found through a search are only about purchasing his books. please take some to check out the article and add some information that is dearly needed. thank you for your time, Matthew Yeager 05:18, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Chess in the Soviet Union

We've kind of danced around how to categorize chess players from the former Soviet Union. So far, we've tried to categorize them in the appropriate Category:Chess players by nationality subcat for their home republic. I think we should continue to do this, but I also think we need to put them in a Category:Soviet chess players or Category:USSR chess players. The era of Soviet dominance of chess is important enough that it should be reflected in our categorizations, and we also have the difficulty that sometimes categorizing by home republic alone doesn't really fit well. No one should ever forget that Paul Keres was Estonian, but (please forgive me if this is a bad example) Efim Geller seems to be more accurately described as a Soviet than a Ukrainian, although of course both are correct. I think we should use both cats. What do our chess biographers think? Quale 05:40, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely support, with a slight preference for the former ("Soviet" rather than "USSR"). I also agree that both cats should be used (i.e. keep Latvian, Estonian, Ukrainian etc). Peter Ballard 06:01, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with both Quale and Peter. The "Soviet School of Chess" is a topic which books have been written about, so it justifies a category for players who were of master strength during that era. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:17, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
That seems fine to me. Bubba73 (talk), 19:58, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
It's been done in related fields (see Category:Soviet sportspeople) and it certainly makes sense here. On an unrelated note, welcome back, Sjakkalle! youngvalter 22:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, I went through the cats we have for the former republics of the USSR and added Category:Soviet chess players to the appropriate pages, or at least the ones that seemed appropriate to me. It wasn't always possible for me to determine whether the cat was appropriate, so I erred on the side of not adding it if I was unsure. That means I have surely left a few bios out of the cat that should be in, but I hope I haven't put any in (or at least not many) that shouldn't be. Roughly the criteria I used, was add Soviet chess players if

  • article describes the player as "Soviet" (not many of these)
  • played in USSR Chess Championship or other Soviet tournament
  • received title (IM, GM) while in USSR
  • trained in Pioneer school (this is mentioned in a few bios)
  • lived in USSR as an adult (or obviously entire life) with strong reason to believe significant chess activity before emigrating or the USSR dissolved

There's a problem with some use of the Category:Chess players by nationality subcats—I think they're used too liberally. Irina Krush was in Category:Ukrainian chess players. Admitedly this is a borderline case. She learned the moves in Ukraine at age 5 and then left promptly later that same year. No indication of tournament play or chess training in Ukraine, so I don't think that cat is appropriate and I removed it. Ukrainian-Americans would make sense, and then when category intersection is available some people might find it helpful. We also have had Bobby Fischer repeatedly put in Category:Icelandic chess players which in my view is just dumb. If Fischer plays a serious game of chess as an Icelandic citizen or does any significant chess writing as an Icelander the cat would be appropriate. I'm not holding my breath. If Karpov completely quit competitive chess today, and then 12+ years later retired to Aruba, would we categorize him as an Aruban chess player? (Karpov still plays exhibitions, which is more chess activity than Fischer has done in the last 25 years.) Taken to the logical extreme, Sergey Karjakin should be in the Soviet chess players cat since he was one year old before the USSR broke up. To me this is just common sense, but as has been often noted, common sense isn't very common. Sorry for venting.... Quale 15:47, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

The Soviet case is a special example, as made by history. I think that a dual or perhaps triple classification for certain players is best, according to circumstances. For Keres Estonian / Soviet, for Bronstein Ukrainian / Soviet, for Korchnoi Soviet / Swiss, for Gulko Soviet / American, for Bohatirchuk Ukrainian / Soviet / Canadian, for Flohr Czechoslovakian / Soviet, for Lilienthal Hungarian / Soviet, and so on. For some it may be Soviet / Russian, or Russian / Soviet, if they were ethnic Russians, born before the founding of the USSR, or having lived after it ended. Best, Frank Dixon May 22, 2007.

