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Alexandra Obolentseva

What do you think about the article Alexandra Obolentseva? With five photos, it seems a little like a vanity page. Also, the editor that started it and did most of the early work on it doesn't edit much else, if anything. OTOH, most of the other people listed at World Youth Chess Championship also have articles. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 19:35, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Pages like that about very young people concern me and make me rather uncomfortable, but I don't have a specific recommendation. My hope is that someone else will suggest something that will strike me as obviously correct once I hear it. Quale (talk) 04:39, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree; there's no obvious course of action. On balance, I'd probably leave as is. There is little doubt she merits an article, although it's puzzling that no French/ Polish/ German equivalent article exists. The red-links at pl.wikipedia, do however suggest that an article is on the cards. Also, I remember the Natalia Pogonina page being stuffed full of photos in her early chess playing days, but that page has now settled down to a modest 3-photo format; most likely this will go the same way. Brittle heaven (talk) 21:05, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I would STRONGLY recommend deleting that page. Her accomplishments are nowhere near notable enough to merit an article. If they did, then there are about 1,000 other junior players during just the last 20 years that we need to add. 2005 is an incredibly low rating (lower than mine, even). Even for a 12 year-old girl, it's not particularly special. Winning an U-10 girl's championship is also quite unexceptional; if she won the U-18 or even U-16 championship, that would be a different story.

The length and depth of that article also makes me sick, similar to Quale's reaction. Compare it to an article on former U-12 boy's champion and current strong IM and author Daniel Naroditsky, for instance. Or hell, compare it to most top 10 elite GMs! Clearly, it's a personal vanity project for someone very close to the girl, as Bubba73 noted. Unless someone can present a strong argument against it, I will nominate the page for deletion. ChessPlayerLev (talk) 13:02, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Most of the people that have articles from World Youth Chess Championship are because they got older and have actual accomplishments. The notability of this one is shaky at best. --SubSeven (talk) 13:54, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Heh, we don't have any articles at all for multiple U-18 world champions of the last 25 years, including over half of the girls! Yet, we have a huge article (larger than many top-10 players) for a U-10 girl's champion with a current rating of 1994 (!), and a very high statistical chance that she will never even make FM. She is presently ranked 69,502th in the world, which isn't even counting the thousands of stronger players who don't yet have FIDE ratings, but high national federation ratings. For the record, even a weak GM (2500) is among the world's top thousand. On a related note, is there a clear criteria for World Junior Champions?

I'm fine with having articles on all U-18 world champions (male and female), and perhaps even the U-16 champions. Below that, however, I don't believe it's enough by itself. ChessPlayerLev (talk) 14:11, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Reading further, not only is it an article that shouldn't exist because of notability, and not only is it riddled with various errors, but it's either extraordinarily creepy, or else made by a relative of the subject. I would probably want it deleted even if it were a stub with no pictures, but in its present form, it's sick. The person who made it and has been steadily updating for the past 4 years is "OldenChess". I'm guessing he is a fellow Russian. I will also be charitable and assume he/she is just a very well-meaning older relative of the girl. ChessPlayerLev (talk) 13:28, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Traffic

I thought this was pretty interesting (VIEW hits on Glossary of chess).

(Does anyone know how to identify the highest traffic'd chess-related articles?) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 09:24, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

There is a link on the main page of this project to Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess/Popular pages. Toccata quarta (talk) 11:04, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh yes! (Awesome, thx.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 11:40, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, a very interesting page. I am surprised that Glenn Flear is in the top 30. I wonder if that's typical or just a brief trend right now. Quale (talk) 13:24, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

For some reason there was a huge interest for about a month, see this. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 21:43, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

The power of Fischer! Played one event in the last 40 years and still #2 most visited player. --SubSeven (talk) 14:05, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Jirayr Ohanyan Çakır

