Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess/Archive 5

message: When using MCO as a reference, please remember that it has its own article Modern Chess Openings, so please link to that when using it as a reference.  Bubba73 (talk), 21:28, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Using MCO as a reference 

message: FYI, Endgame tablebase has been a featured article candidate since late March. youngvalter 19:48, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Another article that I think is really good is chess opening.  Bubba73 (talk), 22:10, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Endgame tablebase FAC review ended — the result was not to promote it. It is still a good article candidate but I don't think much feedback can be expected from there. Maybe we can list it for peer review later, but I'd give it at least a couple of months, as right now I am, frankly, rather fed up with the article. ;) --ZeroOne (talk | @) 09:24, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Endgame tablebase]] 

message: Everyone talks about the Ks of chess (Karpov, Kortchnoi, Kasparov, Krammnik), but I noticed that there are also the Vs: Vasily Smyslov, Veselin Topalov, Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik. :-) Bubba73 (talk), 04:05, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  OT: Ks versus Vs 

message: * I've done a hopefully uncontroversial merge: I've redirected the one-line article Lengfellner System (which wasn't categorised properly and so didn't appear in opening stubs) to French Defence#Early deviations and added that one line into this section.
* A user has again undone the redirection of Épine Dorsale to Italian Game.  Per the discussion on trhe talk page, the user appears to be saying that the Dorsale isn't an opening, but a series of moves ending up at the position after 3.Bc4, that can be branched off at any time (i.e by Black playing 1.e6 to go into the French).  Personally I can't see how that makes it any different from an opening, i.e the Italian Game. EliminatorJR Talk 10:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Scratch that.  As far as I can tell, it is the same as the Italian Game,  It may branch off after that to 2 knights or Guico Piano, but at that point it is the same.  It seems to me that it is probably an old French name for the start of the Italian game.  Bubba73 (talk), 15:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, Italian game and Evans Gambit by Jan Pinski points out that from that point you can have the Guico Piano, the 2 knights, the Hungarian Defense, as well as 3...g6.  And 3...d6 will transpose. Bubba73 (talk), 15:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  See my comments to ThreeE here. "Épine dorsale" is indeed the French term for "backbone" (and not "dorsal fin", which would be "nageoire dorsale"), and as I pointed out to ThreeE, this French site calls the Ruy Lopez "L'épine dorsale des jeux ouverts", i.e. "the backbone of the open games". youngvalter 16:20, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Back in my day, we didn't have the Italian game in the US.  When I first heard of the Italian, I thought that it was 3. Bc4, as the article says.  Therefore it included the Guico Piano and Two Knights.  However, more recent references (MCO, Pinski, Seirawan, Oxford Companion) limit it to 3. Bc4 Bc5.  Bubba73 (talk), 16:31, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  IF that's the case, it needs to be merged with Guioco Piano.  I've always understood the Italian to be defined by 3.Bc4 though, as in the Pinski book on this page.  Is there a difference between countries here? EliminatorJR Talk 17:55, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have three books on that page, and the situation is not clear.The Italian game book by Pinski only covers 3. Bc4 Bc5 - contrary to the description on that page.  His Two Knights book doesn't say anything about the 2N being part of the Italian.  On the other hand, the Giuoco Piano book by Gufeld says that the G.P. is a branch of the Italian (inplying that there are others).  But the majority (5 out of 6, I think) of references I checked equate the Italian and 3...Bc5.  It might be that the Russians call everything under 3. Bc4 the Italian game. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bubba73 (talk • contribs) 19:08, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, it looks like the Russians call 3.Bc4 Bc5 the Italian Game - see here. youngvalter 03:31, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Then equating G.P. and Italian, with the 2 Knights being seperate makes sense to me.  Bubba73 (talk), 04:25, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

text: As for the Lengfellner System, I wonder if the reference should be removed altogether, for reasons of notability. youngvalter 16:20, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  It is in the Oxford Companion.  Bubba73 (talk), 16:32, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