Dears ! The Soviet case is not a special example, as made by history! You ought to remember about other empires like Russia, Austria-Hungary (18th-20th c.) or even United Kingdom and Yugoslavia (20th c.). So, Category:Soviet chess players is as good as Category:Yugoslav chess players or Category:British chess players.

By the way, Bobby Fischer - an American champion - as an Icelandic citizen (by his own choice) is an Icelandic chess player, like Alexei Shirov is Latvian/Spanish or Miguel Najdorf - Polish/Argentine. It has sense more than classification for Fricis Apšenieks as a Soviet chess player (because of occupation of Latvia by Soviets, one year before his death). And other example: such players like Winawer, Rosenthal, Sittenfeld, Taubenhaus, Salwe, Rubinstein, Flamberg, Przepiórka, Cukierman, Tartakower, Popiel, etc., were "Russian" or "Austrian" chess players because of occupation of Poland. All the best, Mibelz 20:20, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

  • No, I think it's clear that Fischer is not an Icelandic chess player, because he doesn't play chess any longer, and quit over a decade before he became an Icelandic citizen. To my knowledge, Fischer has not played a single tournament under the flag of Iceland. I don't think he writes about chess as an Icelandic citizen either. If a New York lawyer retires to Puerto Rico, that does not make him a Puerto Rican lawyer, since he never practiced law there. The cases of Shirov and Najdorf are completely unrelated as they have and had extensive chess careers following their changes in citizenship. If Fischer resumes his chess career in Iceland, that would change. It could be as easy as Fischer playing for Iceland in a single Olympiad. Quale 22:20, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi Quale! In my opinion, Category:Chess players by nationality cannot include such categories like Category:Soviet chess players, Category:Austria-Hungarian chess players, Category:Czechoslovakian chess players, Category:Yugoslav chess players, etc. They were countries, not nationalities. There is also some problem with Category:British chess players because of Category:English chess players, Category:Scottish chess players and even Category:Irish chess players.... Mibelz 21:01, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Thanks for your attention to these details. I think your concern is valid, and I think that renaming the parent cat to Category:Chess players by country would make sense. This would put it in line with Category:Sports by country, which includes Category:Sport in the Soviet Union and Category:Sport in Yugoslavia as subcategories. Although Sports by country doesn't have corresponding subcategories for Czechoslovakia or Austria-Hungary this doesn't necessarily mean they are unwanted, as it could simply be that they hadn't yet been needed. As for Poles during Russian occupation of Poland, I'm willing to follow the lead of others. Generally I think they are considered simply Polish and not Russian. Frédéric Chopin is perhaps a comparable case, and I've never seen him referred to as Russian. I'll let those who are more familiar with the details (as you probably are yourself) figure out how to handle these. Quale 22:20, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I've brought this issue up here, since lack of communication among chess editors in the past has hurt the quality of articles.

81.84.238.135 (talk · contribs) added links to chessbook.net on several chess opening articles, which User:Silly rabbit and I reverted. 68.239.79.82 (talk · contribs) reverted our changes, citing similarities between chessbook.net and chessgames.com - see comments here.

