Follow the money - NAO

---

The recent flurry of announcements on the subject of 'Reunification
of the Chess World' saw joint statements by sponsors unknown to the
chess world a year ago...

A joint proposal from the Einstein Group and Madame Nahed Ojjeh, 25
April 2002
http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/einsteinp.html

Statement on behalf of Madame Nahed Ojjeh and Einstein Group, 31 May
2002
http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/einstein2.html

...Along with specific proposals by the two parties, the May
announcement mentioned, 'The Candidates Tournament at Dortmund will
be supported by NAO Chess and Madame Nahed Ojjeh. Madame Nahed Ojjeh
is pleased to announce that she will provide an increased prize fund
at Dortmund of Euro 300.000 (net of taxes).'

Who is Madame Nahed Ojjeh? Two pages at the official website for the
World Championship Candidates' Tournament, Dortmund, July 2002,
provide some background information...

Who exactly is Madame Nahed Ojjeh?
http://www.chessgate.de/dortmund/e/candidates/nao/

...'Born in Syria she is living in Paris where she dedicates herself
to the promotion of the royal game and is now regarded as the
greatest international sponsor of chess.'...

Madame Nahed Ojjeh about her commitment
http://www.chessgate.de/dortmund/e/candidates/nao/nahedojjeh/

...'I have often asked myself why chess is so neglected in education.
In almost all schools in this world children are taught music or art,
whether they like it or not, whether they have talent for that or
not. But there is no school program, in which they have the option to
decide for chess instead. To change this is not unimaginable. Instead
of suffering at a piano or an easel a lot of children would blossom
at the chessboard, future Capablancas, Alekhines or Karpovs possibly
among them.'

Euro 300.000 ('net of taxes') is not chump change. Let's follow the
money.

---

The chess part of the story started September 2001...

In Memoriam Chantal Chaudé de Silans
http://www.sportechecs.com/article/article.php?IdArticle=190

Sun-Herald Chess Column for February 17 2002, by GM Ian Rogers
http://www.auschess.org.au/columns/sh/rp17020g.htm

...with the death of Chantal Chaudé de Silans (1919-2001) after a
long illness. Madame Chaudé de Silans was Women's Champion of France
in 1933 at the age of 14; led for two-thirds of the Women's World
Championship Tournament, Moscow 1949-50, before falling ill and
finishing 5-7th (out of 16); and competed in three subsequent Women's
Candidates Tournaments, where she finished 8-10th (out of 16) at
Moscow 1952, 10-13th (out of 20) at Moscow 1955, and 12-14th (out of
17) at Vrnjacka Banja, Yugoslavia, 1961. In 1950, she represented
France in both the men's and women's Olympiads. Two videos at...

Hommage à Chantal Chaudé de Silans
http://nyxxo.free.fr/Planete/planete.htm

...show her in action. Since 1970, she had been president and guiding
light at the Caissa Chess Club in Paris. Boris Spassky gave a eulogy
at the memorial mass in Paris, which was attended by players who had
passed through the club and later became GMs -- Renet, Lautier,
Nataf, Relange, and Apicella.

Among the names inscribed on the Caissa Club's frontispiece was Nahed
Ojjeh, who had recently become the benefactress of the club. A month
after the mass, over the objections of some long-time supporters, the
club changed its name to 'NAO Chess Club'. NAO was an acronym
for 'Nahed Ojjeh'; the club was about to leap into the 21st century.

The first big event was in February 2002, when the 1st NAO Chess
Masters, a category 18 tournament, took place at Cannes. Topalov and
Gelfand finished with +3-0=6, 1.5 points ahead of the rest of the
field. Karpov finished at 50% and Alexander Morozevich placed last
with +1-5=3.

The club's French language website at...

NAO Chess Club
http://www.nao-cc.com/naocc/index.html

...supported by two full-time webmasters, has extensive news on the
club's activities. 'Les joueurs' (players), lists the members of the
club. Those rated over 2600 start with Kramnik, Grischuk, and
Svidler, all from Russia, and are followed by Lautier, Bacrot, and
Fressinet, all from France.

The 2nd NAO Chess Club event (IM tournament, category 5) took place
at Paris in May 2002. IM Marcelin won the event with 6.5/9, ahead of
Japan's Yoshiharu Habu, a super-strong Shogi player and a big star in
his home country. His 50% score placed him 5-6th with former world
champion candidate Mark Taimanov. The Shogi connection is probably
due to Lautier, NAO General Secretary, another keen Shogi player.

At the end of April, the NAO club placed 5th in the strong (Kasparov
played in 1993) first division French league, after getting off to a
slow start. One month later, the club's team -- Kramnik, Bacrot,
Spassky, and S. Maze -- defeated Montpellier to win the Coupe de
France and qualify for the European Cup this month.

In June, Kramnik won the NAO-sponsored 3rd Grand Prix du Senat,
beating Laurent Fressinet 2-0 in the final match. It was the first
time that Kramnik had played in France since winning the world
champion title from Kasparov.

Bacrot, who finished last in the four player Senat competition, made
up for the setback in August by winning the French Championship for
the fourth consecutive time. He beat Lautier in a two game tiebreak
match.

---

NAO : what does the 'A' stand for? A web search on 'Nahed Ojjeh'
gives her full name as Nahed Tala Ojjeh, but web searches here are
somewhat tricky. Alternate spellings of the family name are Ojeh,
Oijeh, Oujje, and Ojjjeh, where that last possibility is undoubtedly
excessive enthusiasm for 'J's. As far as I can tell, the 'A' is
simply the second letter in 'Nahed'.

In the course of these searches, three related facts appear again and
again. Ojjeh is:-
- the daughter of Mustafa Tlass, Syrian Minister of Defense,
- the widow of Akram Ojjeh, a Saudi arms' dealer, and
- wealthy.
Depending on the source, her wealth places her in the category of
multi-millionaire or billionaire, although the currency is never
mentioned. It goes without saying that wealthy individuals and
families don't leave a lot of personal information in public places
like the Internet, but the available details provide an intriguing
outline of Nahed Tlass-Ojjeh's past.

***

A biography of Tlass (b. 1932), whose political power helped open
social doors for himself and his four children, can be found at...

Lt. Gen. Mustafa Tlass, Syrian Minister of Defense, Deputy Prime
Minister
http://www.meib.org/articles/0007_sd2.htm

...Following is a summary of that page.

'In 1952, Tlass enrolled at the Military Academy where he met Hafez
Assad, a pilot who was to become his life-long companion. After a
military coup d'etat in 1966, the new leadership included Hafez Assad
as Minister of Defense. Tlass was known to be Assad's protégé.

'Following the War of 1967, the ruling party split with Assad on one
side and Salah Jadid on the other. Each side blamed the other for the
defeat, and the hostility became public. To increase his political
clout, Assad dismissed a Jadid loyalist from the post of Chief of
Staff and appointed Mustafa Tlass instead. He also appointed Tlass
Deputy Minister of Defense.

'In November, at a meeting of the Party Command, resolutions
orchestrated by Jadid were passed to strip Assad and Tlass of their
government posts. No sooner had the resolutions been passed than
Assad's forces took to the streets, arrested President Noor al-Din al-
Atassi, Salah Jadid, and anyone who had the slightest connection as a
supporter. Both Atassi and Jadid were imprisoned, where they died in
1992 and 1993, respectively.

'In November 1970 Assad declared that he had assumed leadership of
the nation. In 1972, Tlass was appointed Minister of Defense, Deputy
Commander in Chief of the Syrian Army, and Deputy Prime Minister for
military affairs.

'Assad's death in 2000 left Tlass and the entire Syrian team in
chaos. For a few hours following the death, it was even rumored that
Tlass had assumed the presidency, but it was eventually established
that his son Bashar Assad had secured it with the blessing of Tlass.
The 9th Congress of the Party Command voted Tlass to the six-man team
responsible for aiding Bashar in his duties as Secretary-General of
the Baath Party.'

***

As for Akram Ojjeh, calling him a 'Saudi arms' dealer' is an
oversimplification of his story. Syrian-born Ojjeh (1923-1991), made
a large fortune in oil, hotels, and real estate, as well as arms, and
is described variously as a financier, businessman, and art
collector. Quoting loosely again, this time from a page on the
McLaren website...

http://www.mclaren.com/mclaren/features/smooth.html

...we learn that, 'As a boy in Syria, Ojjeh won a scholarship to be
educated in France, but was caught there when World War II broke out.
He earned a living at everything from beach masseur to Arabic
Resistance radio announcer, and married a French girl. Soon he was
trading in perfume, trinkets, and cloth between France and Syria.

'When the war ended, he became fascinated by the potential of taking
Western technology to the developing countries of the East and began
to build up contacts with Saudi Arabia, which was 'mostly just empty
desert then.' He became friendly with the Saudi royal family and took
Saudi nationality in 1948.

'His son Mansour, one of seven Ojjeh children, was born in 1952.
Business boomed and the family moved to Egypt. When President Nasser
began his policy of nationalisation, Akram lost everything. He moved
to Switzerland, sold his wife's jewelry, started again, and prospered
once more. The trading links with Saudi Arabia continued. In 1975, he
set up Techniques d'Avant-Garde (TAG, 'advanced technology'), a
Luxembourg based company with headquarters in Paris and Geneva.'

In 1985, the TAG group bought 52% of the Swiss watchmaker Heuer,
which became TAG Heuer. TAG was instrumental in the revival of the
Heuer watch company ('synonymous with Formula One (F1) racing and
specialists in counting and timing all sorts of things'), although
TAG Heuer is now independent of the main TAG group.

The Heuer story is just one example of how the Ojjeh family earned
its wealth. A September 1996 IPO of TAG Heuer followed a $110 million
bond issue. The pair of financings provided a $500 million return on
an initial $100 million investment. The TAG Group still controls 29%
of the TAG Heuer shares.

Other TAG group holdings include the McLaren F1 racing team,
executive jet sales & leases, a California avocado farm, property
development, and banking. Ojjeh also donated to the construction of
mosques in Damascus, Syria, and Evry, France.

Today the TAG group is owned by Mansour Ojjeh, group president, and
his younger brother Aziz, group vice-president. Mansour, the son
mentioned in the biography above, has been involved in F1 and McLaren
since 1982, when he joined with Porsche to design and build TAG turbo
engines for Grand Prix racing.

McLaren was founded in 1966 by New Zealand driver Bruce McLaren (1937-
1970). The team won its first grand prix in Belgium in 1968, but
after McLaren died during a test drive, the company was run by Ron
Dennis, who started in motor racing as a mechanic. In 1982 Ojjeh and
Dennis took over McLaren, owning 60% and 40%, respectively. In the
middle of 1999, DaimlerChrysler acquired a 40% shareholding in TAG
McLaren - 30% from Ojjeh and 10% from Dennis, leaving Ojjeh with 30%
and Dennis with 30%.

---

What does all of this have to do with Nahed Ojjeh and chess
sponsorship? Not much, with one big exception -- she is not mentioned
on any of the pages dealing with TAG, its subsidiaries, or the
current activities of the other members of the Ojjeh family. Reading
between the lines, it appears that the stepmother, who is younger
than her stepchildren, is not involved in the family business, which
is the province of the sons. An occasional reference to a lawsuit
between stepmother and stepchildren leads to speculation that Akram's
heirs are not on the best of terms.

If you're worried that Madame NAO might be forced to panhandle in the
Paris Metro, don't be; stepmom kept the art collection. In November
and December 1999, Christie's conducted an auction in New York,
London, and Monaco of 'la collection Akram Ojjeh'. The sons are never
mentioned in connection with the sale. The references are always
something like, '[Akram Ojjeh's] widow, Nahed Ojjeh, is selling a
variety of Old Master, Orientalist and 19th-century French paintings
and French furniture in a series of sales'.

By all accounts, it was one of the most fabulous collections ever
sold at auction. The 1999 sale fetched $90 million, of which $34
million came from the sale of furniture. Among the art items were an
early Picasso (1881-1973), several works by Corot (1796-1875), a
Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), and a Fantin-Latour (1836-1904). There
was even a piece entitled 'The Chess Game' (1896) by Ludwig Deutsch
(1855-1935). Estimated to fetch $180,000, it sold for $650,000...

Artnet Auction Report by Paul Jeromack
http://www.numarkgallery.com/magazine/news/jeromack/jeromack11-4-
99.asp

...More interesting than the Deutsch work may be that 'Many of the
Orientalist pictures from the Ojjeh collection are more concerned
with titillation than ethnographic accuracy, featuring scantily
veiled "Oriental" women belly-dancing in the street, or languidly
lolling in a seraglio.'

The blockbuster was a painting of an iron bridge across the Rhone at
Arles, 'Le Pont de Trinquetaille' (1888) by Vincent Van Gogh (1853-
1890). Estimated at $20 million, it sold for $15.4 million to
a 'mysterious phone bidder'. Ojjeh bought the painting at Sotheby's
in 1980 for $1.6 million.

Another big-ticket item was 'Le Verrou' by Jean-Honoré Fragonard
(1732-1806), which sold for $8.5 million, a record for the
painter. 'Geraniums dans une bassine de cuivre' (1880) by Pierre-
Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) brought $4.8 million. Somewhat more
affordable was 'Place Saint-Lazare' (1893), showing the streets of
Paris, by Camille Pissarro (1830-1903). Estimated at $1.8 million, it
sold for $3.5 million.

The collection of 18th century furniture, which had been kept at the
family's Paris residence since the death of the patriarch, sold for
about double its estimate, setting a record for French
furniture. 'The star lot at the auction was a Louis XVI chest of
drawers made by Adam Weisweller (1744-1820) with ebony panelling and
studded with precious stones'. It sold for $7.5 million. A Louis XVI
commode by Jean-Francois Leleu (1729-1807) went for $6.8 million, and
a suite by Jean-Henri Riesener (1734-1806) sold for $6.3 million.

The money from these sales is behind the sponsorship of the NAO Club,
Kramnik's title matches, and the rest. Let's hope that Nahed's money
for chess turns out to be as well spent as Mansour's was on F1
racing. Who said, 'The rich aren't like the rest of us'?

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

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Chess History on the Web : Recommended sites
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

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Site review - Schach-Zettel

---

Some of the chess history sites that I look at are, in all fairness,
not particularly interesting. The compensation is that once in a
while I get to review a first-class site that reminds me why I became
interested in the subject -- its internationality and its unexpected
connections with the more important activities of the human race. One
such first-class site is...

Schach-Zettel by Harald E. Balló
http://www.ballo.de/

...which is primarily a German language site. Although the greeting --
  'Willkommen auf der Webseite von Harald E. Balló!' -- is easy enough
to understand ('Welcome to the web page by Harald E. Balló!') I once
again had to rely on...

Google Language Tools
http://www.google.be/language_tools?hl=en

...to decipher the bulk of the content. Balló continues, 'These and
the pages following my home page are an attempt to represent chess in
its historical and bibliophile aspect.'

The home page presents five buttons & eight links opening on a wide
variety of topics. Two of the buttons are titled Schach-Zettel
('Chess Note'), which is the site's official name according to other
pages which link to it. [Schach-Zettel 1-167] and [Schach-Zettel 168-
] are intermediate pages serving as a high-level index to the various
notes. The notes, numbered sequentially in the order they are
published, each treat a single, specific topic in chess history. They
often refer to previous notes as new material is discovered or when
readers offer advice on a topic. Notes 1-144 were written in the
years 1994 to 1996, notes 145-167 in 1997, and notes 168-176 are more
recent.

Balló acknowledges a similarity to the structures used for 'Chess
Notes' by Edward Winter and 'Quotes and Queries' by Ken Whyld. He
remarks that, for German speakers, the work of his two famous
colleagues is obscured by an English language barrier compounded
by 'occasional British insular isolationism'. He also complains that
Winter's work is often of 'marginal historical relevance'. This, of
course, may be due to the huge scope of 'Chess Notes', where Winter
has just published C.N.s 2730-2735 on the ChessCafe site.

The button [Schach-Bibliographie], 'eine ausgewählte Literatur des
Schachspiels' ('[Chess bibliography], a selected literature of the
game of chess'), segments chess literature into three periods -- 1497-
1843 (1 list), 1844-1945 (4 lists), and 1945-1998 (8 lists). I
started to analyze this topic almost two years ago in Chess History
on the Web (2000 no.18)...

Chess Bibliography (before 1800)
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw00i15/chw00i15.htm

...and, armed with the Schach-Zettel material, will return to it in a
future article. [Antiquariat], 'ausgewählte antiquarische
Schachbücher' ('[Second-hand bookshop], selected antiquarian chess
books') is a list of titles for sale via the site.

Along with the notes and the bibliographies, the site offers a half-
dozen essays related to chess history. These are listed under [Schach-
Geschichte] ('Chess history'), which links to the same essays found
on the home page plus 'Wunderkinder' & 'Schachbund'.
Schachwunderkinder ('Chess prodigies') discusses the prodigy
phenomenon ('for me [Balló] there are no prodigies'!); builds a
candidate list of prodigies -- Philidor, Morphy, Capablanca,
Reshevsky, Pomar, Tal, Spassky, Fischer, Gheorghiu, Karpov, Mecking,
Nunn, Jutta Hempel, Chiburdanidze, Zsuzsa & Judith Polgar, Kamsky,
and Short -- containing a few surprises (whatever happened to Jutta
Hempel?); and discusses Philidor, Morphy, Capablanca, and Reshevsky
in more detail. Westdeutschen Schachbund ('West German chess
federation') discusses the foundation in 1862 of that organization as
the forerunner of the Deutsche Schachbund, which celebrates its 125th
anniversary this year.

For English (and Polish) speakers, the highlight of the site must be
the essay 'Siegbert Tarrasch: Chessplayer, Doctor, German, Jew',
which is carried on the site in English and Polish as well as in
German. 'In the life of the chess grandmaster and physician, Siegbert
Tarrasch, the whole tragedy of the attempt of Jewish assimilation in
Germany becomes clear'.

For French speakers, the highlight must be 'The Manuscript of
Chapais' by Dr. Jean Mennerat, which is available in French and
German versions. Google translates:-
- the French version 'manuscrit méconnu' as 'an ignored manuscript',
and
- the German version 'verkanntes manuskript' as 'a misjudged
manuscript',
which probably means that it should be 'a misunderstood manuscript'.
The essay is about an endgame manuscript written around 1780 by
Monsieur Chapais, whose given name is unknown. Although the work was
frequently quoted by 19th century writers, it has never been
published, largely because of an obscure notation.

Rounding out the essays are a five page piece on the Staunton - Saint-
Amant match of 1843, and another long piece on chess book collector
Harald Falk (1905-1944?), who also appears several times in the SZ
notes. Like the Tarrasch article, both essays consider the chess
history against the larger history of the specific period.

---

Returning to the subject of Tarrasch, a Google search on 'chess
Siegbert Tarrasch' returns 'about 1050' pages. In the absence of a
profile by Bill Wall...

Bill Wall's Profiles of Chess Masters
http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lab/7378/masters.htm

...the most extensive article may be...

Siegbert Tarrasch by Terry Crandall
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw01k01/tarrasch.htm

...an essay which I hesitatingly rescued from oblivion last year.
Complementary pieces are...

Towering Tarrasch by G.H. Diggle
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/tarrasch.txt

Near Champions, Part One: Siegbert Tarrasch by Dan Schifrin
http://www.kasparov.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=6660&p_docLang=EN

...from two of the most respected chess sites on the Web. At first
glance it may appear that...

Welcome to the web site of Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch
http://pages.infinit.net/tarrasch/

...has the most comprehensive material available, but a little
investigation proved that it is an unabashed plagiarism. The three
main buttons on the home page are titled 'Biography', 'Life of
Tarrasch', and 'Towering Tarrasch'. It turns out that 'Biography' is
an unattributed copy of Crandall's article, 'Life of Tarrasch' is an
unattributed copy of Ballo's article, and 'Towering Tarrasch' is an
unattributed copy of Diggle's article. Behind the 'Webmaster' button,
we learn that one Stephane Vaillancourt (at the top of the page are
rocks being hurled at his underwater image) is the proud mastermind
behind this grand theft of intellectual property. The Webmaster page
is a copy of Schifrin's article, unattributed of course, and
signed 'Vaillancourt', as though it were his own essay. Ugh.

---

The reason I looked for 'chess Siegbert Tarrasch' instead of
simply 'chess Tarrasch' is that the less restrictive search turns up
all sorts of pages related to openings named after Tarrasch. The best
known must be the Tarrasch variation of the French Defense (1.e4 e6
2.d4 d5 3.Nd2). A position search at Chesslab.com told me that in
games played since 1990, the Tarrasch has produced an overall record
of 40%-25%-34% (% W-wins, % B-wins, % draw). This gives it almost the
same expected result as 3.Nc3 against the French (42%-28%-28%), which
has the advantage of being less drawish. It also compares favorably
with other popular 3rd moves : 3.e5 (38%-35%-25%), which is almost
equal, and 3.exd5 (26%-30%-42%), which favors Black.

The Tarrasch variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined (1.d4 d5 2.c4
e6 3.Nc3 c5) also fares better (39%-27%-33%) than the more popular
3... Nf6 variations (43%-22%-33%). This justifies the famous Tarrasch
dictum that, "He who fears an isolated Queen's Pawn should give up
Chess".

Tarrasch's writings are a popular source of dictums, epigrams, and
notable quotes. Some examples, all taken from various Web pages:-
'Many have become Chess Masters, no one has become the Master of
Chess.'
'It is not enough to be a good player... you must also play well.'
'When you don't know what to do, wait for you opponent to get an
idea; it is sure to be bad.'
'The greatest mistake in chess is to overestimate your opponent.'
and:-
'White lost because he failed to remember the right continuation and
had to think up the moves himself.'
'Up to this point White has been following well-known analysis. But
now he makes a fatal error: he begins to use his own head.'

Those last two are so similar, that I suspect at least one of them
was written from memory. In fact, very few Tarrasch quotes are listed
with the source. On Chess-poster.com, we find both 'Chess, like
music, like love, has the power to make people happy' and 'Chess,
like love, like music, etc.'. Other sites give the less politically
correct, 'Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men
happy', which is how Tarrasch's preface to his 'Game of Chess' was
originally translated.

Another Tarrasch epigram which has acquired cliché status is 'Before
the endgame' (or, according to some sources, 'Between the opening and
endgame') 'the gods have placed the middlegame.' Of the two epigrams -
- 'gods have placed' and 'like love like music' -- which is better
known? A Google search for 'chess "has the power to make" Tarrasch'
returned 'about 85' pages. A search for 'chess "gods have placed"
Tarrasch' returned 'about 49'.

As popular as these are, they are not the best known chess sayings. A
search for 'chess "a gnat may drink"' returned 'about 97', while
Philidor's 'pawns "the soul of chess"' appears to be the king of
chess clichés at 'about 164'. The popularity of the gnat epigram is
partly due to the book 'A Gnat May Drink' by Jonathan Hinton. A
search on 'chess "an elephant may bathe"' only returned 'about 73'
pages.

The gnats and elephants saying is invariably identified as an Indian
proverb, without further details. That's unfortunate, because I've
never understood it; the short version 'Chess is a sea' seems
profound enough. That various forms of wildlife can profit from this
sea, adds nothing to the basic thought; it's just more poetic. I
could easily write 'Chess is a puddle in which a gnat may drink and
an elephant may bathe', or even 'Chess is a mudhole, etc.', where the
underlying idea is a favorable or unfavorable, romantic or unromantic
comparison of chess with a body of water. How about 'Chess is a
quicksand'?

But let's get back to Tarrasch. Before I close this brief look at his
legacy, I'd like to mention one more link...

Book Reviews by IM John L Watson #23 : Looking Back, Part 1
http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/jwatson23.html

...where Watson reviews 'Three Hundred Chess Games' and 'The Game of
Chess', both considered classics by Tarrasch.

Tarrasch's name also appears throughout Chess Notes. SZ 32, 'Lasker -
Schlechter 1910', has Tarrasch annotations to the 10th game of the
match, where Lasker saved his title in one of the most controversial
games in world championship history. SZ 46, 'Steinitz - von
Bardeleben', is about the brilliant game from Hastings 1895, where
Steinitz won by a stunning sequence of Rook sacrifices on the seventh
rank. When he realized that his position was lost, Bardeleben left
the board and allowed his clock to run, eventually losing on time.
Tarrasch, who finished 4th in the tournament, annotated the game for
the tournament book, but said nothing about the incident, although he
was elsewhere critical of his compatriot's behavior. SZ
95, 'Tarrasch', laments the lack of a biography about the grandmaster
and wonders about the location of his grave, a photo of which is
later provided in SZ 139, 'Tarraschs Grab'.

The master receiving the most attention in the notes is undoubtedly
Adolf Anderssen, whose name appears in eight different titles. In SZ
31, Balló considers that Anderssen was seriously out of form when he
played Morphy at the end of 1858, perhaps due to a long period of
inactivity. He pursues this in SZ 48, 68, & 71. Other notes deal with
Anderssen's understanding of positional chess (SZ 89), his profession
as teacher (SZ 60, 67, & 73), and his last moments (SZ 10).

The theme which receives the most attention in SZ is the crosscheck :
A checks B, B defends with a check, A replies with another check,
etc. etc. The first example is in SZ 3 with three consecutive checks.
The second, in SZ 21, is Portisch - Pinter, Hungary, 1984, voted the
best game of Chess Informant 37, and which featured four consecutive
checks. Like Balló's other examples, the game can be followed on the
web page itself. The crosscheck theme is developed in ten further
notes plus two on the topic of 'The oldest crosscheck in the world.'

Other themes appearing frequently throughout the notes are
simultaneous exhibitions, 'chess in hard times' (e.g. war), second-
hand books, bibliographic notes, Philidor, and chess in art (e.g.
Erich Wolfsfeld and Sofonisba Anguissola). It's an impressive range
of topics, which requires some patience for a non-German speaker to
understand via the automated translations.

For some reason surnames are prone to translation from German to the
target language -- Staunton becomes 'being astonished clay/tone',
Harrwitz is 'awaiting joke', and van der Linde is 'van the lime
tree'. These produce gibberish sentences until the names are
translated back to the original.

German word order is not at all the same as English. A German once
told me that babies use English word order until they learn to speak
properly, and I'm still not sure if he was teasing me. In any event,
I imagine that the translation software has to save the various
phrases, then string them together in a different order whenever it
encounters a period ('.'). This means that sentences with phrases
like 'XIII. Kongress' end up with pieces scattered randomly by this
algorithm until you remove the '.' and have it translated again.

Removing the '.' is definitely worth the trouble with the Schach-
Zettel site!

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[Send comments to...

Chess_History-owner@yahoogroups.com

...The bookmarks for the sites reviewed here may be found at...

Chess History on the Web : Recommended sites
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

...The list archive is at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
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Follow the money - Einstein Group

---

At the beginning of the year, the chess world learned that 'Einstein
is Game On'. A press release announced that, 'Einstein Group plc, the
international multi media group is now on course for an exciting
future in game and education based media, having today, 25 January
2002, purchased Intellectual Leisure Ltd which owns some of the
assets previously held by BGN plc.'

The announcement continued, 'The deal gives Einstein Group a five-
year contract with World Chess Champion, Vladimir Kramnik; all
contracts/arrangements relating to the proposed "Brains in Bahrain"
(Man v Machine) tournament; all contracts relating to the Dortmund
qualifying rounds of the Chess World Championships and all
contracts/arrangements relating to the proposed Chess World
Championships in 2003. Intellectual Leisure Ltd will now be a
subsidiary of Einstein Group plc.'

Who or what is the Einstein Group? The release answered, 'Einstein
Group plc, founded in 1999, is an international multi-media group. It
floated on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), of the London
Stock Exchange in March 2000.'

Remembering the advice that Deep Throat gave investigative reporters
during the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, I decided to 'follow the
money' and find out what is on the Web about Einstein Group. Because
it's publicly traded, there is a lot about the company and its
history. At...

London Stock Exchange (LSE)
http://www.londonstockexchange.com/landmark/southwest/company_southwes
t.asp?sedol=0127426

...it's identified as symbol EIC, along with historical data like
share price performance, price movement, number of trades, value
traded, and recent company announcements. The British newspaper
Financial Times maintains another page on the company...

FT.com : Investing data & tools
http://mwprices.ft.com/custom/ft-com/quotechartnews.asp?symb=UK:EIC

...with information similar to the LSE page. Another source is...

Yahoo! UK and Ireland Finance - Quote Search
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=EIC.L

...where the profile places EIC in the 'media & photography' sector
and the business summary describes the company's main activity as 'a
holding company to its subsidiaries'.

The stock is not a penny stock, it's a half-penny stock. It opened on
29 July 2002 with a trade of 20100 shares at 0.56p (that's pence, not
pounds) for a trade value of £113 (that '£' is for British pounds, in
case the symbol displays incorrectly on your computer screen).
Recently, the stock has traded by appointment; there were only five
trades between 18 and 29 July, although activity has increased
recently for reasons that I'll explain later.

Financial reports are available on the company's website...

Einstein Group plc
http://www.einstein-group.tv

...One interesting document is the 'Listing Particulars', which
provided information to potential investors about the company's IPO
(Initial Public Offering) in March 2000 on the LSE's AIM. The
document states, 'Einstein Channel PLC is a newly formed company
created to develop a new multimedia brand -- The Einstein Channel.
The Directors intend that this will start with the launch of a
digital TV channel in the major European territories and that The
Einstein Channel will transmit a programme schedule of live and
recorded, cutting edge science and technology launches, entertainment
and education programmes across Europe.' Note that the company later
changed its name from 'Einstein Channel' to 'Einstein Group' at its
Annual General Meeting early in 2001.

The offering met its objectives -- 21.250.000 shares were sold at 40p
each, providing net proceeds to the company of £7.9m. Company
insiders retained another 15.000.000 shares, giving an initial market
capitalization of £14.5m.

March 2000 was the month the NASDAQ index peaked, and it's been
downhill ever since for the dot.com equity markets. The Einstein
Group has not been spared; the company has traded above its IPO price
for brief periods only. The FTSE AIM Index, available by following...

AIM stocks
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=+^FTAI+@aim_ah.l&f=snlcvi

...shows the overall AIM market dropping from its peak of 2925 on 3
March 2000 to its current level of about 680, a drop of more than 75%.

The Listing Particulars document also provides background information
on the original senior management team. The most senior executives
were Derek Wyatt, Martin Powell, and Stephen Timmins.

Wyatt, Non-executive Chairman and Member of Parliament since 1997,
had 15 years experience in the media industry, including Director
of 'The Computer Channel' at BSkyB and Main board Director at
publisher William Heinemann. At the time of the IPO, he was also
involved with the World Internet Forum, to be modeled loosely after
the World Economic Forum. A victim of the imploding Internet mania,
the Internet Forum was cancelled a few days before it was scheduled
to begin in November 2000; only 63 delegates had registered, fewer
than the number scheduled to speak.

Powell, Executive Deputy Chairman, had founded another media company,
Sleepy Kids Plc, which later became Entertainment Rights Plc. He left
Einstein 'by mutual agreement' in August 2000.

Timmins, Group Chief Executive Officer, had 'over 25 years experience
in broadcasting and the media', including a stint as executive
producer for the BBC. In 1987, he had co-founded CST Productions Ltd,
later involved in a number of cutting edge media projects in cable
and satellite programming.

Under the heading 'Group Structure', the Listing Particulars
explains, 'The Company was incorporated in September 1999, and is the
holding company for the three other companies in the Group, namely;
Einstein Productions, Einstein Channel GmbH and the European Science
Channel.

'Einstein Productions commenced trading in January 2000 and its
principal activity is the production of high volume/low cost TV
programmes. One series is currently in development for Carlton
Television.

'Einstein Channel GmbH commenced trading in February 2000 [...] Its
principal activity will be the transmission of The Einstein Channel.

'The European Science Channel commenced trading in January 1999 when
it entered into a consultancy agreement with European Space Agency
(ESA) [...] It is expected that the trading activities of the
European Science Channel and the consultancy agreement will be
transferred to Einstein Channel GmbH and that, therefore, the
European Science Channel will become a dormant company.

'All the trading subsidiaries have separate management who will
report to the Board through the Group's central finance and
administration function. Financial reporting will be supervised by
the Finance Director.'

In its first year of operation, ended 31 December 2000, the group
reported a turnover (revenues) of £830k with a loss on ordinary
activities (before taxation) of £3430k. The year saw a successful
launch of its science and technology multimedia channel in Germany; a
contract for UK distribution on Astra, Europe's largest digital
satellite; and the appointment of Granada Channels as the sales agent
for its digital TV channel and Internet portal in the UK.

Its second year of operation, ended 31 December 2001, was more
turbulent. The company failed to publish its report & accounts in the
six months required by AIM regulations and was temporarily suspended
by AIM on 1 July 2002. The suspension was lifted a week later after
the reports were published. Turnover was reported to be £3107k, with
a loss of £4491k.

You don't need to be a crack financial analyst to calculate that the
loss in 2000 of £3430k plus the loss in 2001 of £4491k is almost
equal to the £7.9m raised in the IPO. Indeed, the balance sheet for
end-2001 indicated net current liabilities of £664k for the group. To
add to the financial uncertainty, the first half of 2002 saw the
replacement of the Group Financial Director, the Nominated Adviser,
and the Broker.

The independent auditors' report included a highly unusual disclaimer
that said, 'Because of the possible limitation in evidence available
to us, we are unable to form an opinion as to whether the financial
statements give a true and fair view of the state of the company's
affairs at 31 December 2001 or of its loss for the year then ended.
In all other respects, in our opinion the financial statements have
been properly prepared in accordance with the Companies Act 1985. In
respect alone of the limitation on our work relating to the
preparation of the financial statements on the going concern basis we
have not obtained all the information and explanations that we
considered necessary for the purpose of our audit.'

On the technology front, the company had at least one solid
achievement in 2001. In January it announced the successful launch of
its UK TV service on BSkyB's digital platform. If you're interested
in Einstein's technology, two pages by IBM...

IBM & Einstein Reduce Cost and Time-to-Air for Broadcasting Companies
http://www-
1.ibm.com/industries/media/pressrelease/PRESSRELEASES_72377.html
http://www-1.ibm.com/industries/media/casestudy/CASESTUDY_58592.html

...describe a breakthrough 'system that allows broadcasters to begin
transmission within weeks rather than months - at a fraction of the
normal cost'.

In November 2001, EIC split its stock from a nominal value of 10p per
share to one new ordinary share of 0.5p each plus nineteen deferred
shares of 0.5p each. This allowed the issuance of new shares, which
is prohibited by company law at less than nominal value. The split
was apparently in preparation for important soon-to-be-made-public
deals.