In Jirayr Ohanyan Çakır there is a line that he met Petrosian in 1963, along with a picture of Petrosian. Is that significant enough to put in the article? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 12:59, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree with your initial revert. Unless the relevance is explained in the article, then in isolation, it has no relevance at all. The author has just copied this from his main source, along with most of the other detail. I also find it a bit worrying that his 'Life' section says little more than 'he was a chess teacher'. In my opinion, more needs adding to establish notability. Either he was an International Arbiter of some special note (I think I read somewhere else that he was an IA), or he has excelled in some other way (e.g. his former students have become famous grandmasters). Would his Federation work stand up as notable? Maybe. If they named a tournament after him, it could be a reasonable claim, but if this is the case, then the article needs to be less sprawling and more centred around this part of his life. Brittle heaven (talk) 14:08, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, is this guy even remotely relevant? Nowadays, a Turkish chess federation president probably is, not least of all because the current one is part of a major scandal involving multiple FIDE vice presidents, lawsuits regarding arbiters being excluded from the Olympiad, and an amusing situation where he resigned his office and Ilyumzhinov denied it! Oh...and there some strong Turkish chess players these days, too. But Cakir was president way before GM Suat Atalik became prominent in the 80s, at which time I'm not aware of any tournaments or even mildly significant players in the country. ChessPlayerLev (talk) 13:19, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Content dispute at World Chess Championship 2013

User:Nickst has recently added head-to-head results between Carlsen and Anand to the article World Chess Championship 2013. Previously User:SubSeven and I agreed on Talk:World Chess Championship 2013 that such information should not be included, as it is not relevant to the event. Including the results of games that were played before Carlsen entered FIDE's top 100 (or even 10) list is as misleading as it gets. Elo ratings and the opinions of top chess players and commentators are in my opinion the most that we should mention, as those things are actually related to recent events.

I'd appreciate other opinions on this. Toccata quarta (talk) 18:44, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

For the record, my previous statement was in regards to head-to-head records being shown for all eight of the players in the candidates tournament. --SubSeven (talk) 18:47, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

An important point (though you wrote "stuff like head-to-head records"). What do you think of the inclusion of this information? Toccata quarta (talk) 18:51, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

• H2H is an important information for tournament preview. Now each WCh article since 2006 has H2H section, thats why I added info for 2013 match. NickSt (talk) 18:52, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

But as I already wrote above, games played when one player was significantly weaker than he is nowadays do not "preview" much, and are misleading. If Anand had won a game against Carlsen when the latter was eight years old, would you mention that, as a "preview" (of what, anyway?)? Toccata quarta (talk) 04:38, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

One player was significantly weaker? Because his age? It makes no difference. They were GM during all matches. It was official FIDE games calculated for rating. Many big rivalries with different age players have own articles in wikipedia, for example see Category:Tennis rivalries. By the way, why we have no article about Karpov–Kasparov rivalry? NickSt (talk) 12:12, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

He was weaker because he was weaker. (That was tough.) The rest of your post promotes an "all GMs are equally strong" fallacy, or discusses individual articles on rivalries. World Chess Championship 2013, however, deals with a World Chess Championship. Toccata quarta (talk) 13:21, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate Toccata quarta's concern about Carlsen being much less experienced than Anand during their first meetings. However, on the list of games between them their first game was in 2005 when Carlsen had already achieved the GM title (and Carlsen was at that point able to score 1 of 4 against Anand), so the concern is quite a bit muted. I would recommend including the head to head statistics if and only if a reliable source has included the head to head statistics in the context of the upcoming 2013 match. Otherwise, including it starts skirting the edges of WP:SYNTH, especially if it implies that the previous results can be used as a predictor for the outcome of the match. Sjakkalle (Check!) 05:40, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I fully agree with Sjakkalle on this. If a respected source can be found that gives the head-to-head record in the context of coverage of the match, then Wikipedia can and probably should include it. Absent this the head-to-head numbers should be omitted. I know that writings about the 1972 WC match often mention the head-to-head records of Fischer versus Spassky, so this information can be relevant. I have also several times said that compiling career records from online game databases such as chessgames.com is a WP:SYNTH violation and these databases are not reliable sources for this purpose. I think Tocatta has a different opinion on this, but the databases can't be demonstrated to be accurate and complete. Quale (talk) 06:00, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I did know that "their first game was in 2005 when Carlsen had already achieved the GM title" (I'm one of the main editors of Wikipedia's article on Carlsen), but not all GMs are equally strong, and there is a significant difference in strength between players rated 2548 and 2868 ([1]). Toccata quarta (talk) 08:14, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

For the record, if reliable sources will ever discuss the head-to-head results between Carlsen and Anand in the context of this year's World Chess Championship, they will probably take into account when the games were played; see for instance:

"Ivanchuk has been burned one too many times by Carlsen, with his lone wins against the Norwegian both coming in 2008." ([2])

"The score between the two players may only be 18-17 in Anand's favour but Gelfand has not beaten the Indian in a classical game since 1993(!)." ([3])