text:  According to this website,  Épine Dorsale means "back spine" - we might say "backbone" (Alta Vista translates it that way).  It talks about  Épine Dorsale as the backbone from which the other openings arise.  It seems to be an old term from when most games started 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6.  It gives 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 as part 1 of E.D. and 2... Nc6 as part 2.  This is in contrast to the article, which gives 3. Bc4.  So it seems that E.P. doesn't really refer to an opening, but a position from which other openings start.  So in that case, it probably doesn't need to be merged with Italian game, without the 3. Bc4 that is.  Bubba73 (talk), 04:17, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  It certainly needs a rewrite to make that clear, then, plus it needs to be sourced.  I'll have a look at it when I get the chance. EliminatorJR Talk 10:01, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This might connect to the concept of tabia, the standard or normal position that an opening variation leads to.  A term borrrowed from the chess precursor game Shatranj, tabia has been reintroduced into modern chess parlance; e.g., Google(tm) the three singular variants, tabia, tabiya, and (misspelled?) tabya, with chess.  (Arabic adds a final 't' to produce the plural; I'm sure we'll soon get this wrong as we did with "isolani".)  --Wfaxon 10:13, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good observation—I hadn't thought of it that way. Quale 15:17, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A couple of things 

message: I don't know if there is any demand for a WikiProject Chess IRC channel, (see also WP:IRC) but I created one anyway: irc://chat.freenode.net:8001/wikiproject-chess. That's #wikiproject-chess at freenode. I'll idle there, just join in. --ZeroOne (talk | @) 11:05, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  IRC channel 

message: Xiangqi has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.
LuciferMorgan 15:08, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Xiangqi FAR

message: Well, despite all the troubles, it seems to me that a lot of the mess has been cleaned up.  Great Job! to all the editors who took the time to fix some of the problems.  There's still some lingering concerns with unreferenced pages and ones that don't effectively assert their importance, but at least there's evidence of clean-up going on.  I hope that continues, and everybody who has been motivated to work on things takes pride in the improvements they've made.  FrozenPurpleCube 14:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chess openings 

message: On a similar note, what about the importance of chess openings?  I don't think any should be in Top level.  At one point I was thinking that all openings with their own chapter in MCO should be High level.  I also thought that they may need to be divided by the number of ECO codes they have.  
But roughly I've been thinking that Ruy Lopez, Petrov, Sicilian, French, Caro-Kann, Pirc, QCD, QGA, Slav, KID, Nimzo-Indian, Grunfeld, and English should be top importance.  (Perhaps a few others.)  The rest that have chapters in MCO would be Mid importance, and the rest would be Low.  (Or it could go by number of ECO codes.)  How about something like that?  Bubba73 (talk), 13:10, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds like a good way of splitting "Mid" and "Low". For "High", rather than going by number of ECO codes (which were decided years ago on unknown criteria), how about going by all NICBaseopening codes with over 30 000 games (1.2 million games in the database). That would give the Sicilian, Ruy Lopez, French, Caro-Kann, Pirc, Queen's Gambit Declined, Slav, Nimzo-Indian, Queen's Indian, Grunfeld, King's Indian, and the English. It would also give the Réti Opening if you consider that to be just 1.Nf3 and not 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 - OK, I think I just started another topic of debate... youngvalter 16:36, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  That is a good thought - go by frequency in a database.  As far as ECO codes, the Dutch has 20, which seems to be too many for its importance these days.  Is there a place on the website where you can see the frequencies of the openings? Bubba73 (talk), 17:04, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On NICBase? Yeah, go to the NIC-Key tab and click on the names of the openings. And it amuses me that the King's Gambit has as many codes as the Queen's Indian and five times more than the Petroff, to say nothing of the Sveshnikov! youngvalter 20:21, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is because King's Gambit was really important 150+ years ago, and its theory was well developed. - By the way, I think that King's Gambit and Italian Game should be also rated High, because of the historical reasons. They are rarely met today at the top level, but they played an important role in the development of chess theory. - Otherwise I accept the suggestions.--Ioannes Pragensis 20:42, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