On 19 November, the company announced that Derek Wyatt MP had
resigned as chairman; a few days later it announced 'advanced
discussions with Brain Games Network plc ("Brain Games"), the London-
based events company which owns the global rights to the World Chess
Championships, with respect to the merger of the two companies. The
proposed merger is dependent on a refinancing of Einstein, currently
under negotiation, and would be effected through the share for share
acquisition of Brain Games by Einstein.' The timing of the
announcements was interpreted as a disagreement between Wyatt and
Timmins over the new direction of the company. On the day the deal
was announced the stock rose from 2.75p to 3.50p.

Early in January, the company specified that 'negotiations are now
focused on the potential acquisition of certain assets held by Brain
Games, rather than its entire issued share capital'. Timmins, in his
monthly investor relations update, explained that this was done
because 'you will have seen, and are likely to continue seeing, a
variety of statements casting doubt on the propriety and legality of
various of Brain Games' historic activities. Notwithstanding that, as
far as we and our legal advisers and associated parties are aware,
these allegations have yet to be substantiated. However, your company
took the precaution of acquiring assets of the company through a
subsidiary rather than the company itself in order to protect
Einstein and its shareholders from any action or claim if any of
these allegations are ever proven.'

The press release of 25 January was accompanied by a news
announcement detailing the terms of the deal. Einstein's obligations
were:-

- an allotment to Brain Games (BGN) 'of an initial 5,964,285 Einstein
shares (equivalent to £164,000 at 2.75 pence per share)';

- an 'unsecured interest free convertible loan stock of Einstein with
a nominal value of £1,060,000, convertible at 3.5p per share into a
further 30,285,715 Einstein shares';

- assumption of £800,000 in debt owed to BGN by [Intellectual
Leisure], where 'it is intended that £350,000 of this debt will be
satisfied by the placing of a further 10,000,000 Einstein at 3.5p per
share' (this was done in July); 'the balance of this debt will be
satisfied within six months of completion either in cash or, at
Einstein's election, by the issue of further Einstein shares at 3p
per share'.

On the day of the announcement the stock closed at 2.56p, unchanged
from the previous day. The end-2001 report mentioned the transaction
as a note under 'Subsequent events', and assigned it a value
of '£1.269m to be paid in Einstein shares.' As I write these lines,
the stock has just traded at 0.50p, making considerably less value
for the deal, especially considering that the 'interest free
convertible loan stock' is a busted convert and currently worthless.

What did the Einstein Group receive in return for the shares it
issued? 'The assets being purchased by Einstein include BGN's
contracts with the Brain Games world chess champion, Vladimir
Kramnik, a 10% shareholding in Brain Games Asia ("BGA") together with
the right to receive a one-off $500,000 license fee and an annual
$250,000 management payment from BGA. Vladimir Kramnik will be
participating in a Man v Machine Tournament later this year in
Bahrain which has attracted funding and sponsorship of $2m and the
next Brain Games world championship is expected to take place in
early 2003.'

Ignoring the license fee and management payment from Brain Games
Asia, which are probably valued just as speculatively as the £1.269m
calculated for the deal, it brought Einstein Group two intangibles :
(1) a lot of publicity, and (2) the inside track on potentially
valuable programming content. Since the end of January, EIC has been
associated with the Kramnik - Howell blitz match, the Prague
Reunification agreement, and the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting,
won by Leko. The group can also look forward to the Brains in Bahrain
match between Kramnik and Deep Fritz in October, the Kramnik - Leko
match in the first half of 2003, and the match between the winners of
Kramnik - Leko and Kasparov - Ponomariov.

The Brains in Bahrain event might even turn the company around.
A 'Sponsor Fact Sheet' on the brainsinbahrain.com site ('temporarily
unavailable due to maintenance work') informs us that:-

- '40 million people play chess regularly', and

- 'Chess is played by over 500 million people (second only to Soccer
in terms of popularity)'.

For the Kasparov - Deep Blue match:-

- 'The Deep Blue internet site achieved over 75 million page
impressions over two weeks',

- 'The event was covered by over 200 journalists from over 60
countries', and

- 'IBM valued their exposure in excess of $105 million', where
exposure means publicity.

Looks like a winner, doesn't it? Unfortunately, it is not certain
that the Einstein Group will be able to benefit from this attention.
An announcement dated 29 July stated that, 'The directors are
currently in negotiations with the Company's supplier regarding
transmission of Einstein TV in the UK.  As a result, the Company has
agreed to a temporary suspension of the service. Says Chairman Steve
Timmins: "Our UK TV operation is facing a difficult time and is
losing money because of the advertising downturn.  It is my immediate
aim to re-structure the UK TV channel to mitigate these losses.  I
hope to have some more news for you on this in the near future." The
Company's second annual general meeting which was originally
scheduled for 30 July is to be postponed and a notice will shortly be
sent to shareholders advising them of the new date.'

Cancelling a shareholders meeting a day before it is scheduled is not
a healthy sign for a going concern, although trading in the stock
perked up immediately. This is not a stock for widows and orphans; it
might, however, be appropriate for a risk-taking chessplayer. I can't
think of another opportunity where John Q. Public could take a flyer
on the future of chess.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks (not an EIC stockholder!)

Summary of recent reviews

---

The tournament to produce a contender for Kramnik is underway. In
case you haven't seen it, the main address of the site is...

Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting 2002
http://www.chessgate.de/dortmund/e/index.html

...where details are under 'Games Archive, Results, Tables and LIVE-
Games'. The eight players were split into two four-player preliminary
groups. Topalov and Shirov finished ahead of Gelfand and Lutz in the
first group, while Bareev and Leko beat out Adams and Morozevich in
the second.

Leko beat Shirov +2-0=1 in the first semifinal, and Bareev is leading
Topalov +2-1=0 in the second. While writing this, I'm watching the
Topalov - Bareev game in a separate window. Topalov must win this
game to force a tiebreak tomorrow.

The winner of Bareev - Topalov will meet Leko in game 1 of the final
match on Thursday, 18 July. The other three final games are scheduled
for 19-21 July, while 'tiebreak games shall take place not later than
one hour after the end of the last final game'. That's a tough
schedule, especially if Bareev - Topalov goes into tiebreak.

These are the first candidate matches since the...

PCA Candidates Matches
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/9496pcix.htm

...where Anand beat Kamsky +3-1=7 at Las Palmas in 1995, earning the
right to challenge Kasparov. That match was held shortly after the...

FIDE Candidates Matches
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/9496fcix.htm

...where Karpov beat Gelfand +4-1=4 and Kamsky beat Salov +4-0=3 at
Sanghi Nagar in 1995 to qualify for the last FIDE match held under
the pre-knockout rules.

According to the Prague Unity Plan...

World Chess Championship : 2002-03 Unification
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/a2a3$wix.htm

...The winner of the Kramnik match will face the winner of
Ponomariov - Kasparov to produce the first undisputed world champion
since Kasparov in 1993. One page on the Dortmund Sparkassen site
says, 'Germany's greatest chess talent [...] will play against the
Dutch star Jan Timman who once played against Anatoli Karpov in the
final of a Classical World Chess Championship.' The suggestion by any
Kramnik supporter that Karpov - Timman was a legitimate title match
would have been unthinkable just a few months ago.

---

I prepared an overview of my recent articles and loaded it at
address...

http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw02g15/chw-2g15.htm

...This summary page covers the 25 numbers since 2001 no.13 (2001-07-
01) and has links to the original reviews as well as to the pages of
supporting material.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[Send comments to...

Chess_History-owner@yahoogroups.com

...The bookmarks for the sites reviewed here may be found at...

Chess History on the Web : Recommended sites
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

...The list archive is at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
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   Chess_History-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, -or-
- by the web, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

La Bourdonnais annotates Philidor++

---

As I was working on my next review, I suddenly realized that I would
not have the time to finish it before an accelerated deadline. What
to do? I searched through my backlog of unfinished projects and found
an interesting one which I had sufficient time to complete.

Louis-Charles de La Bourdonnais (1797-1840), widely considered the
unofficial world champion in the 1830s, wrote one book : 'Nouveau
Traité du Jeux des Echecs' ('New Treatise on the Game of Chess'). The
Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KNB) catalog of the Van der Linde -
Niemeijeriana collection lists two editions, 1833 & 1842.

On my last visit to the KNB, I looked at the 1842 edition and
discovered that it is a book for beginners covering chess
fundamentals : openings, simple endgames, things like that. The
longest chapter, 'Positions curieuses' ('Curious positions'), is a
collection of 60 tactical examples which La Bourdonnais considered
particularly interesting.

I photocopied chapter 3, 'Du milieu des parties' ('The middlegame'),
which consists of nine games annotated by La Bourdonnais, copied the
moves & notes into a PGN file, transformed the PGN file to an HTML
page, and loaded the page onto one of my secondary sites...

La Bourdonnais - Du milieu des parties
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw02g01/chw-2g01.htm

...Terrific, no? Hélas, mais non. La Bourdonnais' notes are all in
French, and I haven't yet found the time to translate them into
English. If French is truly a foreign language to you, you'll have to
rely on...

Google Language Tools
http://www.google.be/language_tools?hl=en

...for translation. But there's a little problem here as well. The
address I gave above ('mark_weeks.tripod.com') makes Google choke and
spit out a 'Sorry, this URL is invalid' error message. You'll have to
feed another address to Google...

http://members.tripod.com/~Mark_Weeks/chw02g01/chw-2g01.htm

...which is, in fact, exactly the same page under a different name.

Unfortunately, that's not the only problem with the translation
service. The software assumes that the material is about anything
except chess. The title of the book is translated as 'New Treaty of
the Plays of the Failures', because the word 'chess' in French
('échecs') is the same as the plural for failure ('échec'); the title
of chapter 3 is translated as 'Medium of the parts' for similar
reasons. Another sentence, which could be translated as 'this Bishop,
instead of retreating, could give check', comes out as 'This insane,
instead of withdrawing itself, can give failure'. The translations
for the pieces are almost unrecognizable -- a Queen ('dame') is a
lady, a Rook ('tour') is a tower, a Bishop ('fou') is an insane, and
a Knight ('cavalier') is a rider. Only kings and pawns escape this
treatment. Mercifully, the translation stops about halfway, when
Google reaches its limit for a single translation.

Another problem comes from Tripod.com, which has decided that images
from a Tripod domain requested for a non-Tripod site
constitute 'stealing bandwidth'. Since Google.com is not Tripod.com,
this means that all of the images on the original page are displayed
on the translated page as a generic 'Image hosted by tripod' image
and are thereby lost. Sigh.

---

If you happen to be one of the two or three people in the world who
is interested in the correct spelling of La Bourdonnais' full name,
the title page of the book, also shown on my Tripod.com page, offers
a hint. First, let's look at what some heavyweight chess historians
say.

In 'Chess Personalia', Gaige gives 'Louis Charles Mahé de
Labourdonnais', indexed on 'Labourdonnais'. In 'Chess World
Championships, All the Games, 1834-1984', Gelo gives 'Louis de
Labourdonnais', and refers to him as 'Labourdonnais'. In 'The Oxford
Companion to Chess', Hooper & Whyld have an entry under the
heading 'La Bourdonnais', which says only 'see Bourdonnais';
under 'Bourdonnais', they give 'Louis Charles de la Bourdonnais'.
In 'A History of Chess', Murray gives 'Louis Charles Mahé de la
Bourdonnais', indexed by 'Bourdonnais', and referred to elsewhere
as 'De la Bourdonnais'. In the only French reference I have at
hand, 'La fabuleuse histoire des champions d'échecs', Giffard
gives 'Louis Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais', referring to him
elsewhere as 'La Bourdonnais'.

A side by side comparison...

Gaige 	 Labourdonnais  Louis Charles Mahé de
Labourdonnais
Gelo 	 Labourdonnais  Louis de Labourdonnais
Hooper & Whyld Bourdonnais  Louis Charles de la
Bourdonnais
Murray  De la Bourdonnais Louis Charles Mahé de la
Bourdonnais
Giffard  La Bourdonnais  Louis Charles Mahé de La
Bourdonnais

...reveals four variations of the surname and five variations of the
full name. So which is right? According to 'Nouveau Traité du Jeux
des Echecs', none of them! At least none of them are right about the
full name.

On the title page of 'Nouveau Traité', the author's name is given
as 'L.-C. de La Bourdonnais'. Note that the given name is hyphenated
('-'), the family name is three words, and 'de La' uses a peculiar
combination of lower and upper case first letters. A five page
biography in the book's introduction repeats the hyphenation,
introduces the subject as 'M. Mahé de La Bourdonnais', and refers to
him thereafter as 'La Bourdonnais'.

So the Frenchman Giffard was the closest to L-CdLB's preferred
spelling. 'Mahé' appears to be correct, although optional. 'Louis
Charles', however, should be hyphenated as 'Louis-Charles', which
also conforms to modern convention. I've met dozens of Frenchmen with
names like 'Jean-Marie', 'Jean-Marc', and 'Pierre-Charles', but I've
never met a single one who preferred to be called simply 'Jean'
or 'Pierre'.

In any case, 'La Bourdonnais' is clearly the preferred spelling of
the surname. I've used both 'La Bourdonnais' and 'Labourdonnais' in
the past, but will be consistent in the future.

---

I also became curious about the origin of the games selected by La
Bourdonnais. He wrote, 'This chapter contains nine games. The first,
the second, the eighth and the ninth belong to Philidor. The third
was played recently by two strong French amateurs; the fourth, the
fifth, and the sixth, were played by correspondence between the club
of London and the club of Edinburgh. Lastly, the seventh was played
by an English amateur of great force and by the author of this work.'

Using the database search function at Chesslab...

Two million interactive chess games online
http://www.chesslab.com/PositionSearch.html

...I identified the five games which were not played by Philidor. The
game played 'by two strong French amateurs' is Boncourt - St.Amant,
Paris 1837; the three London - Edinburgh correspondence games are
among a total of five on the Chesslab database; and the game between
La Bourdonnais and 'an English amateur of great force' is La
Bourdonnais - Cochrane, Paris 1821, which La Bourdonnais lost, and
which is the only La Bourdonnais game on the Chesslab database played
before 1830.

If you'd like more information on the London - Edinburgh
correspondence games, which were tremendous struggles, see...

The Edinburgh vs. London Match
http://www.correspondencechess.com/games/exhibit1.htm

...What about the Philidor games? Assuming they were played by
Philidor -- 'appartiennent', literally 'belong to', could also refer
to a collection of games owned by Philidor (I admit, it's a stretch) -
- I'm not even certain which color Philidor played in each game.
Chesslab has only 15 games played by 'Philidor'; five of these are
from the 1983 World Computer Chess Championship and were played
by 'Philidor X', which finished close to the bottom of the final
standings.

A Google search on 'Philidor PGN', returned several hundred pages,
but most of these were collections of Philidor's Defense  (ECO C41;
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6). A page on Schachgeschichte.de promised six games
by Philidor, but when I downloaded the file, it contained only Morphy
games. Finally, I learned on...

Philidor 1747 - 1795
http://www.worldchessnetwork.com/English/chessHistory/salute/kings/phi
lidor.php

...that 'David Levy and Kevin O'Connell, Oxford Encyclopedia of Chess
Games (Oxford University Press, 1981), contain[s] all 78 of
Philidor's surviving games and segments of games'. Now all I have to
do is locate a copy of this hard-to-find book.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[Send comments to...

Chess_History-owner@yahoogroups.com

...The bookmarks for the sites reviewed here may be found at...

Chess History on the Web : Recommended sites
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

...The list archive is at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
- by email, send a message to
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Site review - Old in Chess

---

For the next article in this series of site reviews, I'm going to
look at...

Old in Chess by Oscar Alfredo Zaiko
http://www.geocities.com/oldinchess/index.htm

...In spite its English language title, the site is written in
Spanish. The copyright notice gives an email address at uol.com.ar,
from which we can deduce that Zaiko is from Argentina. Since I don't
speak Spanish, I once again had to rely on...

Google Language Tools
http://www.google.com/language_tools

...to understand the site's content. The main page is divided into
eight major sections -- [PARTIDAS] (Games), [CAMPEONES] (Champions),
[HISTORIA] (History), [LISTAS ELO] (Elo rating lists), [LINKS],
[INFORMES] (Information), [OBJETIVOS] (Objectives), and [NOVEDADES]
(New features) -- plus a list of the last changes made and an email
list to be kept informed about future changes. [OBJETIVOS]  and
[NOVEDADES] are found further down on the main page. Google
translates the objectives as...

'They exist in the network all type of web's dedicated to the chess.
A great amount of pages is oriented to offer the last information in
chess matter. Today it is not only possible to find the results - and
the games of a match neither or these finalize, but that abound the
transmissions with events "live". This quick and competitive rate
(some sites announce that they were first in informing on such-and-
such thing) reveals similarity to a game of "blitz". We preferred to
give to our Web a slower and reflective rate.'

...which reads better than many other automated translations that
I've seen, and presents clearly the author's vision.

[PARTIDAS], the first section on the main page, is a database of
important tournaments held from 1970 to 1976. It appears that some of
these years are still being developed and other years will be added
as Zaiko finds the time and the material. The database can be
accessed by year, by country, by player, and by opening.

The seven years (1970-76) cover a total of 36.283 games. For each
year there is a list of the events in the database from that year.
The games for each event can be downloaded separately in either PGN
or ChessBase (CBV) format. Later in this review I'll look at the year
1971, which covers 3.845 games in 37 events. I was unable to download
any of the PGN files for events. These files are linked on a
different domain (www2.netexplora.com) which consistently produced
the error message 'Gateway Timeout : Server unreachable'. I had no
problem with the CBV files, which are on another Geocities directory.

Access by country segments the database into 33 countries plus three
Olympiads (1970/-72/-76). Each country has a list of the events held
in that country during the base seven year period. Germany,
encompassing both the BRD and DDR, leads the list with 2.713 games
from the total 36.283 on the database. The 22 German events start
with the 19th DDR championship (February 1970) and end with Halle
(November 1976). The Netherlands is second with 2.628 games in 28
events, while the mighty USSR is only third with 2.480 games in 18
events.

Access by player covers the 171 players who have more than 100 games
in the database; this totals 32.517 games. Each player is listed with
a few statistics like the win-loss-draw record from the period. The
player having the most games is Vlastimil Hort, who compiled a record
of +189-40=281 or 64,6% over 510 games. He is followed by Ulf
Andersson (+134-64=291 57,2%) and Borislav Ivkov (+89-35=274 56,8%).
For each player, the games in PGN and CBV formats are available for
download. Hort's PGN file starts with the 'USSR vs the World' match
(March 1970) and ends with Banja Luka (December 1976).

The player with the highest scoring percentage was IM Raul Sanguineti
(+67-10=58 71,1%), followed by Karpov (+120-11=131 70,8%) and Huebner
(+64-16=64 66,7%). Where's Fischer? He's missing, probably because he
played less than 100 games during the period covered.

First among the drawing masters was Bruno Parma with 234 draws out of
313 games played, meaning that 74,8% of his games ended in draws. He
was followed by Wolfgang Unzicker (74/101 73,3%) and Levente Lengyel
(138/192 71,9%). The player with the lowest percentage of draws was
Shimon Kagan (30/113 26,6%).

Access by opening segments the database into 21 opening variations,
identified by ECO (Encyclopedia of Chess Openings) code. The split is
somewhat arbitrary. The largest variation is the Sicilian (B20-B99)
which includes 7820 games; the smallest is the Scandinavian (B00-B01)
with 194 games. Taken from White's viewpoint, the most successful
variation in the early 1970s was the Catalan (E00-E09; +151-72=213
59,1%) and the least successful was the irregular Queen's Pawn games
(D00-D05; +93-105=131 48,2%).

The other major sections on the main page are not as comprehensive as
[PARTIDAS], but are interesting in different ways. [CAMPEONES] lists
the national champions by country for six countries -- Chile, Greece,
Italy, Paraguay, the USSR, and the USA. The table for the USSR lists
47 championships held from 1920 (won by Alekhine) to 1979 (Geller).
The last ten events have crosstables and games in PGN and CBV formats.

[HISTORIA] has four Spanish language articles on chess history of the
and the best players. The first -- 'Antiguedad de las
partidas "brillantes"' -- includes the annotated game Bird - Mason,
New York, 1876. The other articles are 'Capablanca: a game without
decision', 'Unknown games of M.Tal', and 'First South American Match'.

[LISTAS ELO] covers the first FIDE ELO rating lists, with tables and
analysis. There are, in fact, only links to two versions -- an HTML
page for viewing and a ZIP file for download -- of the first list
published by FIDE in 1971, which had 589 players with 82 GMs and 172
IMs. Linked to the HTML version is a page of statistics with tables
and graphs on topics like the distribution of GMs by age and by
rating.

I worked out a few stats of my own and discovered that the oldest GMs
on the Elo list were Samisch (b. 1896), Najdorf (1910), and Rossolimo
(1910); the youngest were Karpov (1951), Huebner (1948), and Browne
(1946). The oldest IMs were Canal (1896), Gilg (1901), and Fairhurst
(1903); the youngest were Mecking (1952), Ribli (1951), and Andersson
(1951). The count of birth dates by month revealed a curiosity...

Mo : Ct
01 : 42
02 : 45
03 : 69
04 : 47
05 : 38
06 : 41
07 : 41
08 : 37
09 : 41
10 : 43
11 : 43
12 : 32

...where the distribution throughout the year is fairly uniform
except for the month of March.

[LINKS] covers federations, magazines, history, game databases, and
miscellaneous. [INFORMES] has pages about various unrelated topics --
  'Pal Benko en el Campeonato Americano (1969/1980)' and 'Miniatures
in Base de Partidas'.

---

Let's go back and take a closer look at 1971, the second year covered
by 'Old in Chess' (OIC). The most significant events of the year were
Fischer's victories in candidate matches and Karpov's emergence as
the strongest player of the new generation. This was also the year
that saw the publication of the first FIDE rating list.

OIC lists 37 events for 1971. An obvious question is 'Why these
events?' If another historian were to compile a list of the most
important events of 1971, how would it compare to the OIC list? I
decided to check two other sources covering the same year. The first
source was ChessLab at...

ChessLab : Two million interactive chess games online
http://www.chesslab.com/

...I downloaded all 5646 games for the year 1971, and loaded the PGN
headers into a database for further analysis. The second source was
Chess Records Management (CRM) which I reviewed early last year...

2001 no.3 2001-02-01 UPITT (V; Events); CRM I
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw01d15/2001-03.txt

2001 no.4 2001-02-15 CRM II
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw01d15/2001-04.txt

...Unfortunately, the site and its data has since disappeared. During
the preparation of my articles I built a database from CRM's
extensive index of chess events since the early 1800s. I dug this
database out of my archives and extracted 49 events from 1971. I
matched the OIC list with the CRM list and found 29 events on both
lists. The ChessLab data helped with some of the less obvious
matches; for example, CRM's 'Eskilstuna' was the same as OIC's '43.
SWE-ch' and CRM's 'Tucuman (tt)' was the same as OIC's '01.
Panamericano tt'.

This left 28 events on one list or the other, but not on both -- 20
from CRM's list and 8 from OIC's. Of the events on CRM's list, I was
surprised to discover that the four candidate matches where Fischer
did not participate were missing from OIC. Other events which might
be considered important were Adelaide (won by Portisch), Varna
(Vasiukov), Vrnjacka Banja (Vaganian), Vrsac (Mecking), and perhaps
the first Lone Pine, a Swiss System won by GM Larry Evans. Of the
events on OIC's list missing from CRM, the most important were the
Polish championship (Schmidt), the British championship (Keene), and
the European Team championship.

What makes an event historically important? I admit that I don't have
a good answer to this question. Perhaps it depends on who is asking
and for what purpose.

---

This is a site to watch and I hope that Zaiko continues its
development. It's a mixture of chess history, database, and Internet
techniques which transcend language and cultural barriers.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[Send comments to...

Chess_History-owner@yahoogroups.com

...The bookmarks for the sites reviewed here may be found at...

Chess History on the Web : Recommended sites
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

...The list archive is at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
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Site review - Chesmayne

---

Most information on the Internet seems to be free. In case you're
tempted to say, 'It's all worth what you pay for it', please consider
that it's not really free; subscription, access, and communication
fees add up fast. Even the free information comes with a price, and
it's not always easy to distinguish the most valuable sources of
information from the least valuable.

In my previous review, I looked at a chess encyclopedia. The next
site...

Chesmayne by Raymond Reid
http://www.chess-poster.com/english/chesmayne/chesmayne.htm

...is related to a chess dictionary, which I first looked at a few
years ago...

Site review - Chess Dictionary (1999/08/26)
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/Sit-rvws/1999-07.txt

...After concluding that the site ('5,000+ Keywords in an A to Z
format') was about a chess variant called Chesmayne, I removed it
from my list of recommended sites about the history of chess in its
most popular Western variant. This topic is already big enough. When
I found the Chesmayne history pages at Chess-poster.com, I hesitated
to add the link to my list, but a quick glance convinced me that
there was interesting material on chess itself.

The site I looked at almost three years ago
('homepage.tinet.ie/~rayreid/') has disappeared into a 'not found on
this server' error message, so I set off to find its replacement. I
keep a guestbook on my World Championship site to allow other site
owners to flag links to their own sites. Earlier this year, Reid did
exactly that and wrote...

Wednesday 03/20/2002 7:13:02am
Name: Raymond Reid
Homepage Title: Chess Dictionary Chesmayne
Homepage URL: http://www.geocities.com/chess_dictionary
Comments: Hello, The 2002 Edition of the Chesmayne Chess Dictionary
is now available at http://www.geocities.com/chess_dictionary - it is
now being updated and has 100,000+ chess related keywords, melodies
[midi's and MP3's], pictures, graphics, tables, AZ indexes etc. [...]
Please contact me if you are interested in the CD Rom version [750
Megabytes]. Please give me a link if you wish. Yours sincerely,
Raymond Reid.

...I'm almost certain that I looked at the site when I first saw this
entry in March, but when I recently clicked on the address, all I
received was another error message 'Whoops! We can't find your page!'
A search of GeoCities for 'chess_dictionary' returned a different
guestbook entry pointing to another free domain...

Welcome to my Guestbook!
Raymond Reid - 08/26/00 23:12:17
My URL: http://www.fortunecity.com/underworld/soundcard/1161/
Comments: 12,000+ keyword chess dictionary.

...but this also returned an error message 'We couldn't find the site
or page you are looking for'. I don't give up too easily, so I tried
a Google search on 'chesmayne reid', which returned 'about 111'
matches. Of the 10 links on the first page of results, 6 were for
guestbooks. One that wasn't a guestbook...

Link to Chesmayne
http://www.chessvariants.com/link2.dir/chessmayne.html

...pointed to the well known Chessvariants.com site. The info had
been added only a few days before I found it, mentioned '100,000+
chess related keywords', and gave an address...

Chesmayne
http://chesmayn.valuehost.co.uk

...This was an updated version of the chess dictionary site that I
looked at in 1999. Since I had documented the section about Alekhine
in that previous review, I looked at 'Alekhine' again. After some
trouble finding it -- the keyword is misplaced between 'Acentric'
and 'Achilles' -- I discovered the same article with the addition of
a long biography attributed to the 'Chess Poster web page' and which
is indeed also found on Chess-poster.com. Neither Chesmayne nor Chess-
poster mentions that the Alekhine bio was originally written by Terry
Crandall for his 'Game is Afoot' pages.

---

The Chess-poster.com domain is registered to Jose Badillo of El Paso,
Texas. As the domain name implies, its purpose is to sell an
attractive poster explaining the basics of the game of chess. The
homepage link 'History of Chess' leads to the Chesmayne material,
which is introduced by 'We like to express our gratitude to Mr.
Raymond Reid (Chesmayne) for allowing us to publish on our website
what to us, is the best and most complete History of Chess available
on the Internet'.

The Chesmayne main index page has links for each of the six pieces --
King, Queen, Rook, Bishop, Knight, & Pawn -- plus 61 articles
from '01: History of Chess' through '61: Brief notes on the History
of Chess'. Among the many intriguing titles are '13: Caissa', '30:
Russia', and '49: The Lewis Chessmen'. I downloaded all 61 articles
into a single file for easier reading and analysis. While doing this
I discovered that the last two articles are copied from elsewhere...

'60: The Turk' by Tom Standage
'61: Brief notes on the history of Chess' by Bill Wall

...with appropriate credit given to the original authors. The Bill
Wall material is the familiar timeline, found elsewhere on the Web,
that starts '0531 India; Chess introduced into Persia from India
during reign of Khusrau Nushirwan. (531-578)'. For some reason, the
Chesmayne version ends prematurely with '1918 12/27 Schlechter,
Viennese master, died of pneumonia and starvation in Budapest'; the
years 1919 through 1998 (where Wall's material ends) are missing.

Eliminating the last two articles from the consolidated material
leaves an 18.000 word essay. I repeated the download process for the
6 articles about the pieces, which produced a second file slightly
larger than the first. The article on the King starts, 'Your function
as King (KI) in a game of Chess is to snatch lighting from the sky
and the scepter from the opposing King'. The rest is an essay on what
the word 'king' signifies to the small world of the chessboard ('The
King never dies') and to the big world outside ('Kings are leaders of
the national army and shepherds of their peoples and also connected
with justice, protection of the poor, widows and orphans').

The essay gives translations of the word 'king' into different
languages (the German is given as 'Koning', which is Dutch; the
German word is 'König' or 'Koenig'), references to the king in
literature (ex. 'Shelley: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look
on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'), the titles of 40 movies about
kings (ex. 'The King and I'), and images from the chess poster
related to the king. The other pieces -- Queen ('For what's a play
without a woman in it?'), Rook ('Twin towers represent the split in
the psyche'), Bishop ('The Catholic Church has 4,500+ Bishops'),
Knight ('The Knight as a symbol has come to represent the virtues of
chivalry'), and Pawn ('If you know them, they'll help you win lots of
games') -- receive similar treatment.

---

I'd like to discuss the 61 articles (really 59) about chess history,
but I have a problem. I admit that I don't understand their real
point. To explain what I mean, I'm going to use extensive quotes from
the Chesmayne material followed by the number of the article. For
example...

'It seems we are mysteriously connected to the universe. We are
mirrored in it, just as the entire evolution of the universe is
mirrored in us. However, like frogs, sooner or later we have to step
outside our limited sensorium.' [01]

...is from '01: History of Chess'; this sentence...

'[Chess] is a magical place where you can ride on fluffy white clouds
wearing a dreamy expression on your face, moving your pieces as you
play your favorite game of make believe.' [03]

...is from '03: Non-violence - the credo of Chess'.

As farce, the articles are brilliant; as literature, they contain
unique observations on chess and on life; as chess history, I just
can't take them seriously. Why not? I'm not really sure, but I'll
illustrate with a few examples. They're not hard to find.

>>> Perhaps I can't take them seriously because of the numerous
condescending references to chess when compared to Chesmayne...

'It is our good fortune that traditional chess has been handed down -
for it is on this very foundation that Chesmayne has been
constructed.' [19]

'Chesmayne, the game on which you are about to embark is a contest
that caters for the intellectual capacity of the modern mind.' [21]

'Chesmayne brings a breath of fresh air to the traditional game of
chess and propels it into the 3rd millennium.' [26]

'Chesmayne is the synthesis of all these variations and is an
enlargement of our chess concept.' [40]

...without ever explaining what 'Chesmayne' is. I had to go back to
the chess dictionary site to get a definition of the term. From...

Chesmayne
http://chesmayn.valuehost.co.uk/Chesmayne.htm

...I learned that the 'word "Chesmayne" is taken from the French and
means "Chess-Company" -- "ches" and "mayne". It is the term used to
describe the modern new boards, MPs/mps, symbols, notation, syntax
etc.' I speak French reasonably well, but these words are unknown to
me. The French and French-English dictionaries that I consulted
weren't much help. Neither were a few friends who are native French
speakers. Google offered only suggestions like 'Mayne, Grand Cru de
Saint Emilion', a Bordeaux wine. Could the word be Old French,
Breton, or another regional language spoken inside the French
hexagon?

>>> Perhaps I can't take them seriously because of the special
symbols and vocabulary which pepper the discussions. The last few
words in this sentence...

'Losing a game of draughts never results in the same sense of deep
personal loss that one has when the KI is ++CM.' [01]

...mean 'when the King is checkmated'. The phrase 'game-tree' pops up
frequently, as in...

'Today, the game of traditional Chess is very similar to the original
game that was played in India 1400+ years ago (i.e., the game-tree
has not been altered significantly). Chesmayne allows any game-tree
to be used for play.' [01]

'"Renaissance" : The rumblings of dissent began in earnest when chess
players in the early 15th century got a pain up the crevice of their
arse playing the then existing game-tree and some gollix had the
effrontery to suggest that the Vizer (Adviser) be transformed into
Queen.' [11]

>>> Perhaps it's because of the clumsy constructions used to avoid
any hint of sexism...

'[The pieces] are not merely rounded lumps of wood or stone but
individuals, each with h/er own power and attributes.' [01]

'We have gained control over the forces of nature to such an extent
that we would have no difficulty exterminating one another to the
last wo/man and child if necessary. The real solution to this problem
lies in the minds of wo/men. [...] Generations of wo/men have argued
that the appropriate solution to human violence is to channel innate
aggression into cerebral or physical activities such as sports and
games. [...] [Chess] educates individuals to see themselves as
members, not of a tribe of white wo/men or black who invent tribal
prejudice, fear and suspicion of alien race, culture, religion and
ideas, which draw wo/men, as members of a herd or mob to perform acts
of collective lunacy which most of them, as reasonable individuals
sitting quietly at home with their families would concede as being
without sense or justice. The invention of a common enemy reinforces
a tribe's sense of unity, hence wo/men kill one another without
knowing why. They kill because of a cultivated mob conviction.' [02]

'Each player probes, pokes, feels and flexes h/er pieces in a nose-to-
nose staring competition.' [04]

'Chess can be played by any person of any race, colour or, creed, and
if given the facility of equipment and instruction s/he can make a
start.' [30]

...This could easily be avoided by replacing the awkward '/'
constructions with neutral English words. What's wrong with 'its'
instead of 'h/er' in the first example? In another passage the
awkwardness moves to the opposite side when queens and princesses are
counted as gentlemen...

'played by many gentlemen of fair estate and fortune - Kings and
Queens, Princes, Princesses, Dukes, Generals, Regents, Presidents,
Academics and School children alike.' [03]

... along with school children.

>>> Perhaps it's because of the non sequitors which appear constantly
throughout the text...

'It seems that aggression and violence are innate attributes of homo
sapiens and largely irremovable. [...] However, it must be noted that
human beings are not, and never have been, born aggressive, but learn
it as a response to circumstances.' [02]

'There are many word, card and other board games which exercise the
human mind and give many hours of pleasurable enjoyment - bridge,
scrabble, poker, backgammon, cribbage and Shogi allow you to have fun
competing in the game best suited to your mental ability. A game that
Albert Einstein played as a child sold for $20,000 in Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, USA, in 1995.' [05]

'The theory of chess did not begin to face true critical scrutiny
until about the 16th century when western intelligence began its slow
emergence from the quagmire of ignorance in which it had been content
to live with for a thousand years. [P] Within our lifetimes it will
be possible finally to be able to understand this vast universe and
answer its many riddles in our journey of self-correcting discovery.
On reaching western shores the names and design of the pieces were
gradually altered to represent the political and religious mores of
European feudalism.' [11]

'All the moves are immediately visible and the power of the pieces
precisely regulated - this is the real mystery of the game.' [28]

'Chess is a barometer of Russian cultural supremacy and they have
come to believe the game to be their permanent treasure. A national
fear arises that something is rotten in the land when they are
defeated - part of the national consciousness - like football in the
west where the top players are frequently in the tabloids and even
the broadsheets or seen signing autographs.' [30]

'The players themselves are also called white and black. Many Jewish
and Christian scholars have played chess.' [32]

...My favorite extended passage is this gem...

'"The Immortals" : With few exceptions, the really big international
stars of chess are definitely larger than life. Their talent,
appearance, strength of character and general ambience single them
out from lesser mortals, and the mark of the truly big international
star is the ability to stand out without consciously and constantly
striving to do so.

'Admittedly, there are the ornate Staunton chess pieces on the
sumptuous chequered board itself at its most magnificent, the Marie
Therese crystal chandeliers, the $1,500 suits that makes them appear
almost presidential and those fancy Swiss Rolex watches with matching
oyster bracelets which have been used by generations of adventurers
and explorers that contain over 200 parts, 29+ synthetic ruby
bearings meticulously engineered in pursuit of absolute reliability
and tested for hundreds of hours by the Controle Officiel Suisse des
Chronometres in Geneva.

'John Ridgway (explorer) rowed across the North Atlantic in an open
boat, trekked the length of the Amazon from source to sea, made the
first crossing of the Gran Campo ice-cap in Patagonia, embarked on a
non-stop voyage around the world, sailed his entire family from
Scotland to Antarctica via Polynesia (a perilous odyssey of 18
months) and paddled alongside the first woman (his daughter) ever to
canoe round Cape Horn while wearing a Rolex Oyster which survived
hurricanes, blizzards, icebergs and tropical storms.

'But, when in play these incidentals fade into the background of the
overall image. It is the talent and the personality that rivet the
attention and admiration of an audience. Such fame, fortune and truly
larger-than-life image inevitably draws others by its magnetic
attraction. They live in a world where every hand is turned against
every other hand - even their closest friends.' [16]

>>> Perhaps it's because of the silly tips on how to improve...

'Remember that as long as your opponent has pieces, they can be moved
and may become dangerous.' [17]

'One of the ways to understand chess is to ask the following
questions:
01 What is a chessboard?
02 What symbols are used?
03 What variants are available?' [23]

'The `adopt a legend' technique has worked well for many chess
experts. This is probably the best way to improve your playing style
once you have got over the hurdle of the elementary stage. Choose a
hero/heroine and examine h/er games in depth.' [58]

...This last is actually good advice, but `adopt a legend'?

>>> Perhaps it's because of the psychological, sociological,
mystical, and symbolic nonsense which abounds...

'Crowded with its 32 pieces the player looks down auspiciously on
their work and presides with unshaken self-possession and undaunted
perseverance over the tumult and raging fury of this theatre of war
with visage furrowed and darkened by the anguish of contemplation.'
[04]

'Western players do not usually speak of Chess as art and
metaphysical questions about the game cause people to feel queasy.
Most writing on the subject is dry technical analysis relevant only
to serious students of the game with society tending to regard
serious players as an eccentric group of heavyweight thinkers whose
intelligence is useless.' [04]

'Chess reveals the inner lives and characters of the wo/men who,
escaping madness, can unremittingly devote all of their mental energy
during 10, 20, 30 or 40+ years to the ludicrous effort of cornering a
wooden King on a chequered wooden board.' [16]

'[The top players'] magnetic presence has elevated the game to
national importance and convinced the world that being a chess player
is respectable, even romantic. Some have become folk heroes with
reputations that cross oceans and many generations. Along with the
global fame and whispering reverence comes the immortality that goes
with casual mention in a chess handbook.' [16]

'The two processes that operate on the chessboard, tactics and
strategy, are what the Chinese call Yin and Yang and the interaction
of the two, the Tao.' [21]

'The Russian school encouraged the aggressive stare at the board and
Mikhail Tal was the most famous exponent of this practice, developing
the intimidating stare into something approaching an art form.' [30]

'"X's and O's" : The game of X's and O's is basically a very
simplified form of Chess with one type of piece and a board of nine
cells. Each player inputs an X, or O, onto this board alternately.
[...] X's and O's can be played on a piece of paper, on a frosted or
dirty window, or on the sand at the beach.' [35]

>>> Perhaps it's because of the confusion over the origin of the
game...

'The origins of Chess are obscure, and it is not until the 7th
century that there is a reference to the game in literature.' [01]

'The finest original copy of `The Book of the Dead' is the Papyrus of
Ani, now one of the treasures of the British Museum in London. [...]
It also contains an illustration of the resurrection of the scribe
Ani himself and his wife, who are depicted playing Chess - which may
give lovers of Chess some idea of its age.' [05]

...A Google search told me that the 'Papyrus of Ani' dates from 1240
BC...

'[Chess] originated in India, or China, during or before the 6th
century' [09]

'Chess in its various forms (Chatrang, Chaturanga, Shatranj, Korean,
Burmese, Chinese and Thai, etc) has endeared itself to all those who
have come in contact with it during the last forty centuries...' [19]

'"Origins of Chess" : The Indian Brahmin who designed the original
concept some 25 centuries ago' [31]

'It seems that the origins of modern traditional chess arose in the
5th century AD in northwest India.' [33]

'Chess migrated from India to China in the 8th century, but there is
some residual supporting evidence to conclude that it was imported
from India in the 2nd century AD.' [39]

>>> Perhaps it's because of the many gaffes. The errors can be
consistent...

'FIDE or, the `Federation Internationale des Eches [sic]' motto
is, `Gens una sumus' (`we are the people') [sic].' [19]

'"F.I.D.E." : French: Federation Internationale des Eches
(International Chess Federation). Its motto is `Gens una sumus' (`We
are the people').' [56]

...inconsistent...

'"Aron Nimzowitsch" : Author of `My System'. [...] He worked out `His
System' during the years 1906-1913...' [15]

'in 1861 a chess clock was introduced. [...] During the 18th century
the introduction of the clock made chess players careful in the
management of their time allocation...' [17]

'The game progressed to such an extent that during the 18th century
players such as Philidor could play three or more opponents
blindfold.' [14] [...] 'Aladdin (Ala'Addin at - Tabrizi) : A 14th
century chess player who could play blindfold chess. He was a lawyer
and considered the best chess player in the world who could play four
blindfold games at once, plus another game under normal conditions
while carrying on a conversation with the spectators.' [44]

'Nathaniel Cooke designed the six Staunton chess piece set which is
still used today as the standard set of symbols for traditional
occidental competitions.' [16] [...] 'Howard Staunton commissioned
Nathaniel Cook in 1849 to design the chess set which is used in all
international traditional chess competitions.' [54] [It's 'Cook'.]

'The first officially recognized world chess championship was held in
1886, when Wilhelm Steinitz beat Johannes Zukertort in a match held
in the USA.' [...] 'Wilhelm Steinitz became world champion when he
defeated Adolf Anderssen in 1886.' [58] [Anderssen died in 1879]

...typos..

'The chess world's Chevalier's of the Legion d'Honneur/Croix de
Guerre would include Philidor, Staunton, Anderssen, Morphy, Steinitz,
Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe, Botvinnik, Karpov, Smyslov, Tal,
Petrosian, Spassky, Nimowitsch [sic] and of course, Fisher [sic], who
are just a few that have been elevated to the chess world's `order of
the purple'.' [16]

'The world record for the greatest number of participants in a
simultaneous exhibition is 301 players.' [53] [It's 310.]

...undocumented opinion...

'Paul Morphy (U.S.A. Irish/Spanish/French) 1958-1959' [01] [I'd love
to see the proof that Morphy was Irish]

'Russian Chess players have dominated world Chess since the 1940s,
although their superiority is fast being challenged by Britain' [01]

'President's Gorbachov and Yelstin ruled as Tsars!' [30]

'"Correspondence Chess" : Invented by Professor J.W.D. Wildt of
Gottingen, Germany.' [51]

...or just plain wrong...

'Modern board games such as Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble (invented
1948), Monopoly (invented in 1934 by Charles Darrow) and Bridge are
played the world over.' [22] [Bridge is not a board game]

'A rating is achieved by attaining a certain score against other
rated players. The method was invented and codified by a professor of
mathematics, now retired to Wisconsin, U.S.A., Arpad Elo.' [56] [Elo
died in 1992]

---

Finally, I tried to find other Web-based resources related to
Chesmayne, and came across this...

Ch'Essays : A brief history of chess
http://www.goddesschess.com/chessays/history1.html

...which starts, 'We're pleased to present the following synopsis of
the history of The Game from Raymond Reid's excellent Chessmayne
Encyclopedia.' A well rewritten text of Chesmayne's first article
(01: History of Chess) is prefaced by 'History -- an account, mostly
false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by
rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools'. Perhaps I'm not
the only person to have read through the history of chess according
to Chesmayne.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[Send comments to...

Chess_History-owner@yahoogroups.com

...The bookmarks for the sites reviewed here may be found at...

Chess History on the Web : Recommended sites
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

...The list archive is at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
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Site review - La Mecca Chess Encyclopedia

---

A few months ago I received an email saying, 'You used to have a link
to a biography type of site. I can no longer find it... Could you
please tell me where it is?' I suggested a site featuring biographies
of the world champions and near champions. The response was, 'I was
looking for a site that had a very inclusive list of players. It
allowed you to look up virtually any player that has accomplished
anything at all in chess. There was quite a good number of photos
that could be perused on many players also.' I knew only one site
that fit the description, so I suggested...

La Mecca Chess Encyclopedia
http://maskeret.com/mecca/index.shtml

...and got it right the second time. The site, by Maurizio
Mascheroni, has a well maintained directory of chess sites plus a
number of features under 'Who, When and Where' -- Who is Who, When
and Where, Timeline, Today in history -- all relevant to chess
history.

Mascheroni, who also uses the nickname 'Maskeret', is from Milan,
Italy. In the last issue of Chess History on the Web, I reviewed an
Italian language site which had some great content, but failed to
meet the high standards associated with the term 'Italian design'.
Maskeret's 100% English language site shows that those standards can
also apply to Web sites.

Mecca's home page runs down two columns. Each section on the page is
set off in a different color, making it easy to spot particular
features. The 'Welcome' at the top of the right-hand column
says, 'Welcome to La Mecca, the first real Encyclopedia of Chess on
Internet. In this site you find a lot of information about chess,
chess players (images, biographies, etc.), chess events (tournament
tables), Elo lists and calculation, ECO codes and, of course,
thousands of links to best chess sites all over the world.' Of
course! -- the directory of links is what the Mecca Encyclopedia is
best known for.

The top of the left-hand column shows a random image related to
chess. This might be a picture of a well known grandmaster, an
Italian chess personality, artwork, or a stamp. I traced the images
to their source and counted 167 different images available for home
page refresh.

The rest of the left-hand column displays time sensitive information -
- 'Today in history', 'International Chess Events' (aka 'Jack - Just
Another Chess Calendar'), and 'Last news' (aka 'Blip'). Each of these
is also mentioned in the right-hand column, so I'll hold any remarks
until later in this article.

The first feature on the right is 'Who, When and Where', a collection
of database driven searches on chess personalities and chess events.
How many?...

'Players: 3296 - Images: 3538 - Update: May 7, 2002
Events: 1607 - Images: 411 - Update: Mar 10, 2002'

...That's how many! The main entry to the player data is under 'Who
is Who : A comprehensive guide to all major chess figures'. The entry
to the event data is 'When and Where : A complete guide to all major
chess events'. Both entries have an associated [Add] link, where you
can add or change information for a player or for an event.

'Who is Who' opens a search form to search for personalities by name,
title (GM, IM, etc.), and/or five other criteria. The search results
are displayed in a list with basic data like name, nationality, and
year of birth. The list also shows the number of images on file for
that person plus one randomly selected thumbnail from those images.
You can click on the person's name to get biographical details or on
the image count to get thumbnails of all images, if any.

I tried a search on 'Lasker' and received two entries -- one for
Edward and one for Emanuel. The entry for Em. Lasker showed no title
and gave his nationality as American. I would have preferred to
see 'world champion' as a title, and I don't believe that Lasker ever
took American nationality, but I couldn't verify this last point
elsewhere.

The page behind Emanuel's name has a 1500-word biography written by
Bill Wall, plus a fairly comprehensive overview of Lasker's
tournament and match career. The page behind Edward's name has a 75-
word biography, titled 'Trivia', by Bill Wall, plus a few career
details. Bill Wall's chess history work is well known elsewhere on
the Internet. A Google search on 'chess history "Bill Wall"'
returns 'about 232' pages, and I found the same Em.Lasker biography
on two other Web sites.

This reminds me of the major drawback with database searches on Web
sites : they don't fare well in the search engines. A Google search
on 'chess site:www.maskeret.com' returns 'about 2120' pages. A
similar search on '"Bill Wall" site:www.maskeret.com' returns exactly
one page, which is not even a Mecca page. A search on 'Lasker
site:www.maskeret.com' returns 'about 25' pages, none of which is the
Bill Wall biography. This means that the wealth of chess history
material in the Mecca databases can only be found by specific
searches on Mecca, which is unfortunate for budding chess historians
who are not familiar with the Mecca resource.

Bill Wall also has a Mecca entry (he's English) with photo, as does
Maurizio Mascheroni ('Italian player, organizer and arbiter'). I
found entries for a few other noted chess historians, although the
related information is sparse. Under 'Biographical data', the entry
for H.J.R.Murray says only 'British chess historian', while entries
for Ken Whyld and Edward Winter are missing completely.

One of the search form options under 'Title' is VIP. Here I found 71
entries, extracted them into my own database, and ran some simple
queries. The VIPs include film stars -- e.g. Dustin Hoffman and
Humprey (sic) Bogart (Google : 'about 1340; did you mean "Humphrey
Bogart"', which returns 'about 76500' pages); political figures --
e.g. Fidel Castro and Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (better known as
Che Guevara; 22 images (!) on the Mecca database); and artists --
e.g. Vladimir Nabokov and Luigi Mussini.

There are a few historical personalities whose names I didn't
recognize. Among them are Atahualpa (1500-1533), '12th and last Inca
emperor of Peru'; John Lackland (ENG, 1167-1216), 'King of England
(1199-1216)'; and Timur (MGL, 1336-1405), 'Mongol emperor and
conqueror, known as Tamerlane [...] He named his son Shahrukh (chess
rook)'.

Not too surprisingly, the most frequent nationality for the VIPs --
13 entries -- is Italian. The English and French are runners-up with
10 each, while Americans and 'unknown' have 9. The entries for 63 of
the 71 VIPs were last updated 1999/05/16, while the most recent
update was for Frank Sinatra on 2001/08/10; the sole image looks like
Sinatra playing chess with former U.S champion Walter Browne.

Out of curiosity, I traced the images to a domain called
www.dreamchess.com. The home page says, 'Welcome to Dreamchess. This
site will be the future home for a comprehensive repository of
information about the world of chess. Please, stay tuned! For the
moment, please go to http://www.maskeret.com. Enjoy! Maurizio
Mascheroni, aka maskeret :-) [April 6, 2002]'. Watch this space.

---

Getting back to the Mecca home page, the 'When and Where' link also
opens a search form. Here you can search on event date and type, plus
a few other criteria. The search results are structured like the
results of a 'Who is Who' search : an entry for each event provides
links to a crosstable and to images from the event.

The results for a search on 'Type = World Chess Championship' start
with '1886: Steinitz - Zukertort' and end with 'FIDE WCC 2000',
Teheran, Iran. The matches that Kasparov played with Short (1993),
Anand (1995), and Kramnik (2000), are all missing from the list.
Another search on 'Type = Matches' & 'Free words = Kasparov' returns
those matches interspersed with entries for London (1987; the Speed
Chess Challenge vs. Short) and Deep Blue - Kasparov (1997; the 1996
match is missing). The five Kasparov - Karpov FIDE matches are
missing from this second list. There's no need to ask where
Maskeret's loyalties lie in the FIDE - Kasparov dispute.

Another search on 'Free words = Linares' returns a list of ten
events, eight of which document the annual supertournament. The first
event in the list is the 1988 category 15 tournament won by Timman.
The First Saturday tournaments in Budapest are heavily represented.

The first event in the database is London 1851, won by Anderssen. The
last is the Anand - Shirov FIDE final, played in December, 2000. The
world championship qualifying events are represented only
haphazardly. A search on 'interzonal' returns no events; a search
on 'candidate' returns seven, all tournaments, one of which is the
1997 women's event held in Groningen; a search on 'zonal' returns 18
events.

The next home page function, 'Timeline : A guide to all major chess
events, ordered by date', opens a search form on date and type. The
results are ordered chronologically in a format similar to the other
searches. A search on 'Year = 1963' & 'Type = (All)' returns a list
of births and deaths in 1963, mixed with the start dates for a few
tournaments. A similar search on 'Year = 1902-1903' gives a quick
look at upcoming centenary events.

The first event in the list is the birth of Said Bin Jubair in 665;
the second event is his death in 714. Who was Said Bin Jubair?
Clicking on the name tells us only that he was born in 665 and died
in 714. The 'Oxford Companion to Chess' (OCC) is more helpful : 'a
Black African who allegedly took up chess to make himself ineligible
for an appointment as a judge', and goes on to give the reasons.

The next link in the right-hand column -- 'Today in the history :
What's happened today in the chess history?' -- is given more space
in the left-hand column. It opens a list combining births, deaths,
and tournament starts on today's date. A simple search box returns
the same for any given day. Has anything happened on 29 February?
Yes : Hermann Hirschbach ('German player', no further information)
was born on that day in 1812, while Giorgio Bombig ('Italian player')
was born in 1892. The OCC gives a little more information about
Hirschbach, but nothing about Bombig.

The next link on the home page -- 'Jack : Just Another Chess
Calendar' -- is also found in both the left- and right-hand columns.
A list of upcoming chess events, it's outside the scope of chess
history. I'll say only that the oldest event in the Jack database
is 'Winterthur Open, 05-Oct-2001, Switzerland'.

A few other right-hand column links are also time
sensitive. 'Companion' offers tools for the 'Encyclopedia of Chess
Openings' (ECO), for Elo ratings, and for press releases. 'Wap Chess'
displays the address you need to access a few Maskeret.com features
via a WAP enabled mobile phone.

Faced with this gold mine of free information on chess history, what
can one say? The biographical information for less well-known players
is largely incomplete, but that's not Maskeret's fault. He's provided
the resource and the tools to work with the resource. It's up to the
rest of us to provide the data.

---

The only remaining Mecca function to discuss -- 'Clink! Click the
link!' -- is the biggest. It's a directory of chess sites which I
discussed briefly in...

Chess History on the Web (2001 no.23) : Chess Directories
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/message/13

...The introduction informs us that there were a mind-boggling 5666
links as of 2002-5-8, 'probably the greatest collection of chess
links on the net'. There are multiple ways to access the links. The
most straightforward is via 'Clink! Home', where 18 main categories
are further subdivided into approximately 100
subcategories. 'History' is the only category which is not
subdivided. I looked at the list of 32 sites assigned to history and
found two candidates...

Greatest chess games
http://www.geocities.com/faros8/vote.htm

Segerschach
http://www.segerschach.de/index.htm

...to add to my own page of Recommended sites (address at the end of
this article). This means that I'll be reviewing these sites in the
future.

Maskeret's list gives a date for each site, but it's not clear if
this is the date that a site was added to the Mecca Encyclopedia, the
date that it was last updated, or something else. The earliest date
in the History category is 2001-04-19, which is assigned to 12 sites.
The last date is 2001-11-29; no, I should say, 'the last date is 2002-
05-15'; a 33rd site, on Swedish chess history, was added as I was
finishing this review.

To the right of each site are functions to rate and review the
associated site. In the history category, only three sites have been
reviewed, all one-liners by the same reviewer. The ratings are also
few and far between; most sites have no ratings. 'The Chess History
Center' at www.chesshistory.com is the leader with seven. These
consolidated ratings have to be taken with a grain of salt. The small
number of ratings means that the scores are easily skewed by a
zealous individual eager to promote a personal favorite or to demote
a rival. One site has managed to achieve the maximum rating 10 out of
10, although 0 votes have been cast.

A second method to find relevant links is 'Quick Search : A speedy
method to search in our links database'. Here I get the chance to
correct a blunder. In the review of Chess Directories (2001 no.23) I
wrote, 'I searched [Mecca] on 'chess history' and received a list of
1924 matches, far too many to handle in this review.' Ahem! I should
have realized that multiple words in a search are automatically ORed
together. Here are the counts from a new search exercise:-
'Searching For 'chess history' : Found 2449 Matches'
'Searching For 'chess' : Found 2440 Matches'
'Searching For 'history' : Found 54 Matches'
This means that a search for 'chess history' is really a search for
items referencing 'chess' OR 'history'. This last result makes me
wonder how there can be 5666 links, of which 3226 don't mention chess
(5666 - 2440), but life is too short to tackle all minor mysteries
which confront us.

Some sites are counted more than once. The 54 matches returned
for 'history' represent 47 different sites. I found one site
(IceChess) counted three times, by being listed in three different
categories. Of the 47 distinct sites, 32 are in the History category.
I looked at the remaining 15 sites to uncover more candidates for my
own list. Two addresses covering computer chess history looked
interesting, but one of them failed to respond and the
other, 'Computer Chess History' by Bill Wall, is a single page; I
tend to exclude single page 'sites', hoping to find something more
comprehensive. Since I have no other references for computer chess
history, I may yet decide to add the Bill Wall page.

Next I searched on 'weeks' and found 40 matches. Although my own
pages generally have my name in the address, it's not easy to say
quickly how many of these 40 are mine. For some reason, the Quick
Search doesn't display the real address of the target page. The first
item listed on a search for 'weeks' is...

The World Chess Championship
http://www.maskeret.com/cgi-bin/seek/tseek.cgi?id=6583&ct=Events-
World_Championship

...Only by clicking on that long maskeret.com address do I see that
the real address for 'The World Chess Championship' is...

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Mark_Weeks/WCC-INDX.HTM

...the domain I used when I created the site in 1997. I've since
moved the pages to another domain and have quit Compuserve, but the
automatic redirect from compuserve.com to the new domain continues.

Looking at the list of 40 matches, I found that they covered 10
different pages. In addition to the index page for the world
championship site, Mecca lists the title matches held in 1886, 1894,
1921, 1927, 1948, 1960, and 1978; the 1992 Fischer - Spassky rematch;
and Kramnik's Tournament, Match, and Exhibition Record. The 1948 FIDE
Title Tournament is listed in seven different subcategories:-
- Events/
*- Timeline/1948
*- Events/World_Championship/1948
- People/Players/
*- Botvinnik_Mikhail_Moiseyevich
*- Euwe_Machgielis
*- Keres_Paul_Petrovic
*- Reshevsky__Samuel
*- Smyslov_Vasily_Vasiliyevich
Now I am certain that the 5666 links include many sites and pages
counted more than once.

On top of the category index and the Quick Search, Mecca provides a
list of the newest sites ('What's new') and the most popular ('Top
hits'). Mecca's highest rated site is...

Encyclopedia of Chess Openings
http://www.homestead.com/Observer/Openings.html

...with 1202 hits. An Extremetracking.com counter at the bottom of
the ECO page confirms this total with 1159 hits over a period of 387
days. The same tracker shows another 1100 hits from Mecca's 'Great
Sites', a banner exchange page.

The Mecca home page winds down ('About this site') with a personal
message. 'My name is Maurizio Mascheroni (nickname maskeret) and I'm
an Italian chess player and tournaments director. I have made this
site to help chess players all over the world. I hope you enjoy my
work.' Thank you, Maurizio! I do indeed.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[Send comments to...

Chess_History-owner@yahoogroups.com

...The bookmarks for the sites reviewed here may be found at...

Chess History on the Web : Recommended sites
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

...The list archive is at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
- by email, send a message to
   Chess_History-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, -or-
- by the web, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

Site review - Chess art and culture

Is chess an art? Former world champion Tigran Petrosian didn't think
so. 'Chess does not belong to art, as it is devoid of the specific
trait of expression in art -- the assimilation of the world through
its interpretation by the means of art,' he wrote in his summary
of 'Chess Logic'. He may have ignored or overlooked that a game of
chess is a miniature war; others less skilled at the calculation of
chess moves have not.

The image of two persons engaged in intellectual combat on 64 squares
arranged 8 by 8 has fascinated and perplexed those who have not even
known 'how the horse moves'. This fascination has given us works of
art and literature which are just as much the domain of chess history
as are the lives, the competitions, and the games of the great chess
masters. The self-proclaimed 'first site of chess art and culture on
the Internet' is...

Chess art and culture
http://carmelo111.supereva.it/

... by Coco & Crispi, a bilingual (English & Italian) site. Although
it appears that the originators intend to translate the Italian
language pages into English, the bulk of the material is today in
Italian. If, like me, you're not comfortable reading Italian, you'll
need...

Google Language Tools
http://www.google.be/language_tools?hl=en

...to understand the material. The Coco & Crispi site uses an
invisible frame structure, which means that you'll need to give more
than the domain name to Google. This address...

Chess art and culture (index page)
http://carmelo111.supereva.it/index.htm

...works for site translation. You may also need to use the full
address if, after using the short address, you receive a blank page
as I did on several occasions.

While discussing technical anomalies, I should mention that the
Supereva.it host launches the most annoying popup window that I've
ever encountered. It won't close permanently or stay minimized. It
constantly interrupts other work and reappears when scrolling the
main browser window or when working in other programs, like Access.
It's a real nuisance. You can tame it by opening 'Properties' (right
click on one of the popup's elements), leaving the properties window
open, and consigning the popup to the background. It won't bother you
again.

---

The objectives of the site are described behind the two blue buttons
('Our project' in English -or- 'Il nostro progetto' in Italian) on
the index page -- 'The History of Chess' / 'La storia degli
scacchi'. 'The Project, we are going to develop, has mainly a
cultural aim and is based on the construction of a multilingual
archive to document and study all the artistic processes in relation
to the game of chess.' The project page goes on to enumerate and
explain 15 topics...

'Pictorial and sculptural works, Treatises/manuscripts, Archaeology,
Literature, Cinema, Philately, Historical Personages, Historical
Researches, Psychology, Historical Studies, Collecting, Reviews,
Chess short stories, Computer graphics, and Miscellany.'

...The page finishes with, 'We are deeply convinced that the Chess is
not only competitive sports but history, culture, art. -
Coco/Crispi'.

Back on the index page, you can open a separate page for each of
these topics by clicking the 'INDEX' button and then one of the
topics in the list. Make sure that the 'INDEX' button is not at the
top of your browser window, or you won't see the small topics panel
as it slides open.

Each of the topics leads to a list of essays, offered as both an
English language (under 'Index') and an Italian language
(under 'Indice') page. The lists of essays under each corresponding
pair of English and Italian pages are identical. For
example, 'Pictorial works' and 'Galleria d'arte' both link to the
same 18 essays. Where an essay exists only in English or only in
Italian, both Index and Indice point to the same essay. Where an
essay exists in both English and Italian, the Index and Indice point
to the appropriate version.

While preparing this review, I loaded the index data for the essays
into a database. I counted 119 essays (including one duplicate : the
Archaeology index links to both English and Italian versions
of 'Origin of Chess, Protochess, 400 B.C. to 400 A.D.') plus four
essays marked 'in preparation'. Coco's name is listed against 43
essays, Crispi's against 31. The essays are distributed by topic as
follows:-

Ct Topic
24 Stories
18 Art gallery
17 Historical studies
14 Literature
11 Miscellany
10 Archaeology
  9 Collecting
  5 Book reviews
  5 Philately
  3 Cinema
  2 Computer graphic
  1 Psychology

As you can see, the 'Stories' topic has the largest number of
articles. Two of these are legends about the invention of chess. The
first is the well known story about covering each square on the
chessboard with double the number of grains : 'One grain over the
first square, two grains over the second square, four grains over the
third...' The second is a story that appears to be written by Coco;
at least I had never heard it before : 'A very old legend handed down
by an old wise man, tells about the creation of the Universe and the
invention of the game of Chess.'

The other 22 are Italian language stories by Crispi. The first is
titled '24 Brumaio'. Unfortunately, the Google translation was not
much help here. It decided that the title was best left as '24
Brumaio' and then translated the first few sentences as 'Those
mattino exiting of house said to the moglie that it did not wait for
it to lunch, why had much to work. The Salut set offed directly
towards Place de. Sure Paraddosale that had been chosen a place of
such name in order to install the mannaia to you. In those years
every thing by now sovvertita'. Two-thirds through this gibberish,
the translation just stopped and the text continued in the original
Italian.

I repeated the translation using the babel.altavista.com service and
got an identical English text. It stopped a few words sooner than the
Google service, but at least informed me that '*** TRANSLATION ENDS
HERE ***'. It's obvious that both services use the same underlying
software, which is produced by Systran.

I asked my daughter, a professional translator, to help me understand
the passage. She reminded me that Italian is not one of her main
languages and that she normally translates into French (her mother
tongue), not English, but she produced this : 'That morning, as he
was leaving home, he told his wife not to wait for him for lunch
because he had a lot of work. He immediately went to the "Place de la
Salut" [Salvation]. It is paradoxical that a place with such a name
had been chosen to install the guillotine. In those years everything
was upside down.' She also remarked that it seemed to be a poem and
that the title referred to a date; 'Brumaire' is a month in the
French Republican calendar. This was interesting. How does chess find
its way into a story about the French revolution? I'll have to wait
for a full translation to find out.

I had better luck understanding the 18 essays under the 'Art gallery'
topic. Each essay (1) displays a well known work of art having chess
as the subject and (2) places the piece into an historical context.
Three of the essays cover the 15th century tempera on wood piece
known as 'The Chess Players', whose authorship is uncertain.

I have no intention of covering all of the topics; what is most
interesting to me may not be the most interesting to you. I'll stop
by mentioning that the Collecting topic covers Chess Collectors
International (CCI) and the Königstein group, both of which are
important groups of chess historians.

Returning to Coco & Crispi's main index page, let's look briefly at
some of the other subjects covered by the page. The 'Pietro Carrera'
project is an Italian language page introducing an idea to distribute
early Italian chess literature via a CD. If, again like me, you're
not familiar with Carrera, there's a Chessvariants.com page at...

Carrera's Chess
http://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/carrera.html

...with more information.

'Sicilian chess history (1500-1600)' is another Italian language page
covering the slice of space and time indicated by the title. It's
full of names attached to maps of Sicily.

As I was preparing to write the final version of this review, a new
subject appeared on the index page...

Kaissa, the goddess with the hidden face
http://supereve1.supereva.it/

...This page is formatted in the same structure as the
carmelo111.supereva.it domain that I've been discussing until now;
there are seven new essays under three topics, with Coco listed as
the only author. It's not clear why these essays are under a
different domain. Perhaps the original site exceeded a limit imposed
by Supereva.it.

Coco & Crispi's index page also links to biographies for the two
authors -- whose full names are Carmelo Coco & Carmelo Crispi --
plus 'the staff', most of whom have contributed essays to the site.
Gianfelice Ferlito is listed against 47 essays, more than either Coco
or Crispi. There is a section listing new essays added to the site,
as well as a list of previous 'what's new' features. Six essays were
added after I calculated the counts given a few paragraphs above.

---

If you're at all interested in the art and culture that surrounds
chess, then I'm sure that you will find material on this site that is
new to you. The essays are thought provoking and offer many clues to
why a simple game fascinates so many people in so many different
cultures throughout the world.

I don't usually comment on the look and style of the sites that I
review. All of them have been created and maintained by serious,
dedicated people who donate their time and other resources to
promoting chess and its history unselfishly. I'm also one of the last
people who should comment on the creative work of others; anyone
familiar with my own efforts knows what I mean!

Having said that, a site which purports to be the 'first site of
chess art and culture on the Internet' has to be held to a higher
standard than other sites. Overall, the Coco & Crispi site makes a
less favorable impression than many of the other sites that I've
studied for these reviews.

I've already mentioned the annoying little popup window, which, if
left alone, almost renders the site unusable. I just closed
its 'properties window' to return control to the popup and there it
is again, popping up constantly as I write these lines using Notepad,
interfering with my work. Does its creator really think that it is
the most important task running on my computer?

There are many spelling errors on the English language pages which
could easily be caught by an automated spelling check, either before
or after a page is loaded onto the server. One glaring example is a
reference to 'Hexagonal chesss' [sic], the title of an article in
preparation under 'MISCELLANY'.

The grammar can also be confusing. Behind the 'INDEX' button is a
function called 'CLOSED INDEX'. When I saw this, I guessed that it
referred to an index of closed articles. In fact, it should
say 'close index', because that is what it does. I appreciate that
English is not the primary language of the authors, so why not ask
on the index page for help? There are many able people who would be
willing to proofread in order to have their name listed with the rest
of the staff.

Italians are world famous for the quality of their design -- cars,
clothes, furniture, tableware -- you name it, the Italians often
design it better than anyone else. A Google search for the
phrase 'Italian design' returns 'about 14,300'. By comparison, the
phrase 'French design' only returns 'about 6,780', less than half.

Unfortunately, the quality of design does not (yet) extend to these
Web pages. The items on the index page are presented at random,
without any unifying structure. The most important element,
the 'INDEX' button, is below the fold, meaning that you have to
scroll down at least one page to see it. Even then, its importance is
easily overlooked. I've never seen the results of a formal study, but
I suspect that people read/scan Web pages the way they read/scan a
newspaper, top to bottom, left to right. Until recently, this would
have meant first clicking on the Pietro Carrera project, which is far
from being the most important item on the index page.

The index structure itself is overly complicated. What value does
the 'INDEX' button and its associated Javascript trick really add?
Why are there separate index pages for a dozen different topics, half
of them listing less than ten essays? Why not just have a page
listing all of the essays with appropriate links to the English and
Italian versions? Most people finding the main page are not going to
take the time that I did to discover the rest of the site. And that
is a real loss for chess history, chess art, and chess culture.

Nitpicks? Maybe. In the ongoing struggle to find a good balance
between form and content, content has won here. Many people would
find that perfectly acceptable, but I find that the form here is
suffocating the content. That's a real pity for such promising
content.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[Send comments to...

Chess_History-owner@yahoogroups.com

...The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in 'Chess History on the Web'
may be found at...

Chess History on the Web : Recommended sites
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

...The list archive is at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
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   Chess_History-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, -or-
- by the web, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

Site review - Another view on Chess

Good websites about the origin of chess are few and far between. One
of the best is a bilingual (English & French) site...

Another view on Chess (Les échecs sous un autre angle)
http://www.chez.com/cazaux/index.htm

...by Jean-Louis Cazaux. Although the page says, 'Welcome to my
homepage dedicated to Chess, Xiangqi, Shogi and more', the title of
the page is 'Shako', which is not mentioned anywhere else on the
page. What is 'Shako'? I searched the Web and found the answer on
Chessvariants.com...

Shako
http://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/shako.html

...a big site which I had the pleasure of reviewing almost two years
ago (2000 no.12). The page dedicated to Shako tells us, 'Inspired by
several old chess variants, Jean-Louis Cazaux from Toulouse (France)
invented this variant. The name Shako means Chess in Esperanto'.
Elsewhere on Chessvariants is an interview from last year...

The Art of Chess Variants - Interview with Jean-Louis Cazaux
http://www.chessvariants.com/people.dir/cazaux.html

...by Hans Bodlaender, the guiding light behind Chessvariants. There
is a natural connection between chess variants and the origin of
chess. The ancestors and relatives of Western chess -- which Cazaux
calls 'FIDE chess' -- are all chess variants. The study of the
structure and rules of these other games offers clues to the origin
of chess.

In the first chapter of his monumental 'A History of Chess' (1913),
H.J.R. Murray wrote authoritatively, 'We must conclude that our
European chess is a direct descendant of an Indian game played in the
7th century with substantially the same arrangement and method as in
Europe five centuries later, the game having been adopted first by
the Persians, then handed on by the Persians to the Muslim world, and
finally borrowed from Islam by Christian Europe.' After listing nine
other Oriental games, including 'the Chinese "siang k'i"' (better
known today as "Xiangqi"), he continued, 'There is naturally far less
direct evidence respecting the ancestry of these games than in the
case of European chess, but there can be no doubt that all these
games are equally descended from the same original Indian game.'

While Murray had 'no doubt' about the origin of chess, other
historians have considerable doubt. A look at...

Google Advanced Groups Search on rec.games.chess.*
http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search?
q=group:rec.games.chess.*&hl=en&safe=off

...using some combination of the keywords 'India China origin' should
convince you of that. One of the more knowledgeable contributors is
David Li, author of 'The Genealogy of Chess'. Li posted the table of
contents from his book in...

Subject: Genealogy of Chess  Date: 1999/12/20
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_umsgid=385EE2B0.FC0@erols.com&hl=en

...and posts whenever the topic of chess origin re-ignites. He's
firmly in the 'Chess originated in China' camp.

---

Cazaux's site has a relatively simple structure. Of the various links
on the home page, the material most relevant to chess history is
under [History]. There are also links to a short [Biography], where
an additional link to a University of Michigan page tells us that
Cazaux earned a PhD in electronics in 1985; a [What's new?] page,
where the most recent entry (7 Apr 2002) is about Shogi; a [Books]
page about the two which Cazaux has authored -- the book covers are
also displayed on the home page; chess [Variants], which describes
Shako and has a catalog of pieces used in the different variants; and
a good collection of [Links], where I discovered that Peter Banaschak
also maintains a website on the origin of chess.

The [Books] page offers links to content and ordering information for
the two French language books which Cazaux has authored. They
are 'Guide des Echecs exotiques et insolites' ('Guide to exotic and
unusual chess') and 'L'Univers des Echecs' ('The universe of chess').
Along with descriptions in French and in English, the table of
contents for both books is available online.

The first link on the [History] page is [The origin of Chess], 'a
fascinating enigma : where, when, why, how was Chess born'. The
introduction is a link to...

Initiative Group Koenigstein (IGK) : On the origin of chess
http://www.netcologne.de/~nc-jostenge/

...which I also reviewed more than two years ago (2000 no.2)...

2000/01/15 Origin of Chess Gerhard Josten (& others)
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/Sit-rvws/2000-02.txt

...That review summarized each of the site's essays in which
different theories for the birthplace of chess -- India, China,
Persia, etc. -- are presented. The IGK site looks different today,
but the content hasn't changed dramatically. The lead link now gives
a detailed history of the group, which first met in 1991 in
Koenigstein/Taunus, Germany. There are also new essays by Peter
Banaschak ('Chinese-Western contacts and chess') and Siegfried
Schoenle ('Jean Paul and chess', in German), as well as a forthcoming
essay by Myron Samsin ('Pawns and pieces - towards the prehistory of
chess').

At the beginning of 2000, Cazaux was represented by a preliminary
essay ('A Speculative Theory of Early Chess Structure and Evolution')
where he was 'looking for a proto-chess'. This has now been replaced
by a full essay ('Is Chess a Hybrid Game?'), accompanied by a PDF
file with the same title, but somewhat different content. The essays
use the same arguments that are presented on the [History] page of
Cazaux's website.

The second topic on the [History] page is [The enigma of Chess
birth], 'The similarities between both games [Persian Chatrang
(Indian Chaturanga) & Chinese Xiangqi] are too great to deny a link
between them.' This is followed by a short description of both games.

The next topic presents [Four possible scenarios]. 'It is widely
accepted that the striking resemblance between Chatrang and Xiangqi
is not fortuitous [...] Logically, four scenarios can be constructed.
1) A westward birth followed by an eastward diffusion. [...] 2) An
eastward birth followed by a westward diffusion. [...] 3) A common
ancestor for both Chatrang and Xiangqi. [...] 4) The development of
two different war games with a mutual influence during their
formation.' The page ends with a nice diagram of the Silk Road, 'the
theatre of many cultural and industrial exchanges between the Indo-
Persian and the Chinese worlds '

Other topics are [Chessmen and magic squares], showing a simple
scheme to derive the moves; [An exhaustive comparison between
Chatrang (ancient Persian Chess) and Xianqi (Chinese Chess)]; and
[The old texts], where 'The English page gives a synthesis of all
sources along with dates. The French page is more complete with some
short discussions'.

Finally, Cazaux presents a long two-part essay [A proposed Chess
birth scheme] which concludes, 'Chess would be an hybrid game
combining western characters inherited from Graeco-Roman or Indian
games with some eastern elements which have led to Xiangqi from their
own side.'

Cazaux divides his [History] page into five sections, where the first
section contains the topics I've just outlined ('origin of Chess').
The second section, 'archaeological findings', covers early pieces
and sets which have been discovered throughout the world. For 22
different sets, he gives an estimated date of construction, the place
of discovery, the game they were used to play, a description of the
set with photos where possible, and the museum which owns the set.
Some sets are represented by image scans. Among them are the famous
Charlemagne and Lewis pieces.

The third section appears to be under construction. Of the four
bulleted topics, only [Four-Handed Chaturanga] leads to another page.
It starts, 'For many people, the oldest ancestor of Chess is a game
for 4 players, called Chaturanga. It is depicted as a diced game
where four teams of 8 pieces fight for a final victory. [...]
CAUTION : SO FAR, THIS THEORY IS WRONG!' It then explains how this
theory came to be accepted by so many people.

The fourth section is a survey of different variations of chess
played in Asia. The last section lists champions for chess, xiangqi
and shogi. The list of chess champions starts with Ruy Lopez and ends
with Ruslan Ponomariov. The women's champions list Vera Menchik
through Zhu Chen.

---

Murray opened his great work with the words, 'Historically chess must
be classed as a game of war.' It is appropriate that one of the great
battles in that war is the controversy over its origin -- India,
China, hybrid, or other?

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[Send comments to...

Chess_History-owner@yahoogroups.com

...The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in 'Chess History on the Web'
may be found at...

Chess History on the Web : Recommended sites
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

...The list archive is at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
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   Chess_History-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, -or-
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All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

There's no review here. I spent my time on this issue preparing a
background page for my main site...

World Chess Championship : 2001-02 Braingames
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/a1a2bgix.htm

...where I cover the formative chess events of 2001. As with my
previous page covering the events of 2000...

World Chess Championship : 2000 Braingames (and more)
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/a0a1gkix.htm

...the most interesting material is political. I'm already a few days
late in distributing this article, so I'm just going to mention a few
of the Web references that I used in preparing the new page.

---

FIDE (& FIDE Commerce) operates an excellent site...

FIDE
http://www.fide.com

...The search function is quick, works with phrases, and permits an
overview of FIDE's evolution on any particular topic. A search on the
keyword 'chess' currently returns the message 'Found: 312'. There are
a few old press release versions of the site...

Old FIDE Press Releases (last dated 2001-02-27)
http://www.fide.com/release/

Old FIDE Press Releases (last dated 2001-01-09)
http://www.fide.com/fide/html/
http://www.worldfide.com/fide/html/

...but the current version seems to include all of the older
material, of which the earliest is dated 1999-03-19. FIDE also likes
to create separate domains for its events. Two that I used were...

Welcome to the World Chess Grand Prix Series!
http://www.fidegrandprix.com/

FIDE Handbook
http://handbook.fide.com/

...One reference I didn't use on my new page is...

Welcome to the Official Page of the World Players' Council!
http://w.p.c.tripod.com (which redirects to)
http://ajedrez_democratico.tripod.com/

...apparently maintained by GM Valery Salov. At one time FIDE used
the World Players' Council (WPC) as a mouthpiece for the views of the
best players, but there is no reference to Salov or the WPC on the
FIDE site since '22.08.2001 72nd FIDE Congress. Halkidiki, Greece;
World Players' Council Chairman GM Valery Salov to report'. If you
read the report (which starts 'The World Palyers' [sic] Council had
celebrated several meetings...') on the WPC site, you'll understand
why.

Q:How can you tell when a plane is full of chess grandmasters?
A:When the captain turns off the engines, the whining continues.

Yes, it's an old joke, and it's probably never been applied to GMs
before, but it kept popping into my head as I was reading the WPC
material. Who said chess was a dull game?

---

The Braingames site has disappeared. The domain www.braingames.net
now returns a 'Gateway Timeout : Server unreachable : Please contact
the administrator' message. The site for the Kramnik - Deep Fritz
match...

Brains in Bahrain
http://www.brainsinbahrain.com/

...is still operational. I also discovered a French version of
brainsinbahrain at www.chesslines.com. Braingames' successor...

Welcome to einstein.tv
http://www.einstein.tv/

...hasn't yet incorporated any Braingames material. A search
on 'chess' returns the message. 'Unfortunately your search found no
results please refine your search and try again.' A domain describing
the parent company...

Einstein Group plc
http://www.einstein-group.tv/

...does include a page called 'Intellectual Leisure', which says, 'It
is Einstein Group's intention to raise the profile of chess and other
intellectually stimulating games amongst the widest possible
audiences. They intend to do this via Einstein's on-air coverage
(einstein.tv) and the production of formats and content for other
broadcasters; the organisation of chess events and tournaments and
the development of associated products and services.' Watch this
space.

The rise and fall of Braingames is documented in two articles written
by David Levy which are on the KasparovChess.com site...

Raymond Keene and a Matter of £50,000. The Full Truth Emerges!
http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=17774&p_docLang=EN

"Is Fraud a Brain Game?"
http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=19413&p_docLang=EN

...Levy may not be the most objective observer in this matter, but as
an insider his observations are important for the historical record.

---

Finally, I'd like to mention two pages that I saw for the first
time...

The Scotsman : the John B. Henderson column
http://www.rochadekuppenheim.de/heco/index.html

European Chess Union
http://www.eurochess.org/start/index.php

...both of which contain material relevant to chess history. I'll be
back mid-April with a real review.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[Send comments to...

Chess_History-owner@yahoogroups.com

...The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in 'Chess History on the Web'
may be found at...

Chess History on the Web : Recommended sites
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

...The list archive is at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
- by email, send a message to
   Chess_History-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, -or-
- by the web, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

Site review - Full circle

It's hard to believe that it's been almost three years since I posted
the first of these site reviews. I'd opened a discussion group for
chess history and developed a short list of sites dedicated to chess
history. Looking for a way to keep the discussion group alive, I
wrote...

'In the interest of keeping a guaranteed supply of fresh material
flowing into this group, I decided to review each of the sites
bookmarked on the main page. Six months ago, the first list had 9 or
10 sites, and now there are 21. If I review one site every week or
so, there will be six months of this, allowing time off for vacation
& sloth.'

... in June 1999. One site per week was too ambitious and I settled
into a more comfortable rhythm of two reviews per month. My idea was
to post on the discussion group a review that would generate a
(huge!) wave of discussion about the site, but only a few reviews
generated a response. Most comments were sent to me directly via
email. A few months after starting the reviews I began distributing
them using a free, automated email list, which is described on a page
attached to my main site...

World Chess Championship : Email list
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/wcc-mlst.htm

...This gave me the option to close the discussion group but to
continue the reviews. Today there are 169 subscribers to the list,
some of whom know more about chess history than I do. I enjoy reading
every message that I receive in response to a review. Although I've
just recently given up on the discussion groups, the list of chess
history sites survives at...

Chess History on the Web : Recommended sites
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

...For this review I again looked at each site in order to bring the
list up to date and to plan for more reviews.

I also maintain a Web archive of old reviews. This is not because
they deserve to be preserved for posterity; it's because I
occasionally read old articles when I need to refresh my memory on a
certain point. For some reason I can never remember how to conduct a
catalog search at the Cleveland Public Library. I described the
method in 1999, when I reviewed the John G. White Collection, and
refer to that article whenever I need to search the catalog. The
three archive summaries are at...

1st summary of reviews (through 2000-08-15)
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/Sit-rvws/sit-rvws.htm

2nd summary of reviews (through 2001-06-15)
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw01d15/chw-1d15.htm

More recent reviews
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...Because chess history sites deal with the past, they fall into a
category that I call static sites; this sets them apart from dynamic
sites, like news sites. Even with static sites, some evolve more
quickly than others. In each review I've tried to document the
content of the site to be able to track any later evolution. This
helps me identify candidates for a followup review.

What's changed? Popups! The biggest change I noticed has nothing to
do with chess -- popups are everywhere. Many chess history sites run
on free services, like Yahoo's Geocities. It's no secret that these
services rely on advertising to pay their own bills.

In the past the free services were usually content to attach a 468x60
advertising banner at the top of every page. Now, along with the
easily ignored banner, they spawn a new popup window with additional
advertising. These are not so easily ignored since they require an
action to close. Closing them is like swatting flies -- they keep
appearing from nowhere.

Besides the proliferation of popups, what's changed? Any site on my
list which is not mentioned below has not changed since I reviewed
it. Some sites, of course, were reviewed recently (like World Chess
Network two weeks ago) and not enough time has passed to measure the
pace of evolution.

---

The following sites have seen substantial changes since I reviewed
them. All appear to be updated frequently.

Chess Composition Books by Anders Thulin
http://www.algonet.se/%7eath/

Chess Curiosities by Tim Krabbé
http://www.xs4all.nl/%7etimkr/chess/chess.html

Chess History Center by Richard Forster
http://www.chesshistory.com/

Chess Variants by Hans Bodlaender
http://www.chessvariants.com/

Cleveland Public Library John G. White collection
http://www.cpl.org/010012/chess/Index.html
The site was redesigned, but it's not updated often.

Two million games online by ChessLab
http://www.chesslab.com/
The look of the site hasn't changed, but the games are updated
regularly.

World Champions Open Directory
http://www.dmoz.org/Games/Board_Games/C/Chess/People/All_World_Champio
ns/
The broken links have been culled. Sultan Khan has joined the list of
world champions!

World Chess Championship by Mark Weeks
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/wcc-indx.htm
I update my own site after all world championship events, and I
occasionally add new historical material.

I've never reviewed the next two 'Preprogrammed searches'. Both offer
a lot of material, perhaps too much:-
- Google groups 'chess history'; 'about 15,700' results
- Amazon.com Search book titles 'chess+history'; '88 results'

---

The following sites have seen some changes since I reviewed them...

Chess Archaeology by Nick Pope
http://www.chessarch.com/
In [Excavations], the last article ('Conserving the Past: Chess Life
as a Historical Vehicle...' by John S. Hilbert) was added in April
2001. [Journal] says, 'This section of the Chess Archaeology website
is being remodeled'.

Chess Archives University of Pittsburgh
http://www.pitt.edu/~schach/Archives/index2.html
Is UPITT no longer being maintained?

Culture et Curiosités by Gérard Demuydt
http://www.mjae.com/reyes/culture.html
Two articles have been added since I reviewed this last June.

Notable tournaments by Eric Delaire (Echecs Quimper)
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/eric.delaire/Palmares.htm
Last update 2001-03-26. Many of the internal links now produce an
error message.

On the square (column) by John S. Hilbert (& others)
http://correspondencechess.com/campbell/artindex.htm
Hilbert's last article is dated 1999-12-05. The most recent article
('Playing by the Rules' a commentary by Russell Black) is dated 2001-
11-02.

Origin of Chess by Gerhard Josten (& others)
http://www.netcologne.de/%7enc-jostenge/
There are five new articles since I reviewed this more than two years
ago.

Schach-Datenbank by Wilfried Günther
http://www.schach-datenbank.de/
The most recent updates were on 2001-10-21.

Schach-Ereignisse by Erhard Frolik
http://www.reutlingen.netsurf.de/%7efrolik/index.htm
[Turnierindex] has added 2000 August Polanica Zdroj; [Weltmeister]
has added Anand & Kramnik.

---

I updated the addresses for six sites...

!Home page : Yahoo! Clubs Chess History
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/
This is the service I use to distribute the reviews.

Alphonso X Book of Games by Christian J. Hartmann
http://games.rengeekcentral.com
'Site undergoing a major reconstruction! Expect some typos and broken
links'

Chess Downloads by Lars Balzer
http://www-user.rhrk.uni-kl.de/~balzer
'In the next weeks our web-server is renamed. Therefor this page is
moving'. Since download sites are often dynamic, this site should be
reviewed again.

The Game Is Afoot by Terry Crandall
http://starfireproject.com/chess/
This site had disappeared when I reviewed it. It's back again.

U.S. Chess Hall of Fame by Jerry Lawson
http://www.chesslinks.org/hof/
This site has many new biographies. It is better maintained than the
official site:-
http://www.uschesshalloffame.com/

Full page language translation
http://www.google.be/language_tools?hl=en
I'll look at this tool the next time I review a foreign language site.

---

I deleted links to five sites. There are few WWW experiences more
annoying than clicking on a link and getting a message like 'The
requested URL was not found on this server'...

Caxton Chess Encyclopedia by Eric Schiller
http://www.chesscity.com/HISTORY/history.html
This was originally listed against a Chessworks.com domain, but that
address eventually produced a 'URL was not found on this server'
message. The Chesscity.com address that I used as a replacement is
only of limited interest and the content hasn't been refreshed in a
long time.

Chess Collectors Worldwide by Stephen Mendiola
http://www.axnet.net/chesscollectors/
'The requested URL was not found on this server'. I searched the Web
for a good Chess Collectors Worldwide or Chess Collectors
International site, but found nothing of substance.

Chess Records Management by John Pope
http://users.imag.net/~lon.jpope/
This now returns a page titled 'Index of /~lon.jpope' which is almost
empty.

Encyclopedia Britannica 'Chess' by Andrew Soltis
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=108173
Britannica is now a subscription service.

Historia Ajedrez (column) by Ricardo Calvo
http://www.terra.es/deportes/ajedrez/historia/portada.htm
This disappeared some time ago, but I was hoping that Terra.es was
simply being reorganized and that the Calvo articles would reappear.
They haven't.

---

Finally, I added seven new sites. I also intend to add some of the
more interesting commercial sites like ChessCentral.com, but I'll
leave that exercise for a future article.

Another view on Chess by Jean-Louis Cazaux
http://www.chez.com/cazaux/index.htm

Chess art and culture by Coco & Crispi
http://carmelo111.supereva.it/

Chess Encyclopedia (see 'Who, When and Where') by Maurizio Mascheroni
http://maskeret.com/mecca/index.shtml

Chess Notes by Edward Winter
http://www.chesscafe.com/winter/winter.htm
It's great to see Winter back at ChessCafe.com after an absence of
two and a half years.

Chesmayne by Raymond Reid
http://www.chess-poster.com/english/chesmayne/chesmayne.htm

Old in Chess by Oscar Alfredo Zaiko
http://www.geocities.com/oldinchess/index.htm

Schach-Zettel by Harald E. Balló
http://www.ballo.de/

---

It's clear that, thanks to the many experts who offer their time and
talent free of charge, chess history on the Web is alive and strong.
And -- I have lots of new ideas for future Chess History on the Web
reviews.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[Send comments to...

Chess_History-owner@yahoogroups.com

...The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in 'Chess History on the Web'
may be
found at...

Chess History on the Web : Recommended sites
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

...The list archive is at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
- by email, send a message to
   Chess_History-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, -or-
- by the web, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

Site review - World Chess Network

The last review on my list of chess history sites is for...

Chess History - World Chess Network
http://www.worldchessnetwork.com/English/chessHistory/chessHistory.php

...The page announces, 'The World Chess Network is proud to present a
monograph of chess history articles entitled "The World Chess
Championship and Champions: 1747-2000" by celebrated chess journalist
Larry Parr. Larry Parr is a former editor of Chess Life and he has
received more individual awards from the Chess Journalists of America
than any other chess writer in its history. These exclusive articles
provide fascinating details and inside information about the World
Chess Championship.'

Worldchessnetwork.com offers a lot more than chess history. Primarily
a site to play online chess, its home page says, 'The World Chess
Network is designed for players from novice to Grandmaster. You can
play free chess, earn a rating, access your personal game history,
view games from around the world and more.'

The worldchessnetwork domain is registered to Master Games
International of Pipe Creek, Texas. The administrative, technical,
and billing contacts are all assigned to Marty Hirsch of San Rafael,
California, who is listed with the acronym MGI and an email address
starting with 'mchesspro'. I searched the Web and discovered that
Hirsch is the developer of MChess Pro, which won the 13th World
Microcomputer Chess Championship at Paderborn, Germany, in 1995...

13th WMCCC: The Winners
http://www.uni-paderborn.de/S-HP/IPCC/WMCCC.html

...There is a concise description of MChess and its developer at...

Authors page
http://www.rebel.nl/authors.htm

...along with background information on other participants at the
Odyssey 2001 computer chess tournament, won by Shredder. MChess 8,
rated 2450, finished 12-14 out of 26, drawing with Shredder in the
last round.

---

You might have wondered about the start year of 1747 for the world
chess champions. Under the 'Introduction' link on the World Chess
Network's Chess History page, Parr tells us that 'we extend the world
championship line back to the mid-18th century and Andre Philidor,
thereby adding seven champions to the 14 commonly or officially
recognized from Steinitz to the present-day kingpins.' The 'Concept'
link expands on this opinion ('An argument for extending the title of
world chess champion back beyond Wilhelm Steinitz'), explaining that
the date 1747 was chosen because in that year 'Philidor triumphed
easily over Phillip Stamma (+8-1=1)'.

The bulk of Parr's material is under the 'Kings of Chess'
link : 'Detailed biographies and selected games of 21 champions of
the chess world from Andre Philidor to Alexander Khalifma'. No,
that's not a copy & paste error on my part; Khalifman lost his 'n'.
The 21 champions are:-
- Philidor, Deschapelles, la Bourdonnais, St. Amant, Staunton,
Anderssen, and Morphy;
- the 13 generally accepted champions from Steinitz through Kasparov;
and
- Khalifman.

The 'World Title Matches and Tournaments' link lists 56 events which
Parr considers to be the 'world title canon'. There are a few
controversies on the canonical list. Deschapelles is missing, while
the 1909 Lasker - Janowski, 1974 Karpov - Korchnoi, and 1992 Fischer -
  Spassky matches are all included. I've never known of anyone (except
Fischer) who really believed that Fischer - Spassky II was a world
title match.

Parr offers another controversy in the 'Concept' link. 'Why, for
example, would not Zukertort figure as co-champion with Steinitz
after his triumph at London in 1883? [...] The conventional wisdom is
that Zukertort was never world champion and that Steinitz became the
first world champion in 1886. We think that there is enough minority
authority to buck the conventional wisdom about 1886, but we quake at
being the first to include Zukertort among the world champions. The
giggle factor is too daunting.' I've studied Zukertort's games and
annotations from the 1883 London tournament, and I wouldn't giggle.
Zukertort finished three points ahead of second place Steinitz, even
though he collapsed at the end of the tournament, losing his last two
games to tail-enders.

The 2000 Kramnik - Kasparov Braingames match and the 2000 Anand -
Shirov FIDE knockout match are both on the list of events, although
Kramnik and Anand are missing from the '21-Player Salute'. This
should perhaps be called the 17-player salute; the salutes to
Fischer, Karpov ('Yevgenyevich KARPOV'; 'Anatoly' has wandered off
with Khalifman's 'n'), Kasparov, and Khalifman are all missing.
Another anomaly is the order of the champions in a sidebar which
links to the salutes. The list runs chronologically from Morphy
through Smyslov, backtracks to Deschapelles and La Bourdonnais,
resumes with Tal through Spassky, and then finishes with Philidor,
Saint-Amant, Staunton, and Anderssen. I can find no logic to this
order.

But these are all nitpicks. Parr's essays on the 17 champions are
possibly the best to be found on the Web for these players. The four
pages on Spassky offer 75 (or so) paragraphs, 12 games, and 6 photos.
The essay is filled with career details, anecdotes ('We were like
bishops of opposite color', he said after his 1961 divorce), and
observations ('The art in Spassky's elegant chess conceptions seemed
to be complemented by the artfulness of his elegant life. We chess
people admired Spassky for having integrated personality with
lifestyle, a rare accomplishment among our number. This cool,
classical European intellectual led a cool, classical life.').

Along with the 17 essays are a series called 'The Chess Beat' and
two 'Archived Articles'. Chess Beat 4, dated 1 December 2001, is a
series of three essays bearing the titles 'The Uneasy Art of
Resigning a Lost Position', 'The Most Famous Resignations Ever',
and 'Representative Resignations'. The first title is available to
the general public, while the others are available to World Chess
Network Gold Members ('Your first month of Gold Membership is only
$4.95').  Chess Beats 1-3 follow the same model, offering the first
article free and the rest to subscribers. Since I'm not a subscriber,
I can't comment on the Gold service, which offers much more than just
Chess Beat.

The first of the two archived articles, titled 'The Circus that Led
to the Match', was written by Parr and discusses the many twists &
turns which preceded the Kramnik - Kasparov match. While reading this
article I had a feeling of deja vu until I realized that it contains
many phrases also found on two of my own pages...

World Chess Championship : 1998-99 World Chess Council
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/9899gkix.htm

World Chess Championship : 2000 Braingames
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/a0a1gkix.htm

...for example...

MW : 'In an interview with Europe Echecs, Kramnik agreed with Shirov
that Kasparov had an obligation to contest the promised match with
Shirov. [...] He also said his loss to Shirov in the WCC qualifying
match was 'an accident'

LP : 'Shirov soundly beat Kramnik, 5 ½ - 3 ½ (+2 -0 =7), a result
that the latter later dismissed as an "accident". [...] Moreover,
Kramnik himself told Europe Echecs that Kasparov had an obligation to
play a match with Shirov.'

...No credit is given, so I'll grant Parr the benefit of the doubt
and assume that we both worked independently from the same sources.
While working on this review, I also found an unattributed extract of
another of my pages at...

Noveno Campeonato Mundial de Programas
http://www.ajedrez-de-estilo.com.ar/ade/notas/bollin04.htm

...which copies a couple of tables from a 1999 version of...

World Chess Championship - Computer Chess
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/wcc-comp.htm

...Unlike the copy, my own page has since been brought up to date.
What can I say except, 'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'!
Parr is, of course, a professional writer and his style is more
polished than mine.

The second archived article, titled 'My View on the Time Controls,
was written by Dato Tan Chin Nam. It starts, 'As the individual who
might be called the architect of the very first proposal for FIDE to
rate rapid chess games, I feel a duty to state my position on time
controls rather than, as has been my normal practice, to avoid what
are usually futile battles.' Elsewhere on the Web, Parr describes
Dato Tan as 'my boss' and 'a billionaire'. If you're not a newcomer
to chess on the Web, you probably realize that my phrase 'elsewhere
on the Web' means Usenet, where Parr has long been one of the most
prolific contributors.

---

As his introduction on the World Chess Network states, Parr was
editor of the USCF's Chess Life from January 1985 to March 1988 ('An
Editor's Good-Bye : It's Been Just Great To Serve All Of You'). His
service coincided with the period from KKI (the 1984-85 Kasparov -
Karpov match) through KKIV (the 1987 match), a period of significant
political turbulence in the chess world.

This period saw the start of Kasparov's accusations that FIDE
President Campomanes favored Karpov in KKI and the subsequent KK
matches. This led to the formation, in turn, of Kasparov's GMA, PCA,
and WCC; to the replacement of Campomanes by Ilyumzhinov; and
ultimately to the multiple world champions that we have today.

In January 1988, while Parr was still editor, a Chess Life article
written by former USCF President Tim Redman (1981-1984) appeared
under the title 'Mafia Una Sumus; FIDEGATE revisited: has a Cabal of
Journalists Misled the Public?'. It started, 'This article arose from
an increasing perception that Chess Life was biased in its coverage
of FIDE matters, and that, as a result of this bias, USCF members
were being given a distorted picture of a significant part of
international chess activity'. An accompanying photo caption
asked, 'Are [IM Jonathan] Tisdall [of Chess Life and Reuters] and [IM
David] Goodman [of the Associated Press], along with CL editor Larry
Parr and London Times correspondent Raymond Keene, members of a press
conspiracy "to get" Florencio Campomanes and Anatoly Karpov?'

A second article, titled 'America's FIDE Delegate Calls for New CL
Writers', was an interview by Redman of Don Schultz, the U.S.
delegate to FIDE. Schultz said, 'There was a definite conscious
effort to help Keene/Lucena win the [FIDE] election [against
incumbent Campomanes]. It was engineered in the press before the
election and for a considerable time afterward. The group is made up
of Levy, Keene, Eric Schiller, Jonathan Tisdall, Larry Parr, David
Goodman, Kevin O'Connell, and Kasparov.' Parr was removed as editor a
few months later, apparently for having backed the losing team. To
the victor go the spoils.

---

Larry Parr knows a lot about chess history and about recent chess
politics. He's rubbed shoulders and crossed swords with many of the
most influential people in the chess world. An opinionated thinker,
an excellent writer, and a savvy Internet user, he's posted a
tremendous amount of work to the Usenet rec.games.chess newsgroups.
His posts, many of which are standalone original essays, can be
accessed via...

Google Advanced Groups Search
http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search

...by entering his email address in the search box on 'Author'. The
email address 75227.3707@... covers the period from
January 1995 to April 2000, while a second email address
parrthenon@... covers more recent posts. The earliest post I found
was...

MSGID:3ef0fl$ji4$1@...
Subject: Re: BOBBY FISCHER ? / Date: 1995-01-04
'Is Bobby Fischer A Criminal? By GM Larry Evans and Larry Parr (This
editorial won a CJA award after it appeared in the Fort Lauderdale
Sun Sentinel, December 27, 1992.)'

[Technical note - to retrieve specific Usenet articles:-
1) copy the string of characters I've given after 'MSGID:', and
2) paste them into the search box on 'Message ID' in the Google
Advanced Groups Search
***
For example, pasting Message ID
3ef0fl$ji4$1@...
will retrieve the article by Evans and Parr on Fischer.]

...If you're at all interested in chess politics, you'll find a
wealth of information by browsing Parr's posts. To find posts on
specific topics, use the Google search boxes under 'Find messages'.
For example, the name 'Kirsan Ilyumzhinov' in 'Find messages with any
of the words' will retrieve Parr's posts which mention the current
FIDE President. The first was...

MSGID:494nof$raq$2@...
Subject: New FIDE President / Date: 1995/11/24
'CAMPO OUT; KALMYK IN
In the early morning hours of November 24, Kirsan Ilyumzginov, the
president of the Kalmyk Republic and a member of the Russian
parliament, was elected president of FIDE until the end of 1996. The
General Assembly by 95-3 also passed a U.S. inspired motion to hold
four new elections next year. [...]'

...This was followed a few days later by...

MSGID:498vt4$n86$1@...
Subject: Re: New FIDE President Date: 1995/11/26
'WHO IS KIRSAN ILYUMZGINOV?
The question of the FIDE hour has become: Who is Kirsan Ilyumzginov,
the new FIDE president? Indeed, a further question is what
constitutes a correct transliteration into English of his name?
Ilyumzginov, Ilyumjinov, or the Russo-centric spelling Ilyumzhinov?
[...]'

...Ilyumzhinov escaped Parr's critical insight for almost two years
until he posted a copy of a curious story from the Boston Globe...

MSGID:eO27jEhy8GA.207@...
Subject: FIDE Follies / Date: 1997/09/25
'Youthful 'Doubles' Take Over In Russian State; Leadership Left To
Understudies As Probe Begins; By David Filipov, Globe Staff'

...This was soon followed by...

MSGID:#$PvRqr38GA.233@...
Subject: Poor Kirsan! / Date: 1997/10/22
'I think that I can guess why the Boston Globe has been expending a
bit of energy on Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.  My explanation is that the man
is a cheap, vicious little dictator-crook.  A cutrate Mussolini.  He
says outrageous things (calling himself "democratic khan"), bans
newspapers, demonstrations, political parties, etc.  He proudly rules
without a parliament or constitution -- as we understand these
things. [...]'

...Parr's venom was fully released following the murder of Larisa
Yudina...

MSGID:#j0mAdFm9GA.99@...
Subject: Karpov and Kirsan / Date: 1998/06/15
'Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the president of FIDE, differs from Florencio
Campomanes to this extent: Campo was a fifth-rate grifter who treated
us like fifth-rate victims; Ilyumzhinov is a real-life thug, who
eliminates people when they inconvenience him. Real blood, real grief.

'As readers know, Larisa Yudina, a journalist operating the only
opposition paper in Kalmykia (it was actually printed outside
Ilyumzhinov's fiefdom) was murdered a few days ago.  One of three
suspects detained was an associate of Ilyumzhinov, whom Yudina had
accused of corruption. [...]'

...Some other examples of Parr's political commentary...

MSGID:3efb6s$ltm$1@...
Subject: Brutal Fide Election / Date: 1995-01-04
'Excerpts from Fide delegate Fanueil Adams' official report; Fide
Conference: Moscow 8-15 December 1994

'Fide statutes require that candidate teams declare 6 months before
the General Assembly (GA) meeting. Teams headed by Makopolis, Durao
and Kouatly entered on schedule, campaigning with varying degrees of
energy. As election time approached the loss of the Greek subsidy was
revealed, leaving Makropolis in a weak position. Durao, a nice man,
had insufficient support. A walkover by Kouatly appeared likely. What
were factors that led Campomanes and the Russian Chess Federation to
mount their brutal takeover?'

MSGID:3eqiof$ssr$1@...
Subject: Next Fide Delegate / Date: 1995-01-08
'Redman is another American who is visibly cowed by Campo and his
cohorts. Further, he is a longtime supporter of a supine American
posture in Fide; he wrote a series of articles in the January 1988
Chess Life endorsing what is now recognized as a discredited policy
of America going along to get along.'

...'Who IS Larry Parr?'...

MSGID:81b8jo$ob$1@...
Subject: Re: Who IS Larry Parr? / Date: 1999/11/22
'My past writings include four well-received chess books. With Arnold
Denker, I co-authored "The Bobby Fischer I Knew and Other Stories"
which won the American Chess Foundation's and USCF's Cramer Award for
best chess book of 1996. I also won more individual writing awards
from the Chess Journalists of America than any other dabbler in chess
journalism. I would note that in many instances the judges who handed
out these awards were known to be hostile to my dissident chess
political positions.

'However, my main product has not been in chess.  In the real world
I'm much better known for what I have written about the former Soviet
Union. From 1988 to 1992 I edited "Glasnost News & Review" a policy
publication that had among its 12,000 or so readers about 400 members
of the U.S. Congress.  Among other writers, we published Nobel Peace
laureate Andrei Sakharov, former U.S. envoy to the United Nations
Jeane Kirkpatrick, and a certain former mayor of Moscow named Boris
Yeltsin.  Another writer who appeared in GN&R was the murdered Galina
Starovoitova, who joined Larisa Yudina in the martyrology of freedom.'

MSGID:890ubi$ami$2@...
Subject: A Fond Farewell / Date: 2000/02/23
'I have accepted a position as in-house, online book critic for a
chain of bookstores in return for a percentage of the Net sales.  I
shall be writing under the name of "Parrnassus."  Oh, I know, I
know!  Forgive me, those of you who still offer up prayers and
sacrifices to Apollo. To quote president Clinton, "I feel your pain."

'I am also currently writing a vast amount of material for an online
chess venture that has further cut down my available time for the
precious and playfully pungent putrefaction of r.g.c.p.'

...And what about the current FIDE world champion?...

MSGID:20020208002246.25745.00000097@...
Subject: Re: A Call To Arms! / Date: 2002-02-07
'Anatoly Karpov held a disputed and diminished title, while Khalifman
and Ponomariov cannot be said to hold a title at all when viewed by
what the wider world judges. Kasparov was the champion in the eyes of
the wider world until he was defeated by Kramnik.'

MSGID:20020208080235.12758.00000108@...
Subject: Re: A Call To Arms! / Date: 2002-02-08
'Only a few dozen FIDE politicians and a few hundred of their
supporters regarded Khalifman as world champion and imagine that
Ruslan Ponomariov is a world champion.  Their goal is to destroy the
greatest promotional vehicle in the history of chess -- the
traditional title match -- in order to prevent the world champion
from becoming a competing center of power against FIDE.'

...The shrill tone of this is in such sharp contrast to the World
Chess Network material that I'm not completely certain that it's been
written by the same person?! Then again, who else would have the guts
to write this?

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in this newsletter may be found
at...

The Chess History discussion group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chesshistory/

...where you are invited to join and contribute. The list archive is
at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
- by email, send a message to
   Chess_History-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, -or-
- by the web, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

In January, Ruslan Ponomariov was crowned the new FIDE world champion
after defeating Vassily Ivanchuk 4.5-2.5 (+2-0=5) in the FIDE
Knockout finals. Ponomariov was born in Gorlovka, Ukraine, on 11
October 1983, making him the first teenage world champion in the
history of chess.

Since I had earlier decided to devote an article to the FIDE winner,
I set out gathering games on Ponomariov. My first stop was Mark
Crowther's TWIC...

The Week in Chess
http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic.html

...where I've collected all issues since 'THE WEEK IN CHESS 1' dated
17/09/94. Crowther, who had been posting regularly to the Usenet
newsgroups, introduced that issue by writing, 'This will be the first
in what will hopefully be a weekly round up of the events in chess.
I've decided to scale down my contributions during the week as next
year will probably be a hard one for me at work. Instead I'll save
all the material I get and post it as a single column at the weekend.'

Crowther's first reference to Ponomariov was in TWIC 94, dated
05/08/96 (5 August). Reporting on the European Youth Championship, he
wrote...

'In the Slovakian country town Rimavska Sobota, Ruslan Ponomariov
became European champion under 18. The boy from Ukraine is only
twelve years old, but competed in the highest category, because he
really belonged there with his elo of 2550. As far as I know
Ponomariov has broken all records. At the age of twelve even Peter
Leko was not this strong.

'Ponomariov, who was considered tournament favourite, lived up to the
expectations with an impressive eight points out of nine games. Still
this score was not sufficient for an unshared first prize. Mikhail
Kubilya from Russia defeated him in their personal encounter and
managed to keep pace till the end. Ponomariov, however, was awarded
the European title on account of his higher progressive score.

'The next game is characteristic of Ponomariov, who owes most of his
victories to his outstanding technique. Against Holger Grund (2375)
from Germany he opts for an old variation of the Caro Kann that
mostly yields nothing. The little boy does not achieve anything in
the opening either, but in the endgame he stands head and shoulders
above his opponent.'

...In the same issue Crowther reported that Alexandra Kosteniuk had
won the under-12 title for girls. Kosteniuk reached the women's final
match in the recent FIDE Knockout tournament, losing to Zhu Chen in
the second set of tiebreak games.

In a later issue of TWIC (no.259, dated 25 October 1999) Crowther
wrote that 'The record for youngest GM was set in October 1997 at the
Kiev NIKA-VV International by Ukranian Ruslan Ponomariov who was 14
years and 17 days at the time of the final norm'. I found references
to 'Ponomariov' in 59 TWICs through no.377, the issue which carried
the last two games of the Ivanchuk match. The references yielded 326
games in 36 events. Of the 326 games, 39 were duplicates and 11 were
played by Boris Ponomariov, Ruslan's coach and, according to at least
one source, his father. Removing these games left 276 game scores.

My next stop was...

ChessLab - Two million interactive chess games online
http://www.chesslab.com/

...I downloaded 275 games, only one of which was not in my first
collection, which now consisted of 277 games in 37 events. The
equivalence in the number of games yielded by TWIC and ChessLab
indicates that TWIC is the primary source for ChessLab updates.

A third useful source was...

Ruslan Ponomariov's Page
http://chess-sector.odessa.ua/ruslan.html

...which has information on various events. This yielded 19 new game
scores in 7 new events, giving me 296 games in 44 events.

Finally, I happened to mention to an email correspondent that I was
collecting Ponomariov games. He immediately sent me a copy of his own
collection of 375 games. Here I found 96 games from 8 new and 7
incomplete events, giving me a total of 392 games in 52 events.

I created an index page listing key data from the 52 events and
loaded the index and games to...

Ponomariov's Tournament, Match, and Exhibition Record
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw02b15/ponomari.htm

...I also have info on two other events for which I have no game
scores. I'll add these to the index page on my next update. While
researching the events, I encountered one mystery; Ponomariov's
website mentions that, at age 11, he won the World Under-12
Championship in 1995. Other sources say that Etienne Bacrot of France
won the 1995 event, held at Sao Lorenco, Brazil.

---

In Chess History on the Web (2002 no.2), I looked at Chessmetrics,
where you'll find two interesting documents on Ponomariov...

Career ratings for: Ponomariov, Ruslan
http://www.chessmetrics.com/PL/PL31470.htm

Will Ruslan Ponomariov become the first teenage champ?
http://www.chessmetrics.com/Documents/Teenagers.htm

...What's next for this young star? He recently settled a dispute
with the organizers of the Linares supertournament ('I am ready to
participate in Linares if the organizers would change their attitude
to me as a world champion!')...

Press Conference in Donetsk - 6 February 2002
http://chess-sector.odessa.ua/press_en.htm

...and will compete from 22 February to 10 March, in a seven player
double round robin with Adams, Anand, Ivanchuk, Kasparov, Shirov, and
Vallejo Pons. Somewhat surprisingly, my research indicates that this
will be Ponomariov's first participation in a supertournament and his
first games against each of the other players, except Ivanchuk, of
course! Even before the final FIDE match, Ponomariov had played
Ivanchuk only once -- during the FIDE World Cup in Shenyang, China,
where the more experienced player prevailed.

Former world champion Kasparov, who still calls himself 'the best
player on the planet', has won or tied for 1st in the last three
Linares events. Can Ponomariov compete successfully against him? The
whole chess world will be watching closely.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

Guillaume Le Breton Deschapelles

An unplanned trip to a wintry Vermont has prevented me from finishing
the work I had planned for this issue. Instead, I took the time to
copy a chapter from 'CHESS & CHESS-PLAYERS : consisting of Original
Stories and Sketches' by George Walker...

'The sceptre of chess, in Europe, has been for the last century, at
least, wielded by a Gallic dynasty. It has passed from Legalle to La
Bourdonnais, through the grasp, successively, of Philidor, Bernard,
Carlier, and Deschapelles. It is of the last-named potentate we are
about more particularly to speak, -- he being in every respect one of
the most extraordinary creations of the past or present day.'

...You can find the article, published in 1850, at...

Deschapelles : The Chess-King
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw02b01/chw-2b01.htm

...I'll be back in two weeks with another site review.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in this newsletter may be found
at...

The Chess History discussion group
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chesshistory

...where you are invited to join and contribute. The list archive is
at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
- by email, send a message to
   Chess_History-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, -or-
- by the web, go to
   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

Site review - Chessmetrics

Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, ... : who was the greatest world chess
champion of all time? Petrosian was the world champ in 1964, but
where was he ranked in the list of top-10 players at the end of the
year? Who has the best chance to win the forthcoming Ivanchuk -
Ponomariov match for the FIDE World Championship?

We all have our opinions on these questions, and while our collective
opinion matters, it's often useful to have an objective, quantitative
answer. If you like chess history & statistics, and you haven't seen
the site...

Chessmetrics by Jeff Sonas
http://www.chessmetrics.com/

...you're really missing something. Here's a Web site which attempts
to provide quantitative answers to qualitative questions about the
relative strength of chess players. The home page is a well organized
index to the many pages on the rest of the site. The introduction
starts...

'Hello, my name is Jeff Sonas. I am a statistical columnist for
KasparovChess.com, and in the past couple of years I have developed
many statistical methods for predicting and analyzing chess results.
More recently, I have developed a new system for rating chess
players, and I have used that system to calculate annual historical
ratings, retroactively back to 1850. This website allows you to
explore them.'

...The top of the home page links to two documents explaining the
intricacies of the Sonas rating system...

About the Chessmetrics Rating System
http://www.chessmetrics.com/Documents/AboutSystem.htm

Comparison between Chessmetrics and FIDE ratings
http://www.chessmetrics.com/Documents/FIDECM.htm

...The remainder of the page consists of index tables. The first
table, an index to 'historical ratings for a particular date', starts
31 Dec 1851 and ends 10 Sep 2001. The pages show the top-10 active
players on the date, a color coded graph of their rating progression
for five years before and after the date, and a list of the top-500
active players on the date. The top-500 list includes additional info
like age and confidence factors for the top players. The age has an
additional link if the list marks a player's birthday.

Looking at the list for 10 Sep 2001, I discovered that of the 487
players listed with an age, Vassily Smyslov was the oldest player on
the list (80.46 years old) and Teimour Radjabov was the youngest
(14.5). The following shows how the player's ages were distributed:-
80s 1
70s 1
60s 6
50s 34
40s 101
30s 185
20s 142
10s 17
In other words, Smyslov was the only player on the list to have
reached the age of 80, Korchnoi was the only player in his 70s, and
185 players were in their 30s.

The second table, to 'find a particular player's career list', is an
index by the first two letters of the players' surnames. This lets
you bring up the chart of a specific player in exactly two clicks.

The third table, to 'view age-based lists' is an index by player age
from 11 to 82 years old. Clicking on 17, for example, gives the top-
10 players as of their 17th birthday, a graph of their progress for
the years surrounding age 17, and a full list of the top-500 17 year
olds. I once read that a player peaks at age 29; the top-5 'players
on their 30th birthday' were Fischer, Kasparov, Capablanca, Anand,
and Karpov.

The fourth table, 'Quick links to everyone who has ever been a top-
five player' lists 100 names. I'll explore this in a moment.

The fifth table, 'All-time rating leaders across peak 1, 3, 5, 9, and
15 years', names Capablanca as the top player across 1, 3, 5, and 9
years, while Kasparov tops Capablanca on the 15-year list. Somewhat
curiously, Fischer is listed 3rd on the 15-year list with a time span
of '31-Dec-1960 to 31-Dec-1974', although he stopped playing in 1972.
Sonas calculates his rating as 2894 after the 1972 title match with
Spassky. The rating then bounces between 2888 and 2897 until he is
listed inactive on 31 Aug 1975.

The last table links to 'Color-coded top-12 graphs spanning 10, 30,
50, 100, or 152 years'. The
10-year ranges, for example, show color coded graphs of the top-12
players for each ten year interval starting with years evenly
divisible by 5, from 1850-60 through 1995-2002. The 152 year graph
shows the top-12 players of all time.

---

Long time readers of my articles might remember that I discussed
historical ratings in...

Chess History on the Web (2000 no.24)
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw01d15/2000-24.txt

...The goal at that time was to build a list of the best players of
all time. I compared the list to the player collections on the
University of Pittsburgh (UPITT) archive. The result was a short list
of top-ranked players who were missing collections at UPITT.

I constructed my own list of great players from two sources. The
first was an offline resource, 'The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and
Present' by Arpad E. Elo, B.T.Batsford, London, 1978. I scanned data
from Appendix 9.4 ('All-Time List of FIDE Titleholders') and Appendix
9.5 ('All-Time List of Great Untitled Players'). Elo's 'FIDE
Titleholders' listed 590 players; his 'Great Untitled Players' listed
197 players. I combined these with a second source, an incomplete
list of historical FIDE ratings, which had data for 226 players
active since Elo wrote his book.

If I'd had the Chessmetrics list of 'everyone who has ever been a top-
five player', I could have been spared this work. Since I had taken
the time to develop my own list, I decided to compare it with the
Chessmetrics of top-5 players. This would let me (1) double check my
own amateur effort against a more professional job, and (2) discover
any surprises in the Chessmetrics list.

Comparing my own list of 143 names against the Chessmetrics list of
100, I came up with 64 matches. I then compared the remaining 36
names on the Chessmetrics list with Elo's lists. I got 33 matches;
all but 4 of these were on the list of 'Great Untitled Players'. This
left three unaccounted names.

While I was preparing this work I noticed a few Chessmetrics names
which I would not expect to be on a list of 'everyone who has ever
been a top-five player'. The first name was Judit Polgar. The
youngest of the Polgar sisters is certainly the strongest woman who
has ever played chess, and she may have approached the top-10, but I
could not recall her having ever been listed on any top-5 FIDE list.
When I checked the Chessmetrics page, I saw that the highest ranking
Polgar received was no.8 on the 31 Dec 1995 list. She also ranked
no.9 on a few other lists in 1995 and 1999. No.8 is not far from
no.5, but it's not top-5 either.

The second name was Vladimir Makogonov. Indeed, when I looked at
Makogonov's Chessmetrics page, I saw that he was ranked no.5 on 31
Dec 1943, and no.4 on 31 Dec 1944. Fair enough.

Getting back to the names which had not appeared on any of my
previous lists, the three from the Chessmetrics list were James
Kipping, Victor Knorre, and Igor Naumkin. Kipping was ranked no.5 on
the 31 Dec lists for 1857 and 1858. Knorre was ranked no.2 at the end
of 1866, no.3 at the end of 1867, and no.2 at the end of 1868. The
1868 list places him 2nd behind Gustav Neumann, but ahead of 3rd
Steinitz, 4th Anderssen, 5th Lange, and 6th Zukertort.

Naumkin was the biggest surprise. He was ranked no.4 on 30 Sep 1987,
and no.5 on 31 Oct 1987. The FIDE list for 1 Jul 1987 lists Naumkin
(USSR) at 2470 with 20 games played in the preceding six months; the
1 Jan 1988 list has him at 2485 with 25 games played. These ratings
were not even sufficient to be ranked in the FIDE top-100. This
deserves further investigation.

Comparing in the other direction, the highest ranked on my list of
143 names not on the Chessmetrics list of 100 top-5 names were
Svidler (whose top Chessmetrics ranking was no.8 in 2000), Morozevich
(no.8 in 2001), and Rublevsky (no.9 in 2000). That's also fair enough.

---

Let's return to the question I raised at the beginning of this
article : Where was Petrosian ranked at the end of 1964? Chessmetrics
says that he was no.2, after Fischer. Fischer first reached the no.1
spot at the end of 1963, jumping over Petrosian and Botvinnik from
the no.3 spot on the previous list.

How many of the recognized world champions have reached the no.1
position and how many haven't? The highest ranking for each world
champion was:-
  1 Steinitz
  1 Lasker
  1 Capablanca
  1 Alekhine
  5 Euwe
  1 Botvinnik
  1 Smyslov
  1 Tal
  1 Petrosian
  2 Spassky
  1 Fischer
  1 Karpov
  1 Kasparov
  3 Khalifman
  2 Kramnik
  2 Anand
One of these two will be the next FIDE world champion:-
  2 Ivanchuk (no.9 on the last list)
22 Ponomariov (ranking from the last list)

With two exceptions, all of the champions up to the 1993 FIDE -
Kasparov rift reached no.1. Since the rift, none of the champions has
been ranked no.1. Kasparov has kept that position to himself.

Euwe's highest rankings were no.7 end-1934 and no.5 end-1935. The
no.5 ranking trailed Capablanca, Lasker, Nimzowitsch, and Alekhine.
At the time of his 1929 match with Bogoljubow, Alekhine was ranked
no.1 and his opponent no.5, but Bogoljubow had dropped out of the top-
10 by the time of the 1934 match. Alekhine slipped from no.1 to no.4
in 1935, the year of his 1st match with Euwe.

Spassky was ranked no.3 on 31 Mar 1969, the last list before he won
the world title from Petrosian. On the first list after the match, he
was ranked no.2. Fischer had been no.1 since end-1963 and Spassky
never managed to overtake his famous adversary.

Khalifman's no.3 ranking was in 1986, when he was 20 years old. He
was ranked no.24 before the start of the 1999 FIDE World Championship
in Las Vegas, where he won the title. Vladimir Akopian, his opponent
in the last round, was ranked no.30.

How many players have reached the no.1 position without having become
world champion? On a visual scan of 'Rating graphs : 10-year ranges',
I came up with Paulsen & Neumann in the 1860s-70s, Tarrasch in 1895,
Maroczy in 1907 (due to Lasker's inactivity), Reshevsky in 1938 &
1943, and Fine in 1941. I confirmed the no.1 ranking on the page for
each player, although there may have been others that I overlooked.

The highest Chessmetrics ranking for perennial no.2 Keres was ...
no.2! He first achieved the runner-up position in 1946 and last
achieved it in 1960.

---

Who is Jeff Sonas? The listing for chessmetrics.com places the
registrant in San Francisco, California. Sonas writes elsewhere on
the Web, 'I'm really not that great of a chess player, and I have a
pretty minimal education in statistics'. Whether or not that is
excessive modesty, former world champion Garry Kasparov thought
enough of Sonas's chess and statistics to give him the opportunity to
write for...

Kasparov Chess
http://www.kasparovchess.com/

...where you can find articles under the 'search' option. An early
article demonstrating some of the power behind Sonas' approach was

A fascinating look at supertournaments throughout the ages.
http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=7374&p_docLang=EN

...which listed 131 of the greatest chess events, from 1870 Baden-
Baden to 2000 Sarajevo. Although flawed -- no tournaments are listed
between the 1962 Curacao Candidates tournament and the 1970 Palma de
Mallorca Interzonal -- the list attracted serious attention. GM Larry
Evans copied the list in his column for the April 2001 issue of Chess
Life. Sonas defended the article and further described his methods
in...

Statistics and the Greats of Chess History
http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=7771&p_docLang=EN

The Statistical Theory Behind the Predictions
http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=11420&p_docLang=EN

Chessmetrics: The Sonas Statistical Method Updated
http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=14378&p_docLang=EN

...Some other practical applications of his method have been...

Viktor Korchnoi: the Strongest 70-Year-Old Chessplayer in History
http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=16177&p_docLang=EN

Statistical Predictions for FIDE KO Semifinals
http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=18935&p_docLang=EN

Will Ponomariov Be the First Teenage Champ?
http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=19378&p_docLang=EN

I intended to write more about Arpad Elo, the inventor of the Elo
rating system, but I ran out of time. Elo has had a profound impact
on the chess world. It is no accident that he was inducted into the
chess hall of fame during its earliest years.

Will Jeff Sonas and Chessmetrics also have an impact? It would be
wonderful to see the current Chessmetrics list of top-10 chessplayers
published regularly in the sports (or leisure, I won't quibble)
section of major newspapers.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in this newsletter may be found
at...

The Chess History discussion group
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chesshistory

...where you are invited to join and contribute. The list archive is
at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
- by email, send a message to
   Chess_History-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, -or-
- by the web, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

FIDE Knockout Tournaments

The chess world is divided into two camps : those who accept the FIDE
Knockout tournament as a real world chess championship and those who
don't. Both camps use logic and reason to justify their point of
view, but, as with so much in chess, logic and reason ultimately
succumb to faith and passion. Since I'm in the first camp, I'm going
to use this review to discuss the page...

World Chess Championship : FIDE Knockout Statistics
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/sta-3wko.htm

...I created the page a few months ago as part of the preparation
that went into my review of Chess Informant's 'Chess Is Chess' CD...

Chess History on the Web (2001 no.17)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/message/7

...While waiting for the last round of the current FIDE Moscow
tournament, I incorporated the results of the first six rounds into
the statistics that I'd calculated for the three previous knockout
tournaments.

I reused the database and queries that I constructed to analyze the
Chess Informant (CI) data, but this time I based my calculations on
my own PGN files instead of the Chess Informant files. This gave me
the opportunity to check the sources against each other. Most of the
results compared perfectly, although I discovered some discrepancies
with the CI file for 1999 Las Vegas event.

The 1999 event was marred by first round forfeits when two players
(Bagheri & Hakki) from Middle Eastern countries were unable to
procure visas to enter the United States. The CI data included one
game for each player, while my files have two games. I decided to
ignore all games from both matches for statistics. This meant, among
other changes, that I count only 98 players for the event instead of
the 100 shown by official records. For the same event the CI data was
missing three games from the first round; Dolmatov - Kotsur had 3
games instead of 4, while Macieja - Milov had 2 games instead of 4. I
included these games in the new calculations.

The 2001 Moscow tournament had more players (128) and consequently
more games (401) than any previous event. The number of players
increased because FIDE stopped granting second round seeds to the
strongest players. The number of games will increase again when the
final round is played later this month. The last match is scheduled
to be 8 standard games. If the match is tied, the first tiebreak will
be 4 rapid games (20 minutes per player + 10 seconds per move); if
still tied, 2 blitz games (5 min. + 10 sec. per move); if still tied,
sudden death blitz games.

---

How have Ivanchuk & Ponomariov, who will meet in the final round,
fared in previous knockout events? Ivanchuk has played in all four
events, while Ponomariov has played in the last three. The following
is a summary of their results.

2001 Ivanchuk:-
- Rd.1 +1-0=1 vs. Shovunov
- Rd.2 +3-1=0 vs. Macieja
- Rd.3 +1-0=1 vs. Sutovsky
- Rd.4 +1-0=1 vs. Ye Jiangchuan
- Rd.5 +1-0=5 vs. Lautier
- Rd.6 +1-0=3 vs. Anand
2001 Ponomariov:-
- Rd.1 +1-0=1 vs. Li Wenliang
- Rd.2 +2-0=2 vs. Tiviakov
- Rd.3 +2-0=0 vs. Georgiev
- Rd.4 +2-1=1 vs. Morozevich
- Rd.5 +2-0=2 vs. Bareev
- Rd.6 +1-0=3 vs. Svidler

2000 Ivanchuk:-
- Rd.1 seeded directly into the 2nd round
- Rd.2 +0-1=3 vs. Ehlvest
2000 Ponomariov:-
- Rd.1 +0-1=1 vs. Dao Thien Hai

1999 Ivanchuk:-
- Rd.1 seeded directly into the 2nd round
- Rd.2 +2-0=0 vs. Wahls
- Rd.3 +2-0=0 vs. Shipov
- Rd.4 +0-1=3 vs. Nisipeanu
1999 Ponomariov:-
- Rd.1 +1-0=1 vs. Al Modiahki
- Rd.2 +1-3=2 vs. Topalov

1997 Ivanchuk:-
- Rd.1 seeded directly into the 2nd round
- Rd.2 +0-1=0 vs. Seirawan

Ivanchuk's quest for the title started in the 1990 Manila Interzonal
tournament, where he tied for 1st/2nd with Gelfand, finishing +6-1=6
after losing his 1st round game to Chandler. In the subsequent 1991
Candidates matches, he crushed Yudasin +4-0=1 in the preliminary
match, but lost to Yusupov +2-3=5 in the quarterfinal match. The
second match went into tiebreak with +2-2=4 after the standard games.
Game 9, the deciding game of the match, was one of the wildest games
ever seen in a world championship competition. In 1996, it was voted
one of the best 10 games of the first 30 years of the Chess Informant
publication.

In the last of the old style FIDE qualifying cycles, Ivanchuk was
eliminated after the 1993 Biel FIDE Interzonal tournament, where he
tied for 10th-15th with +3-0=10. The first 10 players were seeded
into the candidates. Anand was the only qualifier from the group at
8.0 points due to his superior tiebreak. Ivanchuk officially finished
14th.

If experience counts, then Ivanchuk has the edge in the match against
Ponomariov. If nerves count, then anything can happen. Ivanchuk's 4th
round loss to Nisipeanu in 1999 was due to a simple oversight on his
13th move.

---

Along with the two finalists, 244 other players have competed in at
least one knockout event. While 30 players competed in each of the
first three knockout events, the number dropped to 25 for all four.
The five veterans who missed the latest event were Adianto, Akopian,
Aleksandrov, Almasi, and Peng Xiaomin. Akopian has gone as far as the
finals, where he lost in 1999 to Khalifman.

What about the rookies? 51 players not seen in any of the previous
three events competed in Moscow. 34 of them were knocked out in the
1st round and 12 in the 2nd. Delchev, Zhang Zhong, Motylev, & Pigusov
survived to the 3rd round. Ye Jiangchuan took unofficial honors as
the best rookie by surviving to the 4th round. He beat Barsov,
Psakhis, and Van Wely before losing to Ivanchuk +0-1=1. Also worth
noting is that Zhang Pengxiang, another rookie, knocked out ex-World
Champion Karpov in the 1st round.

The list of most active players, determined by total games played,
saw few changes. The top four players held their positions -- 1st
Adams (67 games in the first three events -> 81 games in all four),
2nd Khalifman (58 -> 70), 3rd Anand (51 -> 69), and 4th Shirov (48 ->
67) -- while Gelfand (38 -> 56) replaced Dreev (42 -> 50) in the 5th
position. Akopian and Short, who dropped off the list, were replaced
by Svidler and Lautier. Anand is the only player on the top ten list
to have played in less than 4 events. The current 9th and 10th
positions  -- Tkachiev (44 games) and Lautier (42) -- might be
replaced by Ivanchuk (34) and Ponomariov (30) after the final round
is played.

Not too surprisingly, the same names show up with the best overall
results. This is because a successful player survives into the next
round and plays more games. Anand tops the list of the 72 players who
have played more than 11 games. His score of +17-4=14 with White and
+7-2=25 with Black give him an overall percentage of 63.0%. Ivanchuk
is 6th on the list with W:+8-1=8 B:+4-3=10 61.8%, while Ponomariov is
7th with W:+8-1=6 B:+4-4=7 61.7%.

Of the 25 players who have played in all four events, Bareev tops the
list with W:+11-2=7 B:+7-6=7 62.5%. Hamdouchi is at the bottom with
W:+0-4=1 B:+0-3=2 15.0%. In 1997, he was knocked out +0-2=0 in the
1st round by Malaniuk. In 1999, he won the 1st round by forfeit
against Hakki, but lost the 2nd to Beliavsky +0-1=1. In 2000, he lost
in the 1st round to Vaganian +0-2=0. Hamdouchi's best result was in
the 2001 event where in the 1st round he played two draws in standard
games against Tkachiev, but lost both rapidplay tiebreak games.

The last statistic I worked out is what I call 'the rivalries',
opponents who have played each other the most. The top position after
the first three events was taken by Adams - Anand, who have played 13
games in two matches. The first match was in 1997, when Anand won in
the semifinal round; after draws in the four standard games and in
both sets of two-game tiebreaks, he won the first sudden death game.
The second match was in 2000, when Anand again won in the semifinal
round with +1-0=3 in the four standard games.

The top rivalry is now Adams - Svidler, who have played a total of 16
games against each other in the 4th rounds of 1997, 2000, & 2001.
Adams won the first two matches, but Svidler turned the tide in
Moscow. All three matches were decided in tiebreak.

Anand & Shirov have also met three times, but their game count
doesn't make my rivalries list. Shirov has lost each time in the
standard games, making the tiebreak unnecessary. Other opponents who
have met twice are Adams - Kobalija, Almasi - Peng Xiaomin, Anand -
Khalifman, Bareev - Ehlvest, Beliavsky - Short, Gelfand - Lautier,
and Milos - Shirov.

---

What about the FIDE Women's Knockout tournament? Since there have
been only two events held, I haven't included any statistics on my
page covering the knockout events. The 2000 New Delhi event had 61
players and 160 games, while the 2001 Moscow event had 64 players and
183 games. A total of 101 different players has competed in the two
events, 24 players in both events. Six women have played 20 or more
games:-
29 Zhu Chen
27 Peng Zhaoqin
26 Xu Yuhua
22 Skripchenko,A
20 Kosteniuk,A
20 Maric,A

In none of the 123 matches have the same opponents met in more than
one match. Of the 23 players with more than 9 games, the most
successful have been:-
Xie Jun        W:+4-0=4  B:+1-0=7 65.6%
Zhukova,N      W:+3-0=2  B:+1-1=3 65.0%
Kosteniuk,A    W:+6-2=2  B:+6-4=0 65.0%
Qin Kanying    W:+5-0=4  B:+1-1=7 63.9%
Skripchenko,A  W:+5-3=3  B:+6-2=3 63.6%
Peng Zhaoqin   W:+9-2=3  B:+6-6=1 63.0%
Peptan,C       W:+3-1=4  B:+4-2=2 62.5%
Zhu Chen       W:+8-3=4  B:+5-3=6 62.1%
Kovalevskaya,E W:+4-0=5  B:+2-2=4 61.8%
Xu Yuhua       W:+6-2=5  B:+5-3=5 61.5%

All four finalists -- 2000 champion Xie Jun & runnerup Qin Kanying,
plus 2001 champion Zhu Chen & runnerup Alexandra Kosteniuk -- appear
on the list. If you're interested in the history of the Women's World
Championship, I've just recently constructed an index of all the
players who have competed in women's title competitions since 1950...

World Chess Championship : Index of women players
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/wcc-plwo.htm

...I'll add the missing crosstables and game scores as time and
resources permit.

---

Here's wishing you a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2002. Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

Correspondence Chess

---

The chess world has a new Women's Champion! Zhu Chen (China) defeated
17 year old Alexandra Kosteniuk (Russia) in the final round of the
FIDE Knockout Tournament in Moscow. She succeeds Xie Jun (China), who
declined to play this year.

Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine) defeated defending FIDE champion
Viswanathan Anand (India) +1-0=3 in the men's semifinal round,
thereby avoiding the need for a playoff. 18 year old Ruslan
Ponomariov (Ukraine) defeated Peter Svidler (Russia) by the same
score. The men's final starts 17 January 2002, also in Moscow.

The women's title was decided in the second playoff round. The
players contested two blitz games with 5 minutes per player plus 10
seconds added to the clock after each move. Zhu Chen won both games.

---

In sharp contrast to the playoff games of a FIDE world championship,
the ICCF World Correspondence Championship moves at a different pace.
These tournaments take years before a winner is determined.

For some time now I've had a list of the correspondent champions on
my world championship site under 'Other World Champions'. The list
started with the great Australian Cecil (C.J.S.) Purdy, winner of the
1st event which ran from 1950 to 1953, and ended with Gert Timmerman
of the Netherlands, winner of the 15th event (1996-), which has not
yet officially completed.

Since my list hardly did justice to the topic, I decided earlier this
year to expand the section by including crosstables and game scores
for the events. You probably know that game scores and crosstables,
as public records of a sporting event, are not protected by copyright.

My first problem was where to get this info? The best single
reference is an out of print book, available only from used book
sources...

'The Games of the World Correspondence Chess Championships I-X' by
Tim Harding
http://www.bookfinder.com/?author=harding&title=correspondence+chess

...In addition to a complete record of the finals, Harding's book has
crosstables for the preliminary events. Tackling the preliminaries
was, however, too ambitious for a first effort. I'm a firm believer
in taking a project one step at a time.

For the 11th through 14th events, I found crosstables and some game
scores in various chess periodicals. A crosstable without game scores
is just a two dimensional list. The games are the true record of any
chess competition, but, for obvious reasons, the thought of entering
over a thousand game scores did not appeal to me. I looked for
another solution and didn't have to look very far. The same Tim
Harding has a well known web site...

Chess Mail
http://www.chessmail.com/

...which offers a CD full of game scores for correspondence chess...

Chess Mail: MegaCorr-2 CD-ROM information
http://www.chessmail.com/mega2cd.html

...'Database with 350,000+ CC games and much more'. This looked like
the right place to find what I was looking for. I decided that:-

1) if the game scores exist in digital format, they are certainly on
this compilation; and
2) if I couldn't find them here, I would enter them myself.

Credit card in hand, I opened the Chess Mail page to order the CD --
  'Basic price: IR£33 (Euros 42.00), or US$39.00 or UK£ (sterling)
27.00. [...] Order MegaCorr2 today: now includes free airmail p&p!' --
  but quickly ran into a problem.

There was no indication that the ordering process was secure. Like
most people, I don't like transmitting credit card information over
the Internet in clear text. The site provides an order form in PDF
format and a fax number, but I can't remember the last time I used my
printer. It's covered with dust. I decided not to order and set the
project aside.

Some time later the Chess Cafe newsletter 'This Week at
ChessCafe.com' announced the same CD as a 'Special of the Week'...

'This database contains a splendid collection of 357,218
correspondence chess games, of which approximately 30,000 are
annotated, some in detail, others lightly. Photos of most of the
strongest CC-players from the last few years, various photographs,
buttons, covers from Chess Mail issues, cross-tables from CC-
tournaments, Harding's ChessCafe.com Kibitzer columns (1-55),
tournament books from several classic CC-tournaments (in PDF format),
interviews, short biographies of CC-players and many, many more
things make this one of the great correspondence database and
informational packages ever produced. The suggested retail price for
the Mega Corr2 CD is $39, but this week, October 17-24, as the
ChessCafe.com Special of the Week, you can get it for the low price
of $32.00, a savings of $7!'

...and I jumped at the opportunity. The Chess Cafe store is operated
by the Yahoo store service, where I knew I could trust my credit card
info to be handled as confidentially as possible. A note that 'all
Mega Corr2 CDs will be shipped from Ireland' offered some hope that I
would also save a little money on shipping. After all, I live in a
country which is another member of the EU.

My enthusiasm waned when I reached the Chess Cafe order page. It
mentioned that 'Shipping and tax may be added to your order. For
terms, see the Info page'. The Info page, however, said absolutely
nothing about shipping and tax. I quickly discovered that, based on
my shipping address, I was an 'international' customer, subject to a
fixed shipping fee of $14.95. This is fair for orders shipped from
the United States to Europe, or vice versa, but is unfair for an item
shipped from one part of Europe to another. I made a mental note that
this would probably be my last order to the Chess Cafe, and finished
the checkout process.

---

A week or so later the CD arrived. I was pleased to discover that all
games from ICCF finals 1-14 were in the games database. An
introductory page headed 'Who made this CD', included the following
copyright notice...

'Copyright © Tim Harding, 1996-2001 [...] The PGN and Chessbase
formatted chess games in the databases on this CD are excluded from
this prohibition, but annotations by Tim Harding remain his
copyright.'

...This was in line with my understanding of copyright law applied to
game scores, so I had a green light for my little project. I located
the PGN game scores for the 14 events on the CD, extracted them,
removed the annotations, and formatted the files to suit my own
taste. After this I built crosstables from the game files, checked
them against my sources, including Harding's book, and incorporated
them into my site. The results are at...

World Chess Championship : Correspondence Chess
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/wcc-corr.htm

...I'll update it as other finals are completed. In addition to the
14 finals on the MegaCorr2 CD, the official ICCF site at...

ICCF website
http://www.iccf.com/

...lists results in progress for the 15th and 16th finals; the 16th,
17th, 19th, and 20th 3/4-finals; and the 20th through 25th
semifinals. This leads to a few obvious questions -- What is a 3/4
final? And what happened to the 18th? -- but I haven't yet found the
time to investigate further.

---

Let's take a short look at the MegaCorr2 CD. A directory listing
says 'Volume [MEGACORR2] created: 2001-May-04'. The CD is structured
as a web site, where the entry page is a file named 'CLICK ME.HTM' in
the root directory. The page says 'Welcome to the Mega Corr2 database
and CD Web : Edited by International Master (ICCF), Tim Harding'.

A click on the MegaCorr2 logo opens a frame set, where the top frame
is a navigation bar which appears on all pages. The navigation bar
links to sections called [Book Reviews], [CC Info], [Database], [The
Kibitzer], [Magazine], [Players], [Tournaments], and [eXtras].

The heading on [Book Reviews] is 'John Elburg's Chessbookreviews
Homepage'. I'd seen Elburg's work before, and although the content is
interesting, a spelling (and grammar) checker would be advisable. The
second paragraph on the page is a good example. 'You can tip me on
new books, give tips to improve my pages, answer question like: "How
can I improve these pages more to satisfy your nead in finding the
best book for this moment?", get attention for your own work all by
mailing to a special mailadress: booktips'. It takes a little thought
to understand the sense of that.

[CC Info] is full of links on correspondence chess topics. Along with
the external links to iccf.com and chessmail.com that I've already
mentioned, another excellent resource is...

John Knudsen's correspondencechess.com
http://www.correspondencechess.com/

The [Database] section is headed 'Information about the database on
this CD-ROM'. This means the 357,218 correspondence chess games, of
course. If you're a novice to chess databases, you'll find a lot of
useful tips on chess data here.

[The Kibitzer] 'is a monthly column that Tim Harding writes for Hanon
Russell's website, The Chess Cafe'. It lists 55 articles written by
Harding through December 2000. In my opinion, the Chess Cafe
columnists are among the best chess writers on the Internet, and
Harding is one of the best of the Chess Cafe columnists.

The [Magazine] is Chess Mail. 'Tim Harding has created Chess Mail, an
international magazine with readers in over 55 countries, and he has
edited it since its launch in 1996. On this CD you can read in Adobe
PDF format all the back issues from the start until the end of volume
4 (year 2000). [...] Our online edition is free and complementary to
our printed edition, which has largely different content.' The Adobe
Acrobat Reader required to read the files can be found elsewhere on
the CD.

Never having seen Chess Mail before, I clicked through a few issues.
They are full of interviews, ICCF info, and annotated games between
the world's strongest correspondence players. The home page
www.chessmail.com currently proclaims 'Our 50th number is out now!
Chess Mail 8/2001'.

[Players] is an 'Index to interviews & photos : On this CD we have
links to our past interviews (PDF format) and some photographs. If a
name is highlighted, it links to an interview or profile, or an issue
of the magazine with a relevant article about that player'. The page
also links to lists of ICCF titled players as well as the 'five
greatest cc players of all time'. No, I'm not going to reveal their
identities here.

[Tournaments] offers crosstables for events like the World
Championship, the European Championship, and the ICCF World Cup. The
World Championship covers the same finals -- 1st through 14th -- that
I had just prepared for my site. To give you an idea about the
quality of the work, I found only one discrepancy while working with
Harding's material. The Watzl - Collins game from the 1st final is
listed in Harding's book as a draw, but the game score on the CD is a
win for the American. The crosstable on the CD agrees with the game
score.

[eXtras] 'links to miscellaneous information pages' on the CD. Among
many other resources, these include a bibliography, a 1996 interview
with Mark Crowther, and three tournament books.

The MegaCorr2 CD is a gold mine for the chess historian as well as
for the correspondence player. Unlike the Chess Informant CD which I
reviewed a few months ago, MegaCorr's open format guarantees that it
will serve as a basic reference for many years to come. Many of the
annotated games explore the inner secrets of chess in the same way
that a correspondence player does. The whole effort gets three thumbs
up.

---

For the final piece of this review, I'd like to look at some basic
data about the games from the 14 completed ICCF finals. After
extracting the headers from the PGN files and loading them into a
database, I counted 1533 games. Of these, 10 are marked 'extra'
because the results were cancelled when a player withdrew. Of the
remaining games, 22 are completely missing the game score. This means
that I had 1501 full games.

My first numbers are based on the 1523 official games. In the 14
events there were 212 participants, drawn from 149 different players.
Four players participated in more than three events:-

6  Zagorovsky, V.
5  Estrin, Y.
4  Baumbach, F.
4  Sanakoev, G.

There were also 15 players who participated in 3 events, 18 in 2
events, and 112 who played in a single event. Vladimir Zagorovsky
played in the finals of the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 11th events.
His namesake Mikhail Zagorovsky also competed in the 7th final.

Only 10 players competed in the 3rd final, while four events (5th,
7th, 9th, & 13th) had 17 participants. Not too surprisingly, the four
players who competed in more than three events also played the
greatest number of games:-

87  Zagorovsky, V.
76  Estrin, Y.
60  Baumbach, F.
58  Sanakoev, G.

The 10 most successful players have been:-

Berliner, H.  +12-0=4 87.50% 16 gms.
Rittner, H.   +10-0=5 83.33% 15
Umansky, M.   +10-0=6 81.25% 16
Purdy, C.J.S. +9-1=3  80.77% 13
Ragozin, V.   +9-1=4  78.57% 14
Sloth, J.     +8-0=6  78.57% 14
Malmgren, H.  +7-0=6  76.92% 13
Mikhailov, A. +19-3=8 76.67% 30
Schmid, L.    +9-2=3  75.00% 14
Oim, T.       +24-3=7 73.86% 44

Only two of these players competed in more than one final. Oim played
in three, Mikhailov in two.

What about long running rivalries? Estrin and Zagorovsky played each
other four times in finals. Seven rivalries spanned three games :
Kauranen - Sanakoev, Thiele - Zagorovsky, Balogh - Napolitano, Nyman -
  Zagorovsky, de Carbonnel- Zagorovsky, Boey - Estrin, and de
Carbonnel - Estrin.

34 different countries have been represented. Of these, the countries
appearing the most have been:-

49 USR : Soviet Union
18 SWE : Sweden
15 BRD : West Germany
12 CZE : Czechoslovakia
10 DDR : East Germany

The USSR had eight players in the 9th final, plus six in the 6th,
8th, & 11th. The second country on the list was a complete surprise
to me. Twelve different players have represented Sweden. Lundqvist
and Nyman have competed three times.

These country counts are somewhat problematic, as geographical
boundaries have shifted significantly over the last 12 years. Two
time world champion Oim, for example, has played twice for the USSR
and once, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, for his native
Estonia. In fact, four other players have also participated under
more than one flag:-

Baumbach (DDR x 2; GER x 2)
Franzen  (CZE x 1; SLK x 1)
Sanakoev (USR x 3; RUS x 1)
Stern    (DDR x 2; GER x 1)

If we ignore political realities by lumping related countries
together, the picture changes and Germany overtakes Sweden:-

USSR ('RUS','USR','EST','LTU') : 56 participants
Germany ('BRD','DDR','GER') : 30 participants
Czechoslovakia ('CZE','SLK') : 13 participants

---

Correspondence chess is an important laboratory for opening theory.
The element of surprise attached to an opening novelty, which can be
so crucial to the result of an over-the-board (OTB) game, is
diminished considerably. Otherwise unfathomable variations can be
dissected and analyzed to depths which exceed the ability of the
greatest human calculators, like Kasparov.

The following statistics are based on the 1501 games where the game
scores are complete. Just one word of warning : the samples are so
small that we can't extrapolate too much knowledge from them.

First, here's a table showing the win-loss-draw records from White's
viewpoint for the five main ECO (Encyclopedia of Chess Openings)
classifications:-

A +68-42=59     57.69% 169 gms.
B +163-117=189  54.90% 469
C +158-91=154   58.31% 403
D +87-54=97     56.93% 238
E +72-56=94     53.60% 222

Note the large number of e4 (B/C) vs. d4 (D/E) openings, which I
believe is contrary to OTB practice. Combining these, the percentages
are:-

e4 +321-208=343 56.48% 872
d4 +159-110=191 55.33% 460

Going one level down in the ECO classification, the most & least
successful openings (again as seen from White's side) have been:-

C3 +3-0=0   100.00%  3
D0 +7-0=4    81.82% 11
D3 +21-4=13  72.37% 38
A7 +3-0=4    71.43%  7
E9 +19-4=16  69.23% 39
C9 +43-11=30 69.05% 84
B1 +26-7=22  67.27% 55
B9 +25-9=24  63.79% 58
A0 +11-3=15  63.79% 29
E0 +8-3=10   61.90% 21
[...]
E4 +8-10=7   46.00% 25
A8 +5-6=1    45.83% 12
D9 +6-8=9    45.65% 23
B8 +18-24=26 45.59% 68
E1 +4-7=17   44.64% 28
B0 +16-22=17 44.55% 55
E2 +3-4=2    44.44%  9
E3 +4-7=8    42.11% 19
E8 +3-5=4    41.67% 12
C6 +7-20=15  34.52% 42

Does this mean that if, as Black, you play less popular lines of the
Ruy Lopez (C6; a.k.a. the Spanish), you are likely to finish better?
No, chess is not this simple. The C6 percentage means that some great
specialists in these lines were among the most successful players to
have competed in ICCF final events. Believe me, I checked!

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in this newsletter may be found
at...

The Chess History discussion group
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chesshistory

...where you are invited to join and contribute. The list archive is
at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
- by email, send a message to
   Chess_History-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, -or-
- by the web, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

Chess Directories

---

You may not have seen it on prime time TV news or sports, but the
latest edition of the FIDE World Championship Knockout is now
underway in Moscow. After two rounds, the original 128 aspirants in
the unrestricted event have been reduced to 32 names. Some very
strong players have already been sent packing.

In round one, Zhang Pengxiang (China) defeated former World Champion
Anatoly Karpov (Russia). Former title challengers Nigel Short (Great
Britain) and Viktor Korchnoi (Switzerland) were eliminated,
respectively, by Daniel Campora (Argentina) and Lev Psakhis (Israel).
In round two, top-10 Peter Leko (Hungary) and the world's strongest
woman player Judit Polgar (Hungary) were eliminated by Ashot
Anastasian (Armenia) and Vadim Milov (Switzerland).

The 64 women seeking the women's title now number 16. In round one,
five-time Women's Champion Nona Gaprindashvili and two-time candidate
Ketevan Arakhamia, both of Georgia, were eliminated by Marta
Zielinska (Poland) and Dagne Ciuksyte (Lithuania). Round two saw two-
time title challenger Nana Ioseliani (Georgia) defeated by Joanna
Dworakowska (Poland).

For more news see the official site at...

World Chess Championships 2001/2002 :: News
http://wcc2001.fide.com/

...The 6th round ends mid-December, and the men's final starts 17
January 2002.

---

In my last review I looked at the Open Directory (Dmoz) category for
World Champions. Dmoz has a parallel category for chess history at...

Top: Games: Board Games: C: Chess: History  (10)
http://dmoz.org/Games/Board_Games/C/Chess/History/

...where '(10)' is the count of sites in the category. In this review
I'm going to look at Dmoz along with other chess directories to
develop a new list of recommended chess history sites. The goal will
be to double-check my own master list of history sites at...

Chess History on the Web
http://members.tripod.com/~Mark_Weeks/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

...and determine if I've overlooked anything. I assume that, by now,
almost everyone knows the difference between a directory and a search
engine, so my first task is to develop a short list of chess
directories. Dmoz again provides a useful start point with...

Top: Games: Board Games: C: Chess: Directories  (10)
http://dmoz.org/Games/Board_Games/C/Chess/Directories/

...a strange mixture of sites, some of which can hardly be considered
directories : 'Chess Lab - An online chess database of 2 million
games' serving as a good example.

Included on the Dmoz list is my favorite chess directory...

Chessopolis
http://www.chessopolis.com/

...managed by Andy Serpa. The site has been maintained for at least
three years, a long time for a chess directory. The home page
announces '[November 26] New links added', the sixth time that the
list has been updated this year. Chessopolis includes a 'History /
Trivia' category.

Those of you who have websites know that one of the major jobs is
getting & keeping your site visible in the various directories &
search engines. I'd always found this task so frustrating and
unsatisfying that I stopped doing it three years ago. This means that
when I moved my world championship site two years ago from a free
server to a paid server, I did almost nothing to signal the address
update to places where the site was listed. I simply changed the
pages on the old server to redirect visitors automatically to the new
server. That way, any links pointing to my old address still
delivered visitors to the new address.

I can almost hear you saying, 'So what! What does that have to with
chess history?'. As luck would have it, my laziness gave me the
opportunity to measure how fast an address change is propagated
throughout the search sites. These are, after all, the sites that
help all of us find relevant information on the Web. When they are
out of date, we risk not finding the site that would best satisfy our
current information search

My first conclusion was that directories are never updated unless the
site owner requests the change. Chessopolis points to my newer
address in its 'Archives / Game Collections' only because I had a
brief correspondence with Serpa. He asked me to change my own link to
his site on my 'Web gadgets' page, where I list a number of chess
directories. After complying with his request, I requested similar
treatment, which was quickly granted.

My second conclusion was that while some search engines update site
addresses quickly, others never do an update. It all seems to depend
on the technical strategy behind the different engines. Google was
one of the first search engines to use my newer address. This is one
reason why I rely on it so heavily for my own searches -- I'm
confident that the addresses it returns on a search are as up-to-date
as current technical and commercial constraints allow.

You might be surprised to learn that -- more than two years after the
change -- some very well known search engines still point to my old
address, while the new address is missing. For those engines,
maintaining a current list of Web addresses is apparently not a
priority. I'm not yet prepared to name names, but one of these days
I'll analyze the data which I've accumulated and publish my list
of 'search engines filled with obsolete links'.

Getting back to the Dmoz list of chess directories, another of my
favorites on the list is...

Chess Encyclopedia
http://maskeret.com/mecca/index.shtml

...by Maurizio Mascheroni. I've been acquainted with this site for
more than four years, and have watched it go through a number of
design evolutions, all positive. Along with a well maintained
directory, it provides a number of features under 'Who, When and
Where' -- Who is Who, When and Where, Timeline, Today in the history -
- which are relevant to chess history.

Using the Chess Encyclopedia's 'Quick Search : A speedy method to
search in our links database', I searched on 'chess history' and
received a list of 1924 matches, far too many to handle in this
review. The list of 'Main categories' includes a history category
with 32 links, up from 31 only a few weeks ago, proof that the
directory is maintained. As for my own site, the Chess Encyclopedia
still points to the old address, because I've never requested a
change.

Another well known directory...

InternetChess.com
http://www.internetchess.com/

...has fallen on hard times. At one time it was maintained by Harris
Nizel and was the best chess directory on the Web. It appeared for
sale on eBay sometime in the first half of 2000 (I neglected to note
the exact date) where it failed to meet its reserve price. It then
appeared with a new look a few months later.

The rotating banner ads at the top of each page had been replaced by
links to 'The Week In Chess' (TWIC), plus other sites. The bottom of
each page mentioned 'copyright to Chess and Bridge Ltd.', the same
company name displayed on www.chesscenter.com, where TWIC lives. Most
importantly, the page announced that, 'InternetChess.com joins the
Brain Games Network [...] InternetChess.com will be the prime BGN
vehicle for transmitting the moves of this epic [Kasparov - Kramnik]
clash when it takes place in London over October and November.'

Today, well over a year after I noted the facts given in the previous
paragraph, the page still announces 'InternetChess.com will be the
prime BGN vehicle [etc.]' and carries the same pre-match publicity.
The bottom of the page now says, 'copyright to Brain Games Network
[...] Last updated 13/11/00', with no mention of Chess and Bridge
Ltd. Game 15, the last game of the Kasparov - Kramnik match, was
played on 2 November 2000, almost two weeks before the last update
was made to the page.

Similarly, the links in the directory seem not to have been updated
in a long time. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that no changes
have been made since Harris Nizel was in charge. Its link to my site
in 'Software and Game Collections' points, of course, to the old
address.

A directory which seems never to have been updated since its launch
three years ago is...

Chessking
http://www.chessking.com

...by Ari Burton. It also uses my old address in its 'Chess Events,
News, & Other Chess Information Sites' list of links. There are other
directories like Chessking, but they've all followed the same life
cycle -- launch it and leave it.

The four directories that I've just discussed are all relatively
small because they are specific to chess. Another common type of
chess directory is a single piece of a much larger, general purpose
directory, like the Dmoz link at the start of this article. The chess
sections of some other well known directories are...

Yahoo
http://dir.yahoo.com/Recreation/Games/Board_Games/Chess/
http://dir.yahoo.com/Recreation/Games/Board_Games/Chess/History/

LookSmart/AltaVista
http://altavista.looksmart.com/eus1/eus52213/eus141139/eus141155/eus14
2480/eus142488/
http://altavista.looksmart.com/eus1/eus317828/eus317852/eus142480/eus1
42488/eus547077/

About.com
http://chess.about.com/
http://chess.about.com/msub30.htm

...where I've included the address of the chess history section
beneath that of the general chess section. In my opinion the best of
this class of chess history directories is the last, which I reviewed
in Chess History on the Web 2000 no.7 (dated 2000/04/15); the review
can still be found at...

About.com's Chess History by David Dunbar
http://members.tripod.com/~Mark_Weeks/Sit-rvws/2000-08.txt

...Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have been updated since my
review more than a year and a half ago.

---

For the chess directories having a subdirectory specific to chess
history, what can be said about the sites they reference? I captured
each directory's links to the different chess history sites and
loaded them all into a database for further scrutiny. The following
table shows the number of chess history sites linked by each
directory:-

12 About.com
28 Chessopolis
10 Dmoz
  9 Looksmart
31 Maskeret Chess Encyclopedia
  8 Yahoo

For example, the chess history directory in About.com lists 12 sites.
I then resolved addressing differences and, from the initial list of
98 addresses, produced a list of 13 sites referenced by more than one
directory:-

6 http://www.excaliburelectronics.com/uschf.html (-)
6 http://www.netcologne.de/~nc-jostenge/ (*)
5 http://misc.traveller.com/chess/history/ (*)
5 http://www.chessarch.com/arch.shtml (*)
5 http://www.goddesschess.com/
5 http://www.ishipress.com/origin.htm (-)
3 http://truth.wofford.edu/~kaycd/CHESS-GO/bf-moral.htm
3 http://www.chesshistory.com/ (*)
2 http://www.chessbaseusa.com/NY1924/ny1924.htm
2 http://www.galandor.org/resources/articles/games/chess2.asp (?)
2 http://www.geocities.com/oldinchess/index.htm (!)
2 http://www.princeton.edu/~jamesw/chess.html
2 http://www.xs4all.nl/~timkr/chess/chess.html (*)

As you can see, the first two sites on the list are referenced by all
six chess directories in the initial list. I haven't listed the
titles of these sites, because most of them can be deduced from the
addresses, and the rest you can visit yourself if you're interested.
Sites marked '(*)' are already on my master list of chess history
sites and have been the subject of previous reviews. Sites marked '(-
)' were on the list and were reviewed, but were removed for some
reason. The site marked '(?)' has disappeared. The sites not marked
have been left off my list for various reasons.

The site marked '(!)' is the only site on the list that I'd never
seen before. A Spanish language site located in Argentina, its name
is 'Old in Chess' and it's a good candidate for inclusion on my
master list. The content is still somewhat skimpy and it doesn't
appear to have been updated since July, so I'd prefer to see that
it's really alive before adding it to the list.

In addition to the sites listed by more than one directory, I found
50 sites referenced exactly once. Eight of these are already on my
master list, while one more was removed from the list because it no
longer exists. Of the remaining sites that I had never seen before,
four caught my attention...

La  storia  degli  scacchi - 'The first site of chess art and culture
on Internet'
http://carmelo111.supereva.it/

Der Webseite von Harald E. Balló
http://www.ballo.de/

'Chess facts, chess links, great games, chess history, glossary,
great players, ...'
http://www.chess-poster.com/

'40 photographies d'objets et scènes rares et plus de 50 textes
originaux'
http://www.chessgalaxy.com/

...These all deserve a longer look. That makes five new chess history
sites in five different languages -- a good catch for a few hours
work! I'll have more to say about these sites in a future review.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in this newsletter may be found
at...

The Chess History discussion group
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chesshistory

...where you are invited to join and contribute. The list archive is
at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
- by email, send a message to
   Chess_History-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, -or-
- by the web, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

Site review - World Champions (Open Directory)

Continuing with our list of chess history sites...

Chess History on the Web
http://members.tripod.com/~Mark_Weeks/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

...the next site to be reviewed is...

Open Directory Project - World Champions
http://www.dmoz.org/Games/Board_Games/C/Chess/People/All_World_Champio
ns/

...This fits in well with a topic I've touched in two of the last few
articles -- the best Web-based source of information on the world
champions. Why do I have this obsession with the world champions? An
email correspondent once put it best, 'The world champions *are* the
history of chess'.

The main page of the Open Directory Project (aka 'dmoz') is at
dmoz.org. Its 'about dmoz' link informs us that, 'The Open Directory
Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of
the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community
of volunteer editors'. Created in 1998, it's been integrated into
several search engine services, among them Google. A good article
written last year on the history of the Open Directory can be found
at...

Humans Do It Better: Inside the Open Directory Project
http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/OL2000/sherman7.html

...While preparing this current review, I noticed that the Open
Directory needed an editor for the chess category and all its
subcategories. I applied for the World Champions subcategory a year
ago, and was turned down (which confirms how sensible they are in
their choice of editors!), so I won't bother again. Why not try
yourself? Note that you can also apply for one or more subcategories,
which should be less work than the full category.

I applied for the World Champions subcategory because they were
seeking an editor and because I thought I could easily improve the
quality of their links. After all, many of the dmoz links point to my
own world championship site, which even receives a star in
the 'Tournaments' category. A few days after applying I received an
email...

'Dear Mark Weeks, Thank you for your interest in becoming an Open
Directory Project editor! After careful review, we have decided not
to approve your application at this time.  Your willingness to
volunteer is greatly appreciated and perhaps we will be able to
utilize your talent in the future. Regards, The Open Directory
Project'

...with no obvious way to appeal the decision. The World Champions
category hasn't improved or, as far as I can see, been changed since
that time. I have a few mildly negative things to say later in this
review and I hope they don't seem too much like sour grapes!

---

The category looks like this...

>Top: Games: Board Games: C: Chess: People: All World Champions  (47)
>
>World Championship Games  (13)
>
>Alekhine, Alexander -- Russia-France  (2)
>Anderssen, Adolf  (1)
  [...]
>Fischer, Robert James -- USA@  (11)
  [...]
>Steinitz, Wilhelm  (4)
>Tal, Mikhail  (4)
>
>Biographies of Chess World Champions, by Iverson Lapp

...'Top: Games: Board Games: C: Chess: People: All World Champions'
shows the hierarchy above World Champions. The numbers in parentheses
are the number of links for each referenced subcategory. Alekhine's
two links are to:-
1) a crosstable (from my site) for the 1927 match with Capablanca,
and
2) a biography at www.chesscorner.com.

The '@'-sign next to Fischer's name means that his links are taken
from another category (specifically, 'Chess People') and that those
11 links are not counted in the category total of 47. The 13 'World
Championship Games' include 9 links to my site for historical matches
plus 4 links to other sites covering matches from the last decade.
The recent FIDE knockout tournaments are not mentioned anywhere.

Every category has an attached 'Description', which for 'All World
Champions' is, 'Many times during chess history there has been
dissent about who the "real" World Champion is. Yet there is often
general agreement about who the strongest player is. This is an
inclusive listing of players considered the best in the world during
their era, as well as all those who have won widely recognized "World
Championship" events.' As you can see from the hierarchy, the
category above 'All World Champions' is...

>Top: Games: Board Games: C: Chess: People  (122)
>
>
>All World Champions  (47)
>American Popular Players  (8)
>
>Anand, Vishwanathan  (2)
>Belakovskaia, Anjelina  (1)
>Fischer, Bobby  (11)
  [...]
>Polgar, Zsuzsa  (1)
>Shirov, Alexei  (2)

Note that Zs. Polgar is listed here, but not under World Champions,
although she was the Women's World Champion from 1996 to 1999. The
highest category for chess is...

>Top: Games: Board Games: C: Chess  (780)
>
>Books  (15)
>Correspondence Chess  (30)
>Directories  (11)
>History  (10)
>News and Media  (11)
>Organizations  (2)
>People  (122)
>Problems  (22)
>Regional  (189)
>Scholastic Chess  (16)
>Shopping@  (132)
>Software  (211)
>Tournaments  (26)
>Tutorials  (44)
>Variants  (48)
>
>See also:
>Arts: Performing Arts: Theatre: Musicals: Chess  (6)
>Games: Internet: Browser Based: Board Games: Chess  (64)
>
>This category in other languages:
>Bulgarian  (2)
  [...]
>Swedish  (36)

---

Returning to the 'All World Champions' category, there are 18
champions listed:-

Of these, 4 are usually considered unofficial world champions:-
-- Philidor, Francois Andre Danican (1)
-- Staunton, Howard (1)
-- Anderssen, Adolf  (1)
-- Morphy, Paul (3)

The 13 official world champions are all listed:-
  1 Steinitz, Wilhelm  (4)
  2 Lasker, Emanuel  (3)
  3 Capablanca, Jose Raoul  (5)
  4 Alekhine, Alexander (2)
  5 Euwe, Max  (1)
  6 Botvinnik, Mikhail  (2)
  7 Smyslov, Vassily (2)
  8 Tal, Mikhail  (4)
  9 Petrosian, Tigran (1)
10 Spassky, Boris  (3)
11 Fischer, Robert James (11)
12 Karpov, Anatoly (5)
13 Kasparov, Garry (22)

And the 18th is Kasparov's current nemesis:-
-- Kramnik, Vladimir@  (4)

Missing, for whatever reason, are the most recent FIDE champions:-
-- Khalifman (1999)
-- Anand (2000)

If you're new to the subject, you might be wondering who declared
those 13 players to be the official champs? Well, the honest answer
is that nobody did, at least for the first five. The opportunity to
have a real world champ presented itself when Morphy died in 1884.
While he was alive, no one else could realistically claim to be the
strongest chess player in the world. Morphy himself couldn't be
granted this honor, because he stopped playing after the 1850s.

Steinitz beat Zukertort in 1886, and was assigned number 1 in the
series. Subsequent champions each beat the preceding champ in a fixed
match, until Alekhine passed away and took the title with him.

After receiving a green light from the Soviet Chess federation, FIDE
supervised the job of determining number 6. Each new champ emerged by
beating the reigning champ until Fischer refused to defend his title,
when FIDE again kept the line going. The system chugged on like this
for another 18 years until Kasparov challenged FIDE's authority in
1993.

Saying that the title belonged to the titleholder, not to the
titlegiver, Kasparov opened the door for endless arguments between
titleholders, titlegivers, and their respective followers.  The smoke
still hasn't cleared. Until it does, I'll continue to number the
champs chronologically, which gives:-
14 Khalifman
15 Kramnik
16 Anand

As you can work out yourself, the champions with the most links are:-

22 Kasparov
11 Fischer
  5 Capablanca, Karpov
  4 Kramnik, Steinitz, Tal
  3 Lasker, Morphy, Spassky
  2 Alekhine, Botvinnik, Smyslov
  1 Anderssen, Euwe, Petrosian, Philidor, Staunton

I looked at each of Kasparov's 22 links and discovered that 17 of
them are still active. Of these, 5 cover the 1999 Garry vs. the World
MSN game, 4 are biography pages, and 2 are UPITT game files. The
other 6 cover different events, including the 1996 & 1997 matches vs.
IBM's Deep Blue. The most recent event is the Braingames match vs.
Kramnik last year.

I also became curious about how many pages the numbers of links
represent out of the total number available. I ran a Google search on
each name plus the keyword chess. For example, a search on 'chess
Anderssen' returned 'about 1,610' pages. Here are the results for all
champions:-

  2,020 Philidor
  5,950 Staunton
  1,610 Anderssen
  4,150 Morphy
  4,050 Steinitz
  6,110 Lasker
  5,570 Capablanca
  5,930 Alekhine
  4,170 Euwe
  4,820 Botvinnik
  3,220 Smyslov
11,500 Tal
  2,660 Petrosian
  4,760 Spassky
21,100 Fischer
14,100 Karpov
41,100 Kasparov
  5,550 Khalifman
15,900 Kramnik
18,700 Anand

---

The most obscure category on the World Champions page is a link to...

Biographies of Chess World Champions by Iverson Lapp
http://brainsturgeon.com/champions.htm

...The former editor of the category apparently considered this page
to be the most comprehensive page on the Web covering all champions.
It's a short page called 'Final Column', with further links to, among
other topics, Alexander Khalifman and the Chess World Champions
Archives.

The Archives cover exactly the same 18 champions as the Open
Directory itself, except Kramnik is replaced by Khalifman. The
Khalifman page has two paragraphs about the former FIDE world
champion plus links to two Khalifman games which can be viewed
online. The two paragraphs, dated 9/2/00 (2 September 2000 [NB : pre-
Kramnik]), quote Khalifman saying, 'I do not claim to be the world's
best chessplayer, but I am the FIDE World Champion, the only
championship of the world we have now.'

The pages for the other champions use the same format. The 'Final
Column' page also informs us, 'This page is now moving forward and
has been renamed "Chess Talk." Iversen will be submitting chess
quizzes that Pyramid members can try to solve by posting responses in
our new Chess Talk Forum.' When I clicked on the Chess Talk Forum
link, I got a message saying 'Sorry. We can't find the page you're
looking for. Please recheck the URL and try again.'

Who is Iverson Lapp? A Google search returned only references to the
Open Directory and its derivatives. And what is brainsturgeon.com?
The main page informs us that brainsturgeon.com is the 'Home of the
Pyramid Community : The Pyramids are internet gaming leagues devoted
to honest and fair play.  Membership is free. Games are played at
Yahoo! and losses reported here.'

The champions page on brainsturgeon.com is certainly a competent
reference, but it's not the comprehensive page on world champions
that I've been looking for. Neither is the Open Directory page
itself. A few other candidates are...

History Of Chess
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Ring/4860/history.html

...which covers exactly the 13 official champions and has copied the
biographies from the chesschampions.com site. If I remember
correctly, these biographies were written by the ubiquitous Bill
Wall. Indeed, when I compared its content with...

Bill Wall's List of Chess Masters
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7378/masters2.htm

...several of the biographies were almost identical to those found on
the 'History Of Chess' site. Bill Wall's site covers the Open
Directory's list of 4 unofficial champs; 10 of the official champs
(Lasker, Euwe, and Spassky are missing) & Khalifman; plus Blackburne,
Boleslavsky, la Bourdonnais, Geller, Janowski, McDonnell, &
Spielmann. By the way, la Bourdonnais is on many lists of unofficial
champs.

Another site worth mentioning is...

Barnet Chess Club on-line evolving suite of World Champions papers
http://www.insight.demon.co.uk/Technical_Articles/worldchamps/worldcha
mps.htm

...which covers Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, & Fischer. I
reviewed this site early last year in Chess History on the Web (2000
no.5). The biographies are among the most comprehensive that you'll
find, but no new bios have been added since my review.

Another site worth mentioning is...

Chess World Champions
http://www.chesscorner.com/worldchamps/worldchampion.htm

...which also covers exactly the 13 official champions. Its
biographies of the champions are 8-10 paragraphs for the early
champions, but only a few paragraphs for later champions. Each champ
has one game which can be played online using the ICC viewer.
Kasparov is represented by game 16 vs. Karpov from the World
Championship match held in London & Leningrad, 1986, on which
Kasparov spent 20 pages analyzing in his book on the match.

It may just be that the best site is yet to come. Of the two chess
history sites remaining to be reviewed -- 'Chessmetrics' by Jeff
Sonas and 'World Chess Network' by Larry Parr -- the World Chess
Network has some excellent material on the world champions. We'll be
looking at it very soon.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in this newsletter may be found
at...

The Chess History discussion group
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chesshistory

...where you are invited to join and contribute. The list archive is
at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
- by email, send a message to
   Chess_History-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, -or-
- by the web, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

Site review - The Game Is Afoot

Following my list of chess history sites...

Chess History on the Web
http://members.tripod.com/~Mark_Weeks/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

...the next site to be reviewed is...

The Game Is Afoot by Terry Crandall
http://www.pstat.ucsb.edu/%7ecarlson/chess/

...which features some well written articles about grandmasters of
the past. It's a small site, but it's always been a favorite because
Crandall has produced some quality material.

When I started to prepare this article, I discovered a blocking
problem -- error message 'Not Found : The requested URL was not found
on this server'. This message can mean that a site has been
reorganized and that a page has a new address. This time I was unable
to locate any of the pages on the www.pstat.ucsb.edu domain.
Sometimes sites disappear temporarily, but a few days later, the
problem was still there. The site was gone.

Switching to Google, I found the pages were still in the Google
cache. If you're not familiar with this useful resource, it's
described at...

Google Special Search Features
http://www.google.com/help/features.html#cached

...I know from past experience that when a site disappears, its pages
remain in the Google cache for a limited time only. This is
undoubtedly the time it takes Google to return to the site for
reindexing.

---

Now I had a decision to make for this review:-
1) Forget about the site and move on to the next address in my list;
2) Review the pages from the Google cache; or
3) Reconstruct the site from the cache.

'1) Forget about the site' : A month ago in...

Chess History on the Web (2001 no.19)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/message/9

...I looked at the Schachgeschichte site, which features German
language biographies of the world champions, of unsuccessful
challengers for the championship title, and of a few other great
grandmasters of the past. As part of the review, I conducted a search
for similar English language sites, but concluded that 'I still
haven't found a site with biographical material on all [the] world
champions'.

While Crandall's pages don't cover all of the world champions, it is
still one of the few English language sites with good biographical
material about chess grandmasters. I didn't want to forget about it.

'2) Review the pages in the Google cache' : I rejected this choice
because it seemed shallow. Why write about something which will soon
disappear? In fact, Crandall's pages are no longer available in the
cache.

'3) Reconstruct the site' : I had a big problem here -- I didn't know
who is the legal owner of the copyright. This seems to be the right
place to explain that Terry Crandall died last year. I suppose that
his pages, which were hosted by the University of California at Santa
Barbara, were removed during routine housekeeping. Universities often
remove Web pages belonging to former students and faculty who are no
longer associated with the institution. The material is then lost,
usually forever.

I sent an email message to the contact address mentioned on
Crandall's main page. I hoped to find out more information about
possible heirs, but I received no response. I then bit the bullet and
decided to preserve without permission his grandmaster biographies on
one of my own Web domains. The results are at...

The Game Is Afoot by Terry Crandall
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw01k01/index.htm

...This is not an exact copy of Crandall's site. First, I preserved
only the biographies; other non-biographical pages are no longer
linked in my replica. Second, the Google cache includes only the HTML
text source of a page; graphics and images are not saved, so it is
not possible to recreate the original layout exactly. If you want to
see what Crandall's pages really looked like, most of the biographies
are also available at...

masterBios
http://www.jaced.com/htm/c/cbios/cbios_philidor.htm

...which seems to use Crandall's original layout.

I'm not sure that I made a good decision when I created a partial
copy of the site. I'd be interested in any comments on the copyright
issues involved here. If I ever discover that 'The Game Is Afoot' has
moved from UCSB to another host, I'll redirect my pages to the
official site.

I'll finish with an excerpt from a page which I haven't preserved. It
was written by one of Crandall's close friends and gives some insight
into his reasons for constructing the site...

'Terry Crandall was born January 17, 1955 in Pasadena, California at
7:50 a.m. He died on August 11, 2000 in Vancouver, Washington USA.
Over the 18 years I have known Terry, he was always fascinated with
those who had left their mark in history, whether it was famous chess
champions, classical composers, cartoonists or scientists. He had a
deep admiration for those who achieved great heights of
accomplishment. For the past few years I had the honor of helping
Terry author this chess site and can tell you that he always put
together new aspects of the site with the greatest care. His aim in
constructing the chess site was to write down his personal
impressions of great chess champions in history so that the young,
especially his young son, might be exposed to their fascinating
personalities and awesome achievements. All of the biographies were
designed to be understood by any age; even by those who do not play
chess.

'--- Claudia Carlson'

...I'm not going to say any more in this review. The biographies,
which cover world champions Morphy (unofficial), Lasker, Capablanca,
Alekhine, and Tal -- plus Najdorf, Niemzowitsch, Philidor, Pillsbury,
Reshevsky, Reti, Rubinstein, Sultan Khan, Tarrasch, and Tartakower --
speak for themselves.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in this newsletter may be found
at...

The Chess History discussion group
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chesshistory

...where you are invited to join and contribute. The list archive is
at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
- by email, send a message to
   Chess_History-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, -or-
- by the web, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

Kasparov's record

It's been exactly one year since I made my first compilation of games
by a single player. The subject was Kasparov and the occasion was the
Kasparov - Kramnik world championship match sponsored by Braingames.
I documented the process in detail...

Chess History on the Web (2000 no.20); Site review - UPITT (I)
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw01d15/2000-20.txt

...and added a reference page...

Kasparov game collection (tournament, match, & exhibition record)
http://members.tripod.com/~Mark_Weeks/chw00j15/kasparov.htm

...This page, which I update regularly, lists essential information --
  year, description & site, exhibition?, result (1st, 2nd, etc. out of
how many players), score (+W-L=D), games on file vs. games played,
PGN filename -- about each event in which Kasparov has played.

One of my objectives in doing this was to evaluate the quality of the
Kasparov game collection on UPITT...

University of Pittsburgh (UPITT) archive
http://www.pitt.edu/~schach/

...one of the most important public chess archives on the Web. The
Kasparov collection was soon followed by similar collections for
Kramnik and Anand after they won their respective world champion
titles. Later, in an exercise to evaluate different player
collections available on the Web, I added a two-part collection on
Karpov...

Chess History on the Web (2001 no.5-7)
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw01d15/2001-05.txt
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw01d15/2001-06.txt
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw01d15/2001-07.txt

...For this review I thought it would be useful to take a critical
look at my Kasparov collection in the same way I look at other Web
material. This should help me to improve the quality of the
collections that I've assembled, as well as those that are currently
in process.

---

Many fans of the game consider Kasparov to be the greatest player of
all time. Even those who do not consider him the greatest always
place him near the top of the greats. This is one of many reasons why
a good collection of his games is a valuable resource for chess
players and for chess historians.

A year ago my collection had 1530 unique games on file. The latest
update, which I prepared along with this article, has 2266 games. Why
has there been more than a 50% increase? The first release, which was
derived entirely from the UPITT collection, stopped at the beginning
of 1998. I brought it up to date with the help of Mark Crowther's
TWIC...

The Week in Chess by Mark Crowther
http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic.html

...one of the best historical resources available on the Web. These
updates included 104 games played by Kasparov since his match with
Kramnik. I also had expert help from an archivist and researcher in
the Netherlands who works freelance for the commercial chess data
companies. This confirmed my experience that the Web is an excellent
tool for collaborative work. 'Share what you know; learn what you
don't know'.

What is the current state of the collection? After loading my data
into a database, I performed some simple analyses. I discovered that
the collection covers 272 events, of which 263 have at least one game
score. The 9 events missing all games are:-
1975 Chp. Azerbaijan
1987 Simul, Zurich
1988 2 x simul, New York
1990 Simul vs. Grandes-Ecoles, Paris
1991 Simul vs. Grandes-Ecoles, Paris
1992 Super Blitz, Moscow
1997 Simul, Tel Aviv
1997 Simul, Geneva
2000 Simul, Langjokull glacier, Iceland
It's not too surprising that simultaneous exhibitions are among those
missing all games. If the game scores are not collected during or
immediately after a simul, they are easily lost. It's surprising that
a simul from as recent as last year is on the list.

A convention that I use on my reference page is to highlight certain
events in blue, which means that I have incomplete information about
the event. At the time of my analysis, I had 61 'blue' events. Of
these, 55 were events which I've been unable to confirm against a
reliable reference. Of the 6 (=61-55) blue events with a reference,
most were mentioned in an article without other significant
information. For example, the two 1997 simuls listed above were
mentioned in a short article saying only that the Geneva event had 30
participants.

The problem of missing reference comes from having worked backwards --
  I started with a collection of PGN game scores and matched these
against other sources. Some of the game scores may be bogus (I've
seen this several times), but I'm reluctant to remove them without a
good reason. The events having the most games on file but without a
reference are:-
Games Yr   Event
30/?  1992 Simul, Cordoba
28/?  1991 Simul, Galicia
21/?  1994 Event(s)?, Site(s)? [seems to be a simul]
20/20 1991 Simul, Asiago, Italy
14/?  1978 Team event, Baku
12/?  1976 Event?, Moscow
12/?  1977 Event?
11/?  1993 Event?, Katowice
11/?  1993 Event(s)?, London
The meaning of '30/?' is that I have 30 games on file, but I'm not
sure how many games were played in the event. If you have any
information about these events, I'd certainly like to hear from you.
I'd especially like to know more about the three Soviet events from
the 1970s.

For all but 2 of the 55 events missing a reference, I'm not sure how
many games were played in the event. Unfortunately, even some
references don't always give the number of games. I have 68 events
where the total number of games is unknown; these events total 427
games on file.

Of the 204 (=272-68) events where the total number of games is known,
I have 1837 games on file out of 2527 games played in the events.
This means that there are almost 700 games known to be missing! If
you're good at mental calculation, you may have noticed that the
number of games on file (2266) doesn't equal the combined counts I've
just given (2264=427+1837). This is because I have 2 games in the
most recent event on file ('EUR-ASIA Rapid Match, Batumi GEO') which
are in the PGN file for the event, but have only headers; the moves
are missing completely.

I've already said that simuls represent a special category of event.
How do these skew the overall numbers? The 272 events include 65
simuls, which account for 471 of the games on file. The 65 events
include clock simuls, a Kasparov specialty, where he played
simultaneously against all members of a strong team, his thinking
time limited by a chess clock on each board.

I have 50 simuls where the total number of games is known. These
account for 343 games on file out of 965 known to have been played.
This in turn accounts for 622 of the 690 games missing from the games
file. The other 15 simuls where the total number of games is unknown
account for 128 games on file. It's entirely possible that I've only
scratched the surface on simuls. In the days before TWIC, simuls were
often not reported outside of the country where they took place.

Of the 272 events, I've marked 72 as exhibitions. These include the
65 simuls plus 7 other events. What should be classified as an
exhibition? Obvious examples are a game played on the TV
program 'Late Night vs. Letterman' (1990), the CNN exhibition vs.
tennis champ Boris Becker (2000), and the charity odds match played
earlier this year in London. In the 200 non-exhibition events, I've
included the 2 game match vs. Deep Thought (1989), the 24 game blitz
match vs. Kramnik (1998), and MSN's Kasparov vs. The World (1999),
plus many more borderline cases.

While I was looking at the 'blue' events, I realized that I hadn't
been consistent. I now consider four problems to merit blue
treatment:-

1) Events missing all games; these are the 9 that I've listed above.

2) Events missing a date; I'm satisfied to know the month when an
event started. This makes it easier to track down references in
periodicals. I have 60 events missing the month played.

3) Events missing a reference; as I mentioned above, there are 55 of
these

4) Events missing the total number of games played; there are 68.

This totals 192 problems. These cover 78 different events, which is
more than the 61 that I'd already colored blue. I'll update my
reference page ASAP.

---

While we're on the subject, let's take a look at Kasparov's games
from simuls. There are many more examples of Kasparov playing White
(405) than Black (66). It's worth noting that the games with Kasparov
as Black are mainly from the clock simuls, where he often faced
stronger competition than in the other simuls.

If you're planning to play in a simul against Kasparov, here's a tip
on how to prepare. Forget about it. The first bit of bad news is that
you're probably going to lose. With the White pieces, he has scored
+330-14=60, with one game unfinished. You'll have better chances with
the Black pieces, but he's still scored an overwhelming +40-6=20.

The second bit of bad news is that his opening repertoire in simuls
is as versatile as it is playing him one to one. What does Kasparov
play as White in simuls? The sample that I have breaks down as:-
196 1.d4
140 1.e4
  49 1.c4
  16 1.Nf3
In a special simul played last year, he went easier on Sting's band,
opening two games with 1.b3 and two others with 1.g3.

The 196 1.d4 games were met 106 times with 1...Nf6 and 62 times with
2...d5. Kasparov's responses to 1...Nf6 were:-
72 2.c4
19 2.Nf3
15 2.Bg5
The Trompowsky (2.Bg5) has been seen more frequently in recent years.
Against 2.c4, his opponents have played 31 times 2...e6, 23 times
2...g6, and 12 times 2...c5. He's met 2...e6 with:-
16 3.Nc3
16 3.Nf3
  1 3.g3
This totals more than 31 games because of transpositions from other
lines.

His 140 1.e4 games were met 46 times with 1...e5 and 45 times with
1...c5. Other possible responses were played much less frequently.
Against 1...e5 2.Nf3 Nc6, he's played the Giuoco Piano (3.Bc4) 23
times, the Ruy Lopez (3.Bb5) 17 times, and the Scotch (3.d4) twice.

What does Kasparov play as Black in simuls? Our sample is much
smaller than with the White pieces, but large enough to make some
observations. Of the two major openings, he's faced 31 times 1.e4 and
28 times 1.d4.

Against 1.e4, he's been less versatile, playing the Sicilian (1...c5)
29 times. After 2.Nf3, which he's seen 21 times, he's played:-
10 2...e6
  9 2...d6
  1 2...Nc6
  1 2...a6
Against 1.d4, the versatility returns. He's replied with:-
  19 1...Nf6
   6 1...d5
   2 1...g6
   1 1...d6

I have more facts to share about other aspects of Kasparov's career,
but I'll leave that for another time.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

[P.S. - I had planned to cover...

The Game is Afoot by Terry Crandall
http://www.pstat.ucsb.edu/%7ecarlson/chess/

...for the next site review, but the site has disappeared ('File Not
found : The requested URL /~carlson/chess/ was not found on this
server.'). I sent a message to the email address which was formerly
listed as contact for the site, but have received no response. If you
happen to know anything about the site, please let me know.]

---

[The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in this newsletter may be found
at...

The Chess History discussion group
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chesshistory

...where you are invited to join and contribute. The list archive is
at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
- by email, send a message to Chess_History-
subscribe@yahoogroups.com, -or-
- by the web, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

Site review - Schachgeschichte

It seems like a long time since I last reviewed a real web site. For
those of you who have recently joined this email list, the sites that
I review can be found on the page...

Chess History on the Web
http://members.tripod.com/~Mark_Weeks/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

...I'm on my second pass through the list, reviewing sites which were
added while I was making the first pass. For this review, I'll be
looking at...

Schachgeschichte by Fred Kahl
http://www.schachgeschichte.de/

...There remains only the 'Game is Afoot', the 'Open Directory World
Champions', and the 'World Chess Network'.

---

Schachgeschichte is a German language site, so I had to use the
BabelFish service to understand better the content of the page. If
you need to do the same, the address is...

AltaVista BabelFish on Schachgeschichte
http://jump.altavista.com/trans.go?
urltext=http://www.schachgeschichte.de/chess/index1.htm

...I use BabelFish because any links on a translated page are
automatically converted to call the translation service, which makes
it easy to traverse a translated version of the site. There is,
unfortunately, an artificial limit imposed on the length of a
translated page. When that limit is reached, BabelFish abruptly
inserts a '*** TRANSLATION ENDS HERE ***' message and continues in
the original language.

BabelFish tells us that 'Schachgeschichte' means 'chess history'. The
site uses two frames -- a small frame on the left with ten navigation
buttons controls the content displayed in a larger frame on the
right. The start page displays a random photo of one of the
grandmasters covered by the site. The page behind the copyright
notice says that the home page has been on the Internet since 9
September 1999, while the start page says that the last update was on
22 June 2001.

Where do the ten navigation buttons lead? The first button, [Hall of
Fame], covers 16 world champions. Numbers 1 to 13 follow the
generally accepted numbering for Steinitz through Kasparov; Khalifman
is listed as the 14th, Anand the 15th, and Kramnik is listed
as 'Inoffizieller Weltmeister'. Each champion has a single page with
a detailed biography, photos, and, occasionally, a few career
statistics.  Players and events covered elsewhere on the site are
linked whenever they are mentioned.

[Grossmeister] uses the same format as the [Hall of Fame]. There are
links to the 15 unsuccessful world champion challengers, including
players in the 1948 tournament. Also covered are 8 'Bedeutende
Meister' (important masters) -- Philidor, Morphy, Anderssen,
Rubinstein, Pillsbury, Nimzowitsch, Spielmann, & Reti.

[WM-Matche] lists the world championship matches and links to a
separate page on each match. The first match is 1866 Steinitz -
Anderssen ('inoffizieller'); the second is 1886 Steinitz - Zukertort;
the Steinitz matches between 1866 and 1886 are not mentioned. Purists
will note that 1909 Lasker - Janowski is incorrectly listed as a
title match. Both the 2000 Anand - Shirov FIDE knockout final and the
2000 Kramnik - Kasparov Braingames event are covered. The individual
page for each match has opening statistics and the lengths of the
games.

[WM-Turniere] ('world championship tournaments') covers the 15 FIDE
qualifying cycles from 1948-1951 through 1991-1993. The most recent
1994-1996 FIDE and 1994-1995 PCA cycles are not listed. Each cycle
has a separate page with full crosstables for the interzonal and
candidate events which made up the cycle. For some reason, the page
on the 1991-1993 cycle is missing completely.

The page [Turniere] is marked 'under construction' and, indeed, has
only a single link to London 1851. That page has a narrative about
the tournament, round by round results, and a further link, 'Partien
des Turniers', where all games can be followed online.

[Statistiken] has tables showing overall won, loss, & drawn records
for each of the 13 world champions; rank by winning percentage for
the champions (Lasker 1st ... Euwe 13th); rank by winning percentage
for the challengers (Keres & Reshevsky 1st ... Janowski 15th); count
of openings used for each match from 1886 (9 Queen Gambits Declined
lead the list) through 1998 (4 Queen Gambits); the top ten openings
across all matches (1st : 240 Queen Gambits, 2nd : 122 Ruy Lopezes,
3rd : 76 Sicilians); and a summary of the same statistics that are
displayed for each individual match. Here we learn that 40.070 moves
have been played in world championship matches (incl. 1948), for an
average of 47 moves per game. That's fighting chess! Rounding out the
stats are a list of games with more than 100 moves, with less than 15
moves, and which ended in checkmate.

The [Download] page has game files for the events and players covered
by the site. The downloadable files are all in uncompressed PGN
format. 'Tools und Programme' lists one file, Compochess, a 'chess
database to administer and play through PGN games', which I didn't
download.

The remaining navigation buttons -- [Links], [Email], and
[Gaestebuch] ('guestbook') -- are the usual functions that we see in
most web sites.

---

The Schachgeschichte site makes an excellent impression. Its only
drawback is for people who don't speak German. The original material
not available on other sites is biographical or descriptive and is
often too long to be translated completely by BabelFish.

Until a few years ago, there was an English language site,
www.chesschampions.com, which had biographies on the world champions.
Curious about the fate of this site, I discovered that it is now
unused but registered to RareNames of Washington, DC, a domain name
broker. Although the chesschampions.com site has been gone since
1999, an AltaVista search on link:www.chesschampions.com reported
that 288 Web pages still link to the site. RareNames is offering the
domain name for $888.00.

I decided to look for other information on the world champions,
hoping to find a new site like chesschampions.com. I ran a Google
search on...

Search the web for steinitz lasker karpov kasparov.
http://www.google.com/search?
q=steinitz+lasker+karpov+kasparov+&btnG=Google+Search

...reckoning that those four names would return pages covering all of
the first 13 champs. Google reported finding 1620 pages. Looking at
the first 64 results, I discovered that five sites were listed twice
and five had disappeared ('The requested URL was not found on this
server' or 'Could not connect to the server'). Many of the remaining
54 pages were lists of world champions. Nearly half were in languages
other than English -- 6 French, 6 Italian, 3 Dutch, 3 German
(including Kahl's site), 3 Spanish, 2 Portuguese, & 2 Swedish.

Last year, in Chess History on the Web (2000 no.21) dated 2000/11/01,
I briefly reported on the progress of the Kasparov - Kramnik match,
when it looked certain that Kramnik was going to win.  I asked 'What
title will [Kramnik] hold and will he be numbered as the 14th world
champion? These issues will be largely decided by the court of public
opinion. Yes, your opinion counts.'

The Google search gave me some simple data which could be used as a
preliminary poll of the court of public opinion. I counted 23 sites
which listed world champions. For each of these sites, I determined
whether the site considered Anand or Kramnik to be the current world
chess champion, or whether both were considered to be equal world
champions. My own site, for example, at...

World Chess Championship
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/wcc-indx.htm

...which popped out in 1st/2nd position on the Google search, treats
both Anand and Kramnik as legitimate world champions. What about the
other 22 sites? I discovered that 7 were for FIDE, 2 were for Kramnik
(or Kasparov), and 13 treated them equally. Unfortunately, even the
two pages that I counted for Kramnik were both a bit of a stretch.
One was...

'Chess History Rape' by Lev Khariton
http://www.clubkasparov.ru/news/lasvegas/itog2_e.htm

...written after the 1999 Las Vegas event. It used the often repeated
argument that Khalifman, who is not named in the article, did not
have the same stature as preceding titleholders, and was not a real
world champion. The page had no list of champions, came from the
clubkasparov.ru site, and used reasoning which became obsolete when
Anand won the FIDE title. I could have excluded it as biased, but
then I would have had to identify sites on the other side loyal to
FIDE out of affiliation. I counted it as +1 for Kramnik.

The other Kramnik page, which I won't identify, lists only Kasparov
matches after 1990, includes '1993 Kasparov - Timman' (in addition to
1993 Kasparov - Short), and overlooks the 1995 Kasparov - Anand
match. I could have excluded the page as an incompetent reference,
but then I would have to examine all of the other pages more
carefully. I also counted it as +1 for Kramnik.

How should we evaluate my result of +7-2=14? It's too small a sample
to be conclusive, but if I were squarely in the Kasparov - Kramnik -
Braingames camp, I'd be nervous. Several of the pages on the +7 side
didn't even mention the three Kasparov matches. Others
listed 'Official Matches' followed by 'PCA' matches, or listed
Kasparov matches as 'Ciclo no oficial'.

It appears that some students of chess history are rejecting the idea
that Kramnik represents an unbroken chain of champions going back to
Steinitz, each of whom won the title by defeating his predecessor.
Instead, it looks more and more as though FIDE's actions of 1993 were
the third time -- counting 1948 and 1975 as the first and second --
where the only governing body accepted by national chess federations
was forced to take exceptional action to guarantee the continuity of
the world title.

Time will tell. The court of public opinion is still deliberating.

---

Let's go back to the Google search and see what other sites are worth
mentioning. Ten that were particularly interesting were...

'You can edit this page right now! It's a free, community project'
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Chess/WorldChampions

La galerie des dessins et caricatures de Eric Petit
http://www.notzai.com/notzai/galerie/index.shtml

Royal Game by NM Dan Heisman
http://www.homestead.com/seventhrank/chesshistory.html

A World-class Collection by Taylor Kingston
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/cwc.txt

The 64 Greatest Chess Games Ever Played
http://chess.about.com/library/blclassic.htm

THEMATIQUE PHILATELIQUE SUR LE JEU D' ECHECS 1995 - 1999
http://www.faulquemont.com/phil71.html

KONINGSMOORD
http://www.xs4all.nl/~timkr/admag/wkv.htm

Die 10 besten Partien aller Zeiten
http://www.chessbase.de/Umfrage/best10/best10ranking.htm

A History of Chess by Burt Hochberg
http://www.luxurychess.com/chesshistory1.html

Viswanathan Anand - The Grandmaster on his ten greatest chess players
http://www.rediff.com/millenni/anand.htm

...but after looking at Google's first 64 suggestions, I still
haven't found a site with biographical material on all of world
champions comparable to Kahl's Schachgeschichte. Perhaps there is a
good site further down on the Google list or perhaps a subscriber to
this email list knows of a site that I've overlooked.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in this newsletter may be found
at...

The Chess History discussion group
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chesshistory

...where you are invited to join and contribute. The list archive is
at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
- by email, send a message to Chess_History-
subscribe@yahoogroups.com, -or-
- by the web, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

11 September 2001

In memory of those who lost their lives. May their souls find peace.
May their families and friends find comfort. May we who watched find
understanding.

---

At times the small world of chess history becomes unimportant. This
is one of those times. I'll be back at the beginning of next month
with another issue.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

Review - Chess Informant's 'Chess Is Chess' II

In my last review I looked at the structure and content of the Chess
Informant (CI) 'Chess Is Chess' CD. The CD is packed with info about
chess history, including World Championship events, Olympiads, CI's
best games, and the 200 'greatest tournaments in history'. At the end
of that review, which you can find at...

Chess History on the Web (2001 no.16)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/message/6

...I said that the software on the CD is a closed architecture,
meaning that it's impossible to extract the contents to use
elsewhere. This is not completely true. In fact, all of the games are
stored in PGN files on the CD. They can be copied from the CD to
other storage media, like your hard disk, and loaded into any chess
program which understands the PGN format.

The CD has five directories:-
- Catalogue
- Chess is Chess
- CIRinstall
- Crafty17.9-smp
- EEinstall

The PGN files are located in the 'Chess is Chess' (CIC) directory.
There are 76 PGN files and 8 TXT files with names corresponding to
some of the PGN files. Of the PGN files, 65 have names like 10B.PGN
and 10W.PGN (format 'nnB.PGN' or 'nnW.PGN'). Of the 11 other files, 8
have names that hint at their content:-

770WC    : Chess Informant Best Games, vol. 1-78 [annotated]
EVENTS   : 200 greatest tournaments in history
IZT      : Interzonals
MCT      : Candidate tournaments and matches
OLYMPALL : Olympiads
PCA      : PCA & Braingames
WCH      : World championship events
ALL      : A single file with all of the above

These same 8 have corresponding text (TXT) files that repeat the PGN
header data. The last three PGN files -- DRUGI, PRVI, & TRECI -- are
used by the CI Chess School software for instructional purposes. The
nnB & nnW PGN files contain Kasparov's opening repertoire.

---

The following table shows the number of games in each file, plus the
number of different players covered by the file.

PGN      Games Plyrs
ALL      35877

770WC      780   345
EVENTS   18406   535
IZT       4930   294
MCT       1615    68
OLYMPALL  7913  1782
PCA        414  >see
WCH       1819  >below

DRUGI      174
PRVI        93
TRECI       89
nnW/B      594

Chess Informant's view of the World Championship is not the same as
mine. I prefer to consider Kasparov's PCA and Braingames events as
legitimate matches for the championship title, although outside the
jurisdiction of FIDE. Here's how I break down the PCA and WCH files.

Match       53     4 which I'll call 'WCC'
Qualifiers 361    55 which I'll call 'PCQ'
---------- ---
PCA        414

Match      838    27 also 'WCC'
KO         981   195 e.g. 1999 Las Vegas, which I'll call 'KO'
--------- ----
WCH       1819

In case you're asking, 'Who cares?', I've worked out some statistics
for these events, and I want to be crystal clear about how I'm
classifying the world championships. Here's how I count the number of
games and players.

WCC        891    30 in World championship events
KO         981   195 in FIDE World championship knockout events
PCQ        361    55 in PCA Qualifiers

I've always wanted to put together some statistics across all of the
games on my world championship site, but have never found the time to
do this. The CIC CD makes this job a snap. There is far too much data
to present in this email message, and tables like I've prepared above
are often mangled by email software, so I've set up a new feature
at...

World championship statistics
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/wcc-stat.htm

...This is a page covering statistics for Interzonals, PCA
Qualifiers, Candidate events, World championship events, and FIDE
Knockout events. The statistics include the number of players who
participated in the different events, how many games they played, and
how successful they were. Lasker leads the list of world champions.
In championship matches he scored +32-6=18 with White and +20-10=26
with Black, giving him a score of 74/112 or 66.07%.

The statistics on Candidate events cover 6 tournaments, 3 playoff
matches, and 11 series of elimination matches. The tournaments saw
727 games & 38 players, while the matches saw 888 games & 53 players.
Korchnoi was the most active participant, with 251 games in Candidate
events.

The statistics on Interzonals cover 4836 games in tournaments plus 94
games in playoff matches. Portisch was the most active participant,
with 215 games in 12 tournaments plus 30 games in 5 playoff matches.

---

The CIC CD publicity says 'All the games from the 200 greatest
tournaments in history'. I verified that the EVENTS file covers
exactly 200 tournaments, from 1851 London to 2000 Shenyang.
Identifying the greatest tournaments is a useful exercise in chess
history, but are these really the greatest? How can we quantify
the 'greatest'?

I decided to compare the CI list with a few other lists that I've
encountered. The first is a book...

Ken Whyld : Chess the Records (Guiness Superlatives, 1986)
117 events, 1882 Vienna to 1986 London

...and the others are Web pages...

Eric Delaire : Tournois de catégorie supérieure à 16.
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/eric.delaire/top_tournois.htm
101 events, 1986 Bugojno to 2001 Dortmund

Manfred Rosenboom : Tournaments
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/2640/chclasic.htm
110 events, 1851 London to 1946 Groningen

Jeff Sonas : Supertournaments throughout the ages
http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=7374&p_docLang=EN
131 events, 1870 Baden-Baden to 2000 Sarajevo (incl. four World
Championship events)

...At the last minute I found another list which I haven't had time
to analyze...

A.J. Goldsby : Best tournaments
http://www.geocities.com/lifemasteraj/best_tourneys.html

...Combining these with CI's 200 greatest tournaments gives 368
different events, of which 86 are referenced by 3 or more sources. Of
the 168 events not listed by CI, 21 are listed by at least two other
sources; the other 147 not listed by CI are on one of the other
sources. Finally, 29 events are listed by CI and by no other
sources.

A lot of knowledge, judgement, and work is required to compile these
lists, but the CI list seems at least as well thought as any of the
others. I have a lot more to say on this topic, but since I'm
straying from the CIC CD, I'll come back to this subject in a future
article.

After working for hours with CI's list of great tournaments, I
haven't been able to identify any pattern to indicate why certain
tournaments were selected. The events included most frequently are:-

Ct Event
16 USSR (ch)
16 Tilburg
15 Linares

I compared these to the overviews on Eric Delaire's excellent 'Echecs
Quimper' site...

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/eric.delaire/URSS.htm
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/eric.delaire/Tilburg.htm
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/eric.delaire/Linares.htm

...and had mixed success. I could see no reason why exactly those 16
Soviet championships were chosen from the 58 held before 1992. Some
are obvious choices -- like the 55th, which saw Kasparov and Karpov
for the last time -- but why were none included between the 28th
(1961) and 41st (1973)? I suspect that it may have something to do
with availability. As far as I know, most of the Soviet championships
are not yet available in standalone digital files.

I had more success with the other two sites. Tilburg is complete
except for the 8th (1984, cat.14); the 16th-18th (1992-94), which
were knockout events; and the 1st Fontys (1996), which could have
been included. Linares is complete except for the 1st (1978, cat.5),
the 2nd (1979, cat.9), and the 18th (2001).

---

In general, the PGN header data has been very well prepared. In
particular, the names of the players are remarkably consistent across
the different files.

The data problems I noticed are perhaps not worth mentioning, so you
can skip the rest of this section. I found one discrepancy with a
date; the WCH.PGN file has a game from the last FIDE KO in New Delhi
with a date '2000.??.27'. Except for the two 'USSR - World' events,
the EVENTS.PGN file uses the 'Event' tag for both event and site data.

Many events are missing round numbers, which is sometimes an
indication that the games have not been checked against another
source. I found 9281 games in 133 events with round numbers, and 9125
games in 115 events without. Some events have games both with and
without, e.g. 1957 USSR (ch) and 1900 Paris. Shenyang, the most
recent tournament in the collection, is a curious mixture. Some games
have round numbers, some have none, and some have round info embedded
in the 'Site' field.

I also noticed the following small inconsistency in site names...

1907 Karlsbad; 1st:Rubinstein; 210 games
1911 Karlsbad; 1st:Teichmann; 325 games
1923 Karlovy Vary; 1st:Bogoljubov; 153 games
1929 Karlovy Vary; 1st:Nimzowitsch; 231 games

...I'd long thought that Karlsbad & Karlovy Vary are the German and
Czech names for the same town. Now I wasn't so sure; perhaps the name
change was due to shifting political boundaries following WWI.
Checking my atlas, I discovered that the town is in the Czech
republic 100 km west of Prague, and 20 km from the German border.

Four players participated in all four events -- Nimzowitsch,
Rubinstein, Spielmann, & Tartakower. 'Rubinstein's Chess
Masterpieces' by Hans Kmoch (Dover, 1960) uses 'Karlsbad' for all
four tournaments, while 'Aron Nimzowitsch - Master of Planning' by
Raymond Keene (Batsford, 1991) uses 'Carlsbad', which I suppose is
the standard English spelling.

There is one other point to watch. The PGN files can't be used to
build valid crosstables. There is no mention of unplayed games which
contributed to the final score.

---

As with the world championship events, I decided to calculate some
high level statistics -- most active players, most successful
players, etc. -- covering the 200 events. You can find these at...

Chess Informant's 'Chess Is Chess' Statistics
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw01i01/chw-1i01.htm

...along with some statistics for CI's Best Games an the Olympiads.

Finally, using the events data, I made a stab at the old parlor
game, 'Who was the strongest of the world champions? the weakest? Who
was the strongest player who never became world champion?' The
results are linked from the same statistics page.

Who was the strongest world champion? I was surprised to see Lasker
top every list I produced. As for the other questions, you'll have to
look at my results!

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in this newsletter may be found
at...

The Chess History discussion group
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chesshistory

...where you are invited to join and contribute. The list archive is
at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
- by email, send a message to Chess_History-
subscribe@yahoogroups.com, -or-
- by the web, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

Review - Chess Informant's 'Chess Is Chess'

Like most people, I get a generous amount of unsolicited email, more
commonly known as spam, usually from people trying to sell something.
Most of it gets a two second look before going straight to the
digital wastebasket. One piece of marketing email I was glad to get
arrived in early June, from 'Chess Informant' and announced 'Subject:
The latest CD'...

'Dear Chess Informant Friend,

'With this letter we would like to inform you about the latest e-
publication of "Chess Informant". It regards CD "Chess is Chess" -
Chess Informant Chess Guide, whose author is the renowned Grandmaster
Aleksandar Matanovic.

'The most attractive segments of the chess game are covered in a
single CD. Rich in content, "Chess is Chess" is designed for all
chess fans, from beginners to professionals.'

...The content seemed interesting, so I followed the given link
(www.sahovski.com) to find a page describing the product...

Chess is Chess - Chess Informant Chess Guide
http://www.sahovski.com/PRODUCTS/CD/chessischess.htm

...I assume that you know something about Chess Informant and their
related products -- like the Encyclopedia of Openings (ECO) -- so I
won't say any more. I've mentioned Chess Informant publications in
past articles, because they represent a valuable record of chess
history starting in the mid-1960s.

I ordered the CD online and, a few weeks later, received a package
from Chess Informant, 11001 Beograd, Yugoslavia, containing one CD in
a standard jewel case. The CD had no instructions that I could find,
so using Windows Explore, I found INSTALL.EXE in the root directory
of the CD and ran it. The program presented me with a Setup screen
with the following menu options:-
- Install CHESS is CHESS
- Run CHESS is CHESS
- Chess Informant Catalogue
- Play chess online
- Install Chess Informant Reader Software,
- Install Chess Informant 1-79, without annotations

I clicked the first choice, 'Install CHESS is CHESS', which gave me
no options and no info other then a small popup window which told me
that it had 'Succesfully installed!' (sic), and then returned to the
same menu. I clicked the second choice, 'Run CHESS is CHESS', which
closed the first program and opened a new program with an
introductory screen full of choices. After looking over the material,
I knew that my money had been well spent and decided that the CD
provided good material for a 'Chess History on the Web' article,
because it covers a great deal of chess history.

To understand the structure of the CD, to make this article easier to
follow, and to justify the 'on the Web' title, I created a half dozen
new Web pages. These show the upper level 'Chess Is Chess' screens
and document the hierarchy of the major functions. These pages can be
found at...

'Chess Is Chess'
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw01h15/chw-1h15.htm

...In case you're wondering, I have no connection with the Chess
Informant company and I have no financial interest in selling their
product.

I'll come back to the other Setup options later in this article.
Let's look first at the main program 'CHESS is CHESS'. It can be
loaded directly by clicking on the ChessIsChess.exe program located
in the CD's 'Chess is Chess' directory.

The program offers four major functions, a few minor functions, and
access to one or two other stand alone programs. The major functions
are called:-
- Chess School
- Chess Games
- Chess History, and
- Chess Gallery.

I'll look at each of these in turn.

---

'Chess School' has three courses:-
- How to play Chess (for those who don't know how to play)
- Initial Course (for beginners)
- Advanced Course (for experienced players)

>'Chess School : How to play chess' has eight oblong buttons -- a
preface, one button for each of the six pieces (Pawn, Knight, etc.),
and a conclusion. These give basic information on the rules of the
game.

The button for 'Preface' explains the setup of the board; the buttons
for the pieces explain the moves of each piece; and 'Conclusion'
explains when a game is won or drawn. The explanations are
interspersed with examples and tests, which interact with (1) a small
board displayed next to the text and (2) a small window beneath the
text.

Looking at the first piece, 'Pawn' has nine examples and five tests.
Clicking on 'Example 1' places the sixteen Pawns, without the other
pieces, in the start position. The first seven half moves of a Caro
Kann 3.e5 variation (which are Pawn moves only) are displayed and can
be navigated in several ways. Clicking on 'Test 1' displays a
question (the legal moves of a single Pawn) related to a position
shown on the board; clicking a 'Solution' button displays the correct
answer.

Four semicircular buttons -- Quotes, History, Principles, and
Interesting -- appear with the three courses and give background
comments appropriate to the level of the course. These comments are
also repeated at various points in the different texts.

>'Chess School : Initial Course' is structured in the same way
as 'How to play chess'. There is an oblong button for a preface and
one button for each of the six pieces. The preface starts with 'What
is Chess Theory?' and explains basic concepts like 'Principle: The
value of a piece depends on its effectiveness'.

The 'Pawn' section has subsections titled 'Pawns in the
opening', 'Pawns in the middlegame', and 'Pawns in the ending'. These
explain Pawn concepts relevant to those distinct phases of the game.
In addition to the examples and tests, the text is interspersed with
illustrative games. The games can be followed on the same board that
is used to explain the moves of the pieces. The tests, which
illustrate the special powers of the various pieces, are not trivial.

The first example game, 'Control of the centre', is the famous game
Bronstein - Ljubojevic, from the 1973 Petropolis Interzonal, where
Bronstein sacrificed a Rook to maintain the strong Pawn center
resulting from an Alekhine's Defence, Four Pawns Attack. Although
some games are annotated, this particular game is not.

>'Chess School : Advanced Course' has six sections -- (1) The key
principles, (2) Elements of a positional game, (3) You have to know,
(4) Combinations, (5) Some special endings, and (6) Openings.

The key principles start with the paragraph, 'Chess game is not
inexhaustible. Neither are chess ideas. Since the sixteenth century,
when the chess rules have been definitely formed, chess players tried
to find the principles ruling over the board. During the nineteenth
century in certain periods of time when the most prominent persons
such as Philidor, Morphy, Steinitz and Lasker dominated, the main
principles have been discovered and fixed. Everything after that was
deepening and polishing'. As with the two other courses, the concepts
are illustrated with specific games from grandmaster practice.

Seven elements are listed under 'Elements of a positional game',
where 'activating your own pieces as effectively as possible' is the
first. What exactly do 'You have to know'?; well, double check,
perpetual check, and things like that. The combinations are grouped
into 15 categories, from Double attack through Persuit (sic).
The 'special endings' include four particularly difficult theoretical
endgames -- B+N vs. bare K, Q vs. R, R+B vs. R, and 2N vs. P.
The 'Openings' section navigates through Kasparov's complete opening
repertoire.

---

'Chess Games' has four sections:-
- Chess Informant best games
- Games
- FIDE laws of chess
- Play chess with Crafty

>'Chess Games : Chess Informant best games' has the ten best games
from each Chess Informant, no. 1 through 78. For each issue of
Informant, a table shows the games judged the 'best', the names of
the judges, and the points per judge per game. Clicking a
small 'Games' button opens a list of the ten games, which are
annotated.

>'Chess Games : Games' shows all 780 best games together, displayed
in the same way as the previous section. Here you can search for
games by your favorite player; there are 106 games by Kasparov.

>'Chess games : FIDE laws of chess' says, 'The FIDE Laws of Chess
cover over-the-board play. The English text is the authentic version
of the Laws of Chess, which was adopted at the 71st FIDE Congress at
Istanbul (Turkey) November 2000, coming into force on 1 July 2001.'
There are five sections -- Preface, Rules of play, Competition rules,
FIDE, and an Appendix.

'Rules of play' cover:-
- The nature and objectives of the game of chess
- The initial position of the pieces on the chessboard
- The moves of the pieces
- The act of moving the pieces
- The completed game

'Competition rules' cover:-
- The chess clock
- Irregularities
- The recording of the moves
- The drawn game
- Quickplay finish
- Scoring
- The conduct of the players
- The role of the arbiter

The FIDE section says only, 'Member federations may ask FIDE to give
an official decision about problems relating to the Laws of Chess',
and nothing more. It looks like an afterthought.

The Appendix covers:-
- Adjourned games
- Rapidplay
- Blitz
- Quickplay finishes where no arbiter is present in the venue
- Algebraic notation

The rules section would be far more useful if it offered the
possibility to reference the rules offline. I saw no way to print
these rules and the copy & paste functions are not active.

>'Chess games : Play chess with Crafty' opens a well known chess
playing program in a new window. It has five levels -- Handicap,
Basic, Normal, Hard, and Time control -- plus functions to start a
new game and to invert the board, so that Crafty play can White. I
played one game at Handicap level, which I won easily, and one game
at Normal level, which was more interesting.

---

'Chess history' is the most comprehensive piece of the CD and is the
main reason that I chose to review the CD. It has six sections:-
- Time line
- World championships
- Great tournaments
- Olympiads
- Players
- FIDE rating lists

>'Chess history : Time line' has thirty pictures arranged in
chronological order. These start with 'Chess was born in India' and
end with 'Chess has conquered the world'. A 'Show' button, which can
also be activated by clicking on a picture, opens a small window with
more explanation about the event.

>'Chess history : World championships' has sections on World title
matches, Candidate competitions, Interzonals and 'PCA, Brain games';
yes, 'Braingames' is written as two words!

The 'World title matches' start with 1886 Steinitz - Zukertort,
continue through 1993 Karpov - Timman, and end with 2000 New
Delhi/Tehran. In each competition, the winner is listed first. An
image, crosstable, and games accompany each event.

Chess Informant is clearly in the FIDE camp. The section is
titled 'World title matches', not 'FIDE world title matches', and
states unequivocally that the 1993 title match was Karpov - Timman,
rather than Kasparov - Short. Many (most?) chess historians disagree
with this view of the 1993 schism.

The Candidate events start with 1950 Budapest and end with the
1994/95 FIDE Candidates matches. The Interzonals cover 1948
Saltsjobaden through 1993 Biel. PCA/Braingames cover 1993 Kasparov -
Short, 1995 Kasparov - Anand, and 2000 Kasparov - Kramnik (unlike all
of the other matches, Kramnik is listed second, although he won), as
well as the PCA qualifying events held 1993-95. The infamous 1998
Shirov - Kramnik match to determine a challenger for Kasparov is not
mentioned. For all of these events, an image accompanies the event,
with buttons to display a crosstable and the games.

>'Chess history : Great tournaments' starts with 1851 London and ends
with the 2000 Shenyang FIDE event. 'Chess history : Olympiads' covers
1927 London through 2000 Istanbul. I'll have more to say about these
tournaments in my next 'Chess History on the Web' article, which will
take a closer look at the game data delivered with the 'Chess Is
Chess' CD.

>'Chess history : Players' has basic data on players from Manuel
Aaron (IM, India, b.1935) through Vladim Zvjaginsev (GM, Russia,
b.1976). It's not stated what criteria were used to select the
players, and I could not find a fast way to count the number of
players listed. Each entry has a photo, date & country of birth,
titles earned, and a list of tournaments. Buttons open a rating graph
and games for each player; there are 885 games listed for Kasparov.

Each player's games are presented using the same screen as in the
Chess Informant best games. This seems to be a standard window and
has a 'Select Group' function with eight choices -- All games, Chess
Informant best games, Interzonals, etc. -- covering the major
categories on the CD.

>'Chess history : FIDE rating lists' has official lists from January
1975 through July 2000. In the 1980s, I played in a few FIDE rated
tournaments and was surprised to find my name in the most recent
rating lists. The July 1990 list, covering the last tournament in
which I played, gives my name, federation, & rating. The July 2000
still lists me, now with an ID number and birthday. Unfortunately, my
official rating dropped 30 points even though I haven't played a
single rated game since July 1990. I can't complain too much; I
probably would have lost more points if I'd played.

---

'Chess Gallery' has four sections:-
- Cartoons
- Chess stamps
- Chess in Art
- Photographs

>'Chess Gallery : Cartoons' has 61 cartoons. The well known Yugoslav
chess cartoonist Jovan Prokopljevic drew 34 of them. The others are
from the World's Cartoon and Portrait Caricature Contest, which was
held with the 29th Chess Olympiad, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, in 1990. The
Prokopljevic selection includes 16 caricatures of the world
champions -- the 13 champions from Steinitz through Kasparov, plus
Khalifman, Kramnik, and Anand.

>'Chess Gallery : Chess stamps' lists 255 series from Bulgaria 1947
through Honduras 1997. 'Chess Gallery : Chess in Art' has 80 images,
most of them in black & white. The background is a portion of 'Chess
Game' by John Singer Sargent, although the full canvas is not among
the images displayed. 'Chess Gallery : Photographs' has 163 photos
from the 1886 Steinitz - Zukertort world championship match through
2000 Wijk aan Zee.

---

The CD setup program also has a copy of the Chess Informant catalogue
in Adobe PDF format, links to play chess online through the
www.sahovski.com site, and a function to install the Chess Informant
Reader. The Reader is version 1.8, which has been superseded on the
Chess Informant site by version 1.9.

In addition to the features I've described above, the 'Chess Is
Chess' program has a Product Tour, a game of the day, and tools to
find games & players. There is also an online bonus; this is, in the
words of CI, 'All the games from the first 79 volumes of "Chess
Informant" make an exceptional collection of 80308 games played from
January 1966 till September 2000. The best and theoretically most
important games from this period are in question'.

I followed the instructions for the bonus, which involved connecting
to the CI site, and received an activation key the same day via
email. The rest of the installation process passed without a single
glitch. I may have more to say about this games database in a future
article.

---

The Chess Informant 'Chess Is Chess' CD is one of the most valuable
collections of digital chess knowledge that I've ever seen assembled
in one place. I'm deeply impressed. I would very much like to know if
someone with no knowledge of chess could learn how to play using the
instructions provided in the 'Chess School : Initial Course'.

In the interest of being objective, I should mention a few nitpicks.
The CD access is somewhat slow, frequently taking up to a minute to
transition to the next screen; this may be a limitation of my laptop.
The navigation of the CD is often unintuitive and, although I didn't
document specific examples, inconsistent; clicking on a navigation
link doesn't always produce the same result from similar points.

Although the language level is generally high for someone who speaks
English as a foreign language, there are many spelling errors,
grammar errors, and inconsistent spelling of some players' names
(both Emanuel and Emmanuel for Dr. Lasker). With all the effort that
went into compiling the CD, I'm surprised that it wasn't proofread by
a native English speaker.

Perhaps most importantly, the CD, like other Chess Informant products
that I've used, is based on a closed architecture. There is no
possibility to copy & paste text into Notepad, and no possibility to
export games to an email program. Not being able to print the rules
is a glaring oversight. While this may have been done intentionally
to protect CI's intellectual property, it decreases the usefulness of
the entire package. There are better ways to protect IP.

Don't misunderstand me, because I don't want to dwell on the
negatives. The positives are so much more compelling. Spending time
with this CD is like spending time with a Grandmaster and getting a
glimpse into the secrets that chess has to offer.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in this newsletter may be found
at...

The Chess History discussion group
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chesshistory

...where you are invited to join and contribute. The list archive is
at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
- by email, send a message to Chess_History-
subscribe@yahoogroups.com, -or-
- by the web, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

Portrait of La Bourdonnais

'A change comes over the Régence, and the noise reaches its climax, as
if the elements of confusion in the caldron had received their final
stirabout. What portly form do we see making its way through the
crowd, at this, the eleventh hour? Fifty persons accost him at once,
all eager to wind up the evening with one more game; -- all shouting,
and laughing, and screaming, with the peculiar and prodigious
gesticulations of La belle France, rising many octaves above concert
pitch. The crash is terrific. Not to know the potentate who enters
with noise exceeding that of drum and trumpet, were indeed to prove
yourself unknown. The new-comer is De la Bourdonnais, since the
retirement of Deschapelles, the acknowledged first chess-player in the
world.'

This contemporary portrait of the man Emanuel Lasker called 'an
extraordinary genius' is the first paragraph of an excerpt from 'The
Café de la Régence'. The article, written by a 'Chess-player' (signed
'G.W.') and dated November 1840, appeared in Fraser's Magazine, Vol.
XXII, July to December, 1840. I've placed a copy of the excerpt on the
Web at...

La Bourdonnais
http://Mark_Weeks.tripod.com/chw01h01/chw-1h01.htm

...along with a well known drawing of La Bourdonnais and a few images
of the Café de la Régence. The entire Fraser's Magazine article
totaled 15 printed pages in small type, of which the La Bourdonnais
excerpt is 4 pages. I'll add the rest of the article as time permits.
I hope you enjoy it!

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in this newsletter may be found
at...

The Chess History discussion group
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chesshistory

...where you are invited to join and contribute. The list archive is
at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
- by email, send a message to Chess_History-subscribe@yahoogroups.com,
-or-
- by the web, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

Site review - Schach-Datenbank++

---

[This is the first issue of 'Chess History on the Web' using Yahoo
Groups as the distribution service. In the last issue (2001 no.13) I
outlined the move from Listbot to Yahoo, which, as far as I can tell,
has gone smoothly.

You are receiving this message because you subscribed either via
Listbot or via Yahoo. If you prefer not to receive any more messages
from me via Yahoo, please see the unsubscribe notice at the bottom of
this issue -or- let me know directly.

If you have any comments on the Yahoo service, just reply to this
message. All replies are forwarded automatically to me.]

---

As I mentioned at the end of my last real issue (2001 no.12), I'm
going to continue the review of...

Schach-Datenbank by Wilfried Günther
http://www.schach-datenbank.de/

...by looking at Web pages which cover the great 1851 London
tournament.

First, I have a small correction to make. In no.12 I remarked that
[Günther's] 'descriptions of the events in the top-level lists are not
always sufficient to identify the event'. The site has been
substantially improved since I made that comment. Where one month ago
I saw, for example, only '1851 London m1', the description now reads
'London m1 (Buckle - Loewenthal) 1851'. While I'd like to believe that
this change was made in reaction to my remarks, it's more likely a
lucky coincidence.

What does Schach-Datenbank say about the London tournament? The
standard header information shows...

Ort / Place          : London
Titel / Event        : London knockout
Datum / Date         : 27.05. - 15.07.1851
Nation               : ENG
Spieler / Players    : 16
Runden / Rounds      : 4
Kategorie / Category : -
Typ / Type           : k.o.
Partien / Games      : 85 / 85
Download             : pgn / cbh

...and is followed by the crosstables for the event, which was
organized as a series of knockout matches. The match to determine
first place was won by Adolf Anderssen over Marmaduke Wyvill (4.5 -
2.5). This victory earned Anderssen a place in the history books as
the unofficial world champion after Staunton. Wyvill is almost
forgotten today, perhaps because he competed in no more tournaments
after 1851.

'Datum / Date' says that the tournament ended on '15.07.1851'. It
would be very appropriate if I could send this issue on its scheduled
date of 15 July, exactly 150 years after the end of the London
tournament. As luck would have it, I'm away from Internet access on
that day, which also explains why you're receiving this message a few
days earlier than scheduled.

In case you're not familiar with the historical context of the
tournament, here's an excerpt from the last chapter of H.J.R. Murray's
monumental 'A History of Chess' (Oxford University Press, 1913 &
1962)...

'The year 1851 is memorable as the date of the first International
Tournament, which was held in London during the Great Exhibition of
that year. Staunton, to whose efforts the existence of the Tournament
was largely due, acted as Secretary to the influential Committee of
management. Sixteen competitors entered for the main Tournament, and
play was arranged on the 'knock out' principle, the losers in each
round retiring and the winners proceeding to the next round. In each
round the players played a small match, the best of 3 games in the
first, and of 7 games in the following rounds. Adolf Anderssen, a
Breslau schoolmaster (1818-1879), who attended as one of the
representatives of the Berlin club, won the first prize, and by so
doing became in popular estimation the first player of Europe. (1)

'The method of play adopted in the London tournament was open to grave
objections. The chance of the draw brought some of the strongest
players together in the first round, with the result that the final
order was not an order of strength of play, but depended largely on
the fortune of the pairing. In later tournaments, from that of London,
1862, onwards (2), every competitor plays against every other one, and
the final order is determined by the total number of victories thus
obtained.

'(1) The official account of the Tournament was written by Staunton,
'Chess Tournament', 1852, a book which is sadly disfigured by the
ungenerous way in which Anderssen's victory was received.

'(2) The newer method of play was first tried in a small tournament
which took place after the close of the Great Tournament of 1851,
under the auspices of the London Chess Club.'

...with the original notes renumbered. The similarity to FIDE's
current format for determining its world champion is striking. Of
course, the Elo rating system now overcomes the problem of the
strongest players meeting in the early rounds of a knockout
competition.

BookFinder.com lists two editions of the tournament book mentioned by
Murray...

BookFinder.com: author=staunton & title=tournament
http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?author=staunton&title=tournament&sub
mit=Begin+Search&new_used=*&currency=USD&mode=basic&st=sr&ac=qr

...The earlier edition of Staunton's 'The Chess Tournament. London
1851' was published by Bell & Daldy in 1873. A modern reprint was
published by Batsford in 1986. The 1852 edition mentioned in Murray's
excerpt is not listed.

---

My favorite search engine helped me to locate Web material relevant to
the Great Exhibition...

Google Search: 1851 London Great Exhibition
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=1851+London+Great+Ex
hibition&btnG=Google+Search

...The first reference, from the National Art Library, Victoria and
Albert Museum, London...

1851 Project: The Great Exhibition
http://www.nal.vam.ac.uk/projects/1851.html

...starts, 'The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all
Nations was held in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, from 1st
May to 15th October 1851. It was the first international exhibition of
manufactured products and was enormously influential on the
development of many aspects of society including art and design
education, international trade and relations, and even tourism. The
Exhibition also set the precedent for the many international
exhibitions which followed during the next hundred years'. The Crystal
Palace is described in the second reference...

The Crystal Palace, or The Great Exhibition of 1851: An Overview
http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/1851/1851ov.html

...along with a photo. Several drawings of the exhibition's interior,
some in color, brighten the third reference...

The Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace
http://www.victorianstation.com/palace.html

---

What else can we find on the Web about the landmark chess event?
Another search...

Google search on 'chess 1851 london'
http://www.google.com/search?q=chess+1851+london&btnG=Google+Search

...returned 'about 1790' results. Searches like this are a good way to
discover chess history sites that I haven't seen before, so I decided
to look at each of Google's top references.

Unfortunately, the Schach-Datenbank site doesn't appear in the first
few pages of results. If I knew why not, I'd bill myself as a search
engine expert, but I really have no idea. Maybe it has something to do
with the use of frames. Some search engines have trouble retrieving
sites based on frames, but I didn't think that Google is one of them.
Maybe it's because the word 'chess' is missing from Günther's page.
Whatever the reason, there's a problem somewhere.

Looking at the first pages that Google does list, the number one page
was a real surprise for me...

1851 London Tournament
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/v1lon-ix.htm

...because it's a page from my own World Chess Championship site. A
quick look at the page reminded me that I had never added highlights
-- positions from specific games referenced in chess literature -- for
the 1851 event, so I did.

I decided to check the match results I list against those that Günther
lists; these should be the same and would give me some indication
about the overall accuracy of both sites. The first discrepancy I
found was in a match from the second round. Schach-Datenbank (SDB)
gives 'Williams, Elijah - Mucklow, James R 2 - 0'. The World Chess
Championship (WCC) gives 'Williams E - Mucklow J 4.0 - 0.0'. Gelo's
'Chess World Championships, 1834-1984' (McFarland 1988) also gives
4-0, which matches the PGN file.

A second discrepancy was in the third (semifinal) round. SDB lists two
matches...

Anderssen, Adolf - Staunton, Howard 4 - 1
Williams, Elijah - Wyvill, Marmaduke 3 - 4

...while WCC lists four. The two additional matches are...

Kennedy H - Mucklow J 4 - 0
Szen J - Horwitz B 4 - 0

...which were played to determine 5th-8th places. It appears that SDB
is based on a conscious decision not to list these, because there is
no mention of two additional matches that WCC gives for the final
round:-

Match for 3rd/4th places : Williams E - Staunton H 4.5 - 3.5
Match for 5th/6th places : Szen J - Kennedy H 4.5 - 0.5

Gelo adds that a match for 7th & 8th place was won by forfeit, Horwitz
over Mucklow.

As a last check, I downloaded the SDB PGN file for comparison. Like
the SDB file, the WCC PGN file has 85 games, but the round numbering
in my file was difficult to understand, so I improved it. All in all,
I was satisfied that my own page held up under comparison, and was
glad to have made three incremental improvements -- highlights,
7th/8th place, and PGN round numbering.

How popular among chess fans is the 1851 tournament relative to other
world championship events? I again turned to my WCC site and
downloaded the statistics file, a resource which is not available to
the general public. Of the 370 pages on the site, 148 serve as the
index for a specific event, with a crosstable and links to related
pages, like the event's highlights.

I calculated that the index page for the 1851 London tournament ranks
as the 86th most popular index page, receiving about two views per
day. This places it just behind the 1953 Candidates tournament and
just ahead of the 1955 Interzonal. Since the 43 least popular pages
are all women's and computer events, 1851 London is far down the list
of men's events in order of popularity.

This low ranking was confirmed by an analysis of statistics on the 146
PGN files on the site. 1851 London is the 75th most popular, getting
about one download per day.

---

Returning to the Google list for the 1851 tournament, the second
reference is to...

London 1851
http://www.schachgeschichte.de/chess/turnier/1851.htm

...I'll be looking at these pages for the next site review and will
save my remarks for then. The third reference is to...

Chess History - World Chess Network
http://www.worldchessnetwork.com/English/chessHistory/salute/kings/and
erssen.php

...a biography of Adolf Anderssen : 'b. 1818 - d. 1879 World champion:
1851 to 1858; 1862 to 1866 By winning the first international chess
tournament convincingly (London, 1851), Adolf Anderssen also won
nearly universal regard as the chess world's supreme player. He became
the first tournament specialist in chess history, compiling a record
that kept him at the tournament forefront until Vienna 1873, which
marked Wilhelm Steinitz's coming of age as a modern positional
player'.

The page also gives the score of 'Anderssen - Kieseritzky London,
1851', more commonly known as the Immortal Game. Although Anderssen
eliminated Kieseritzky in the first round of the London tournament
(2.5 - 0.5), the Immortal Game was not played in that event.

The Anderssen page is a piece of a larger section on Chess History
which informs us that...

'The World Chess Network is proud to present a monograph of chess
history articles entitled "The World Chess Championship and Champions:
1747-2000" by celebrated chess journalist Larry Parr.

'Larry Parr is a former editor of Chess Life and he has received more
individual awards from the Chess Journalists of America than any other
chess writer in its history. These exclusive articles provide
fascinating details and inside information about the World Chess
Championship.'

...You might already know that in the 1980s, when Parr was editor for
the USCF's flagship magazine 'Chess Life', his opinions sometimes ran
counter to those of other USCF officials. In the 1990s, he turned to
writing for the Internet news groups where his aggressive articles
again earned him many adversaries. His early posts can be found at...

Google Search: author:75227.3707@...
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=author:75227.3707
%40CompuServe.COM+

...of which the most recent is dated 26 Apr 2000. After a lapse of
over one year, during which I suppose he was preparing the historical
material for the World Chess Network, he resurfaced as...

Google Search: author:parrthenon@...
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=author:parrthenon
%40cs.com+

...where his oldest post is dated 15 Jun 2001. If you want to develop
a history of recent controversies in the chess world, just spend some
time with Parr's posts. When Emanuel Lasker said, 'A fighter is a
target as well as a shot', he anticipated Parr, who gives as good as
he gets. He's presently participating in a circular firing squad which
has formed to settle the Winter - Evans feud.

I had seen the World Chess Network site before, but for some reason,
had neglected to add it to my list of chess history sites. I corrected
this oversight, which means that I'll be covering it for a later
review in this series.

---

For the remaining pages on Google's list, the 1851 tournament is
referenced only briefly. The fourth site...

Chess - Online Guide
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/james.masters/TraditionalGames/Chess.htm

...is a page titled 'The Chess Family - History and Useful
Information', where along with Shaturanga, Shatranj, and various forms
of Oriental chess, 1851 London is mentioned under 'European Chess'.
Bill Wall's many chess history pages pop up frequently on Google's
lists. The first reference...

Chess History, 1800-1899
http://www.traveller.com/chess/history/1800-1899.html

...confirms the start/end dates:-
1851.05.07 Opening day of the 1st ever international tournament,
London.
1851.07.15 End of 1st international tournament began in London,
organized by Staunton.

while another...

Chess Trivia -- L
http://www3.traveller.com/chess/trivia/l.html

...tells us, 'Howard Staunton and the St. George's Club were the
organizers. Anderssen won a silver cup and 183 pounds. He owed 1/3 of
his winnings to Szen after a private agreement that if either were to
gain first prize, he would share it with the other'. A very unusual
reference is...

Seven Cautionary Chess Games 1834-1927, No. II
http://www.stare.com/art/chess/chess2.html

...a page dedicated to the Immortal Game. 'Adolph Anderssen and Lionel
Adalbert Bagration Felix Kieseritsky played what has become
universally known among Chess aficionados as "The Immortal Game" at
Simpson's Divan at the same time the rest of the Chess world was
transfixed by the nearby international Chess tournament. [...] A
diagram from this monumental game was immortalized on a German 75
pfennig currency coupon, along with Anderssen's austere intellectual
likeness. The loser died penniless in the Hotel du Dieu -- the charity
hospital for the insane -- in Paris on 18 May 1853; no one attended
his burial in a pauper's grave.'

I honestly don't know what to make of this page. All seven cautionary
games are linked from...

http://www.stare.com/art/chess/welcome.html

...and treat chess as an art, rather than as a game, a science, a
sport, or any of the other common classifications. Another offbeat
page from the ChessBase site...

Simpson's-in-the-Strand
http://www.chessbase.com/events/chapman/chapman2.htm

...covers the recent Kasparov - Chapman charity odds match. Here we
learn that, 'in 1851, when London hosted the first International Chess
Tournament, it was at the Grand Cigar Divan that players congregated
to practise their strategies and discuss tactics'. A description of a
German language tournament book for the event (Olms, 1983) can be
found at...

Das Schachturnier zu London im Jahre 1851
http://www.chessstore.ch/eshop/p146.html

...And, finally, don't let this title mislead you...

Marshall
http://www.cpl.org/010012/chess/Anderssen.html

...The Cleveland Public Library, home of the unsurpassed John G. White
collection, has a page on Anderssen (not Marshall; that's another
page!) in a CPL mini-site...

Paul Little and his chess scrapbooks
http://www.cpl.org/010012/chess/Paul_Little.html

Chess masters gallery
http://www.cpl.org/010012/chess/Gallery.html

...where Anderssen is the only non-American featured on this page for
'U.S. chess masters - 1945 Soviet - American radio match'.

We started with 1851 London and ended with the 1945 radio match. The
1945 event would make a good start for a future discussion of the rise
of Soviet domination in chess. The first FIDE sponsored world
championship match, featuring two Soviet players, took place in 1951,
and could have marked the centennial of the great London tournament.
The 2051 bicentennial might well be celebrated by another knockout
tournament featuring the world's 16 strongest players -- all of them
computers. The times change and chess changes with the times.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in this newsletter may be found
at...

The Chess History discussion group
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chesshistory

...where you are invited to join and contribute. The list archive is
at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

...and contains copies of previous reviews. To subscribe:-
- by email, send a message to Chess_History-subscribe@yahoogroups.com,
-or-
- by the web, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/join

All subscriptions are confirmed with a verification message.]

[This is a copy of the final issue of 'Chess History on the Web' sent
via Listbot, the previous email list service. It's repeated here to
provide continuity.]

Change of address - Yahoo Groups

As you'll see, this is a short issue dealing with an administrative
issue. But first, here's some chess news. The ten game match between
FIDE World Champion Viswanathan Anand and Braingames World Champion
Vladimir Kramnik is presently tied at one win each with six draws. The
time control is 25 minutes plus ten seconds per move. The results can
be found at...

Chess Classic Mainz 2001
http://www.chesstigers.de/ChessClassic2001e/default.htm

...Most chess fans would love to see a match at normal time controls
between these two reigning world champions. Will it ever happen?

---

And now, here's the administrative issue: Since November 1999, I've
been distributing 'Chess History on the Web' using Microsoft Network's
(MSN) Listbot service. MSN recently informed all list owners that
Listbot is closing in August, so I was forced to find a replacement
service. After a quick search, I decided to continue distribution
using a Yahoo service called Yahoo Groups. The address of the new
service is...

Yahoo Groups - Chess History
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History

...This message is to inform you that I will be moving the email
address for all list subscribers from the Listbot service to the Yahoo
service. I could have asked you to transfer your own email address by
subscribing a second time via the Yahoo service, but I thought it
would be easier to copy all addresses myself.

This should be the last message that you receive from me using the old
email address 'newsletter@...'. A second message will be
sent from Yahoo soon after this one and will use the new email address
'yahoo@...'. It will confirm that your email address has
been transferred to the new service. The next issue of 'Chess History
on the Web' (number 2001 no.14, scheduled for mid-July), as well as
subsequent issues, will also be sent using the new email address.

If you do *not* want to continue receiving these messages from me via
the Yahoo service, you must unsubscribe from the Yahoo list. The
message that you receive from 'yahoo@...' will contain
instructions on how to do this. Of course, you can also send a message
to 'newsletter@...' or to 'yahoo@...' and ask me
to remove your email address from the list of subscribers, which I'll
do immediately!

Finally, if you do continue as a subscriber, I'd appreciate receiving
any comments you have about the Yahoo service. You can send them to me
privately via email or you can post them publicly at...

Yahoo Clubs - Chess History discussion group
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chesshistory

...where feedback for the 'Chess History on the Web' email list is
always welcome.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

This Yahoo Group will be used for the distribution of 'Chess History
on The Web', a small ezine which I've been writing twice a month since
November 1999. Until now I've distributed the ezine using Microsoft
Network's (MSN) Listbot service, but MSN is closing Listbot in August.
Yahoo Groups looks like a good replacement, and may even have some
real functional advantages.

Since Summer 1997, I've maintained a web site...

World Chess Championship
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/wcc-indx.htm

...which documents the history of the world championship. I keep an
eye out for Web sites with content related to chess history, and
maintain a list at the following address...

Chess history links
http://members.tripod.com/~Mark_Weeks/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

...Then, in what I call a site review, I take a close look at one of
these sites in 'Chess History on The Web'. With very few exceptions,
my reviews are friendly. The exceptions are where I believe that the
Web site is somehow misleading.

Because of my interest in chess history and in Web sites, I've also
set up an open, unmoderated forum for chess history topics...

Chess History discussion group
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chesshistory

...using the Yahoo Clubs service. The discussion group averages less
than one post a day, but I feel it's important to provide a public
forum for anyone who wants to debate a point I've raised. This keeps
my reviews more objective.

More explanatory and supporting material for 'Chess History on The
Web' is available on this page...

Email list
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/wcc-mlst.htm

...I hope you join the list! - Mark Weeks