I removed the links to chessbook.net in the first place because its homepage states it is a "database of online blitz chess games", which aren't treated seriously by most chess players, and particularly not as a source of opening theory. On the other hand, chessgames is a general database, and almost all the games it contains are serious tournament games, which are much more valuable. Judging from the widespread use of Template:Chessgames player, there seems to be consensus that chessgames.com is indeed a useful resource, but I'm not convinced that chessbook.net is nearly as helpful. Thoughts, anyone? youngvalter 04:28, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad you brought this up, because I was concerned about this also. I like the look of the chessbook.net pages and they aren't weighed down by ads (actually they're a much cleaner design than chessgames.com), but the quality of the data is very suspect. The page for 1.e4 (http://www.chessbook.net/chess/openings.html?id=e39e95497cbddb19&oid=e4b2e8637acf37d5) shows nearly twice as many double king pawn replies as Sicilians, which just seems wrong to me. The proportion of draws is way too low, which makes sense for blitz games, but doesn't even come close to the reality of good tournament play. I don't think the data is high enough quality to provide any value. I suggest we ax the chessbook.net links. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quale (talk • contribs) 04:40, 24 May 2007
The fast chess article needs to be expanded, the chessbook site might be a useful resource there. --ZeroOne (talk | @) 05:30, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I'll admit that I did not examine the ChessBook.net homepage very closely (not that it has very much to say! :-) because my concern was the allegation of WP:SPAM, which I found to be totally unwarranted, as I documented on Silly rabbit's talk page as my sole reason for restoring the links.
Having said that, even though I've been a member of the USCF for over four decades, and wrote my first chess playing algorithms in Fortran back in the 1970s, I really do not feel that I am in a position to judge the quality of the data base that provides their information ... I merely observed that the way in which the information is presented to readers looks as if ChessBook.net is using Very Similar (if not identical) algorithms to the ones used by ChessGames.com, that differ only in the cosmetics of how the information is displayed, and that it seemed like a reasonable companion (not the same as an alternative) to their information.
I would prefer that the links be retained with some sort of cautionary warning (perhaps in an article for ChessBook.net) that their information is derived from online blitz chess games as opposed to OTB tournament games used by ChessGames.com, so that readers may take the information with an appropriate grain of salt and judge it for themselves, since Wikipedia is not censored.
However, if there is a legitimate WP:Verifiability issue with their source data base, then I guess I won't object too strenuously to the deletion of links to their site, so long as:
  1. the WP:V problems are documented somewhere in case this issue comes up again,
  2. the edit summaries for deletions/reverts point to that documentation,
  3. the deletions are not justified as being WP:SPAM links, and
  4. editors who attempt to add links to ChessBook.net in the future be notified on their talk page as to the reason for the revert, so that (a) they are "in the loop" and do not abandon participation in Wikipedia because of a Bad Experience with faceless editors, and (b) they won't try to do it again. (I have already done just that for 81.84.238.135, BTW.)
Now that I've contributed my 2¢ worth, I'm ready to MOVE ON ... Happy Editing! —68.239.79.82 (talk · contribs) 07:02, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I think that even if the site is not spam and Wikipedia is not censored, we should also keep Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. I think that blitz games are completely without importance for "serious" opening variants, and I can imagine the use of them only in cases of wild openings like 1. a3 which do not have much support in standard databases. In every case, the nature of the source must be clearly described, as 68.239.79.82 says. Happy Editing, too.--Ioannes Pragensis 07:36, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree that as Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information as Ioannes has pointed out, the links to chessbook.net should be removed. I also think that for chess openings articles, links to chessgames' Openings Explorer tool should be removed as well, since it requires a subscription for full access. youngvalter 01:03, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that WP:NOT#IINFO applies here, because that official policy has to do with the inclusion of information, not reference links to supplemental information, so having External links like these in chess opening articles:
are perfectly appropriate in this context, IMHO, because they provide relevant information that is updated in real-time, not an indiscriminate collection of static information ... the question under discussion here is if links to one site's information should be excluded forever because the source of its data base is of questionable quality ("online blitz games" as opposed to "OTB tournament games.")
And if you applied WP:EL#Sites requiring registration in this situation, then you must also remove all citations from all articles that link to the NYT website, because it also requires registration for full access ... OTOH, links to NYT book reviews are a perfect example of the kind of denied access links that I delete whenever I encounter them (citing that very MOS guideline), although I usually replace them with a {{cite news}} that has a |date= value extracted from the EL reference so that it can be verified from microfiche at a local library ... I just omit (or remove) the |url= that automagically links the |title= value. —68.239.79.82 18:17, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Again, I don't think online blitz games have any relevance to opening theory. In particular, this database seems only to incorporate games played on FICS, so it's not even comprehensive.
Also, I was under the impression that one could register for free on NYT and get access to most of the content. Chessgames.com requires a paid subscription for full access to its Openings Explorer tool, however. And the information it provides can be found elsewhere, e.g. on NICBase. youngvalter 04:24, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
The idea of the site seems to be using blitz games to learn what the average player plays. You get a chance to study opening variations that grandmasters and high-level players usually dismiss as inferior, but yet are playable by most of us. The statistics are very meaningful for those that regularly play online chess. Take a look at the about page here. João Fonseca 19:35, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Nationality of Dragoljub Minić