Toccata quarta (talk) 09:07, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

• Some references for Anand vs Carlsen rivalry:
  • The Times of India, "Anand vs Carlsen fills void for Fischer vs Kasparov": Moreover, the Indian has better opening repertoire, 6-2 head to head record against Carlsen and better nerves. [4]
  • InfoBarrel, "Carlsen Anand Head-to-Head and Other Facts": Right now, the head to thead score is +6 -2 =20 in favor for Anand but things are not as simple as it seems. [5]

NickSt (talk) 12:38, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

InfoBarrel appears to be a Wiki (user created website). Toccata quarta (talk) 16:19, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree that InfoBarrel is not a WP:RS reliable source, but The Times of India seems perfectly satisfactory to cite for the head-to-head record. Quale (talk) 22:30, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

The Times of India are now referenced in the article, but chessgames.com (which I have no problem with) is still used as a source for the detailed table. Toccata quarta (talk) 06:15, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

For the record, I mostly agree with Toccata quarta. While head-to-head results are interesting and I have no problem with the way it's currently presented in the article, it's pretty meaningless/misleading in the case of Carlsen versus Anand. Pretty sure that Carlsen's games against Anand when he was 14 years old and rated a mere 300+ points lower aren't terribly relevant when it comes to predicting any future results, or that of their match.

This is a typical problem when you compare head-to-head results for players from two totally different generations.ChessPlayerLev (talk) 13:10, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

They should be used in the article. Often mentioned in RS about the match. You just shouldn't do the mistake of using those tzo predict the outcome of the match. -Koppapa (talk) 06:43, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Castling Notation: Why O-O-O is better than 0-0-0

On Wikipedia I see a preference for using the number zero, 0, in castling notation rather then the uppercase letter 'O'.

To me it's fairly obviously wrong to use a zero instead of a 'O', but lets look at both sides:

Case for 'O':

The standard for chess notation, PGN, uses 'O'. There are at least 5 million games recorded in this format. People pasting data to or from a database or program will all be using 'O'. But it's not an arbitrary decision. 'O' was chosen for consistency, so that all chess moves start with a letter (an upper case letter for non-pawn moves) and for ease of parsing by allowing simple differentiation between move numbers, game termination markers and moves. Also in many fonts the zero character has a slash through it (ex. Consolas in Windows). With those fonts the Wikipedia style castling looks like "Ø-Ø-Ø", which is obviously not what anyone would want.

Case for '0':

FIDE Handbook, appendix C.13 - This is referenced on the wiki page for Algebraic notation. I'm guessing this is the reason that 0 is used on Wikipedia. However, it's not so simple. While it's true that FIDE uses the digit zero in their handbook you must look at the context. Appendix C is about a notation for player's scoresheets. Scoresheets are written by players during the game. In that context there's absolutely no difference between 0 and O, they're both just hand written circles that the player draws. So when it came time to type up the FIDE handbook and a representation of a circle was needed the typist arbitrarily chose zero.

So, what's better? An established standard that specifically uses 'O' for consistent and logical reasons or a typographical accident that uses '0' to represent a hand drawn circle?

DrZukhar (talk) 18:52, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

You're not really making a "case" for '0' (you're rather criticizing it). So I think it is safe to presume you have a personal preference working. (Everyone does.)

ECO uses '0'. (All 5 volumes.) And as far as programming logic, I'm a bit of a programmer myself, and seeing that in every case for castle notation a dash ("-") follows the '0' or 'O', it would be trivial matter to program taking that into account to avoid any ambiguity with "ease of parsing", "differentiation between more numbers", "game termination markers", etc. (So if you wanna call FIDE's decision arbitrary and an "typographical accident" made by a typist, then I think it is only fair to call the PGN programming project just as arbitrary, where decision was made by a lazy programmer who probably was pulling in a low salary so didn't give a hoot.)

All of the Batsford books I've checked use '0' not 'O'. Ditto Hooper & Whyld. Ditto an Informator I checked. (Need I go on?) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 20:10, 6 June 2013 (UTC) p.s. The encyclopedia format is what is best for the reader, not for the convenience of the programmer or editor or copy/paster.

First off you need to dial your snark setting down a few notches. Phrases like "Need I go on?" and "lazy programmer pulling in a low salary who didn't give a hoot" are clearly unnecessary, unhelpful, unfounded and add nothing to an adult discussion. Try to stick to facts.

Secondly I was making a case for '0'. The problem is the