text: My thoughts were more along Bubba's original idea—no articles on individual openings in Top priority, combined with Ioannes' suggestion to also consider historical factors.  Top priority to me should include mainly articles that might be of significant use to someone interested in learning about chess, but not necessarily playing it.  For instance, I've never played Go and I don't think I'm likely to take it up, but I have some interest in learning about it—how many Go pages might I expect to be Top priority?  To me that means that Top priority articles should be selected very carefully.  That includes bios of the champions, basic game rules, history and origin of the game, and some survey-type outlines of theory.  That would put the survey articles on the opening, middlegame, and endgame in Top priority, but pages on specifics about particular openings, middlegame strategies and tactics, and particular endgames would range from Low to High importance.  (As an aside, the middlegame page is in bad shape.)  I would rate High as any opening with great historical significance or one that you would expect an average club or scholastic player to be familiar with.  In addition to the most popular openings based on databases, historical importance would add the aforementioned KG and also the Evans.  I think any opening you might teach a beginner should be considered for Top High (sorry, a thinko) importance, and that would include the Scandinavian, Giuoco Piano, Two Knights, and Scotch. The Philidor is usually used as a negative example for beginners, and the Damiano is notorious, so I'm not sure what to do with them (Mid might be fine).  Clearly pages like Parham Attack, although very interesting, can go in Low.  Quale 22:18, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Much of what you say is already that way, as you undoubtedly know.  The last time I checked, there were no openings in Top prriorty but the general artices op the opening, middle, and endgame are.  I think that is the way it should be so that anyone should be able to read a top-priority article (as you suggested).  Then major openings (I think it is good to include a few of mainly historic value, and instructive ones) would go in High.  Others with chapters in MCO (Vienna, Hungarian, 3 knights, etc) in Mid level and the rest in Low.  I think that would make Mid level the largest, but I'm not sure.  Bubba73 (talk), 23:04, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Correction, Hungarian does not have its own article in MCO (13), so it would be Low.  Bubba73 (talk), 23:13, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The most important openings have High importance.  I went through MCO-13, and unless I made errors, all of the rest that have their on chapter there have Mid importance.  So the rest can be assigned Low importance.  Bubba73 (talk), 02:45, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Importance of chess openings

message: Do you think we need more categories for chess-related bios?  Right now we have only :Category:Chess players, :Category:Chess problemists, and :Category:International Judges of Chess Compositions.  We have some bios of people who are primarily known for administrative/organizational/executive contributions to chess, and it isn't easy to find a cat for them.  Possible new cats:
* Chess writers
* Chess patrons (Isaac Rice, Jacqueline Piatigorsky, and I'm sure there are more)
* Chess arbiters (Hans Kmoch, Lothar Schmid)
* Chess officials/organizers/executives? Not sure what to call Ed Edmondson (chess official), Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and others
One of my concerns are that a Chess writers cat might be too broad and include too many people.  I think it should include only authors of chess books or regular newspaper or magazine columns.  My other concern is finding a good name for the officials/organizers/executives cat. If we had more cats for bios we should consider creating a new subcat of the main Chess category to include all the bio cats.  Any thoughts? Quale 02:35, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As I've discovered, there is a huge number of chess bios.  (I've tagged probably 200+, and I keep finding them.)  However, (1) I'm not sure if there are enough patrons/atibters/officials, and (2) most of them are (or were) players also.  So I'm undecided.  Bubba73 (talk), 02:45, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My main intent in proposing the new chess bio categories was simply more accurate and useful categorizations.  Clearly it won't have any practical effect on the size of the main Chess players category because of the small numbers involved, and also as you point out most chess bios in any of the new categories would still remain in the Chess players cat.  There doesn't seem to be a great clamor in favor of more chess bio cats, so I think I'll leave it alone for now.  As far as the very large Chess players cat goes, we currently have it broken down by nation (:Category:Chess players by nationality).  We could consider subcats by century.  The early century subcats would be helpful through at least the 19th, but I'm not sure overall it would have much impact because the 20th century and 21st century chess player cats would be large. Quale 05:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  More cats for chess people? 

message: I believe it would be desirable to allow readers to play through the game scores (or partial game scores) appearing in the articles with, say, a Javascript viewer.  Not to allow a reader to make arbitrary chess moves, just to play through a score.  The game score viewer itself could be in a protected space to prevent non-admins from monkeying with it.  Possible counter-arguments:  Difficulty; bloat in the game scores to accommodate the viewer; errors.  Thoughts?  (BTW I don't have the expertise to do this myself.)  --Wfaxon 11:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Now, we use external links to a reliable and free database of games, most often chessgames.com. See for example Mikhail Tal, section Notable chess games.--Ioannes Pragensis 16:57, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Play through game scores?