Our page for Dragoljub Minić currently says that he was Croatian, but an anon commented that he was a Serb. His places of birth (Titograd) and death (Novi Sad) strongly suggest Serb is correct. Does anyone know for sure? I have also asked at WikiProject Serbia hoping to get some help. Quale 03:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Why not call him Yugoslav, since that is who he played most of his chess for? Peter Ballard 03:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I support creation of Category:Yugoslav chess players, which should be made a subcat of Category:Chess players by nationality and Category:Chess in Yugoslavia. This would be much like the case of the Soviet Union which we discussed a short time ago. When Minić died in 2005 Yugoslavia had already broken up, but my guess is that he wasn't active in serious chess at that time. This cat would be helpful for cases like Milan Vidmar who died in 1962, and who is generally described as Yugoslav. Quale 05:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Reminder

Looking at some of these articles I am trying to improve... Wikipedia is not a "How to"... play chess. Don't say "you" or "your opponent". W1k13rh3nry 03:01, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Importance rating of national championships

Category:Chess national championships has many articles that haven't been ranked by importance. Also unclear seems to be whether the articles can be classified as list-class or whether they should be something more. I think it is obvious that the articles need some background and context in addition to the list of champions. If there is only the list I'd classify the article as a stub. However, I'm not sure what to do with the importance ratings. Maybe rank all nations as equals and rate the articles as, say, mid-importance? Then again honestly I don't know if the Chilean Chess Championship is as important an article as, say, the Russian Chess Championship. But how to form some guidelines? --ZeroOne (talk | @) 23:21, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

(The same problem applies to national chess organizations.) --ZeroOne (talk | @) 23:31, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Good points. Actually most chess articles in any category haven't been rated for quality or importance. We recently went over 1500 pages tagged with Template:Chess-WikiProject, and two thirds of them aren't rated. It's really an opportunity for whoever is willing to do the work to rate the articles as she sees fit. My two cents on how to rate chess championship articles is to look at the FIDE rankings of the chess federations at http://www.fide.com/ratings/topfed.phtml and take the top 15 or 20 federations or so and rank their championships at High and most of the rest at Mid. If this would result in perverse rankings it could be adjusted as needed. I understand that this is an example of recentism, and any championships that have been historically important but wouldn't show up on this list would need their rankings bumped up (e.g., USSR Chess Championship and Yugoslav Chess Championship). Does that seem reasonable? Quale 21:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I think the only national championship worth High importance is the USSR Chess Championship, based on the strength of its competitors and winners and on the USSR's dominance of the chess world for so many years. All other championships could be granted Mid importance.
I rated some of those pages as list-class, but maybe that was a mistake. youngvalter 01:42, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
All articles in Category:Chess national championships now have an importance rating and a class other than "list". --ZeroOne (talk | @) 02:11, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

AFD

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oxford University Chess Club.....

other clubs

The Manhattan chess club and Marshall chess club don't have articles, as far as I know. I think they deserve them. Bubba73 (talk), 02:36, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Probably the Moscow Chess Club does too, if anyone has some good sources. We should have some pages on London clubs as well. Quale 16:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Copyvios

BD_(Fairy_chess_piece) is a mirror of [the Chess Variant Pages article about it]. There are probably more of these too. W1k13rh3nry 21:27, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Chess Template

Using Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser I have compared the chess related articles in:

I have added the template (without rating) where it was missing. Now theses three classes contain the same articles, grand total of 1874. When you create a new chess related article is created, please add the template and add it to the list of chess topics. Voorlandt 08:33, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Chess.com up for speedy delete

Chess.com is up for speedy delete. Bubba73 (talk), 06:10, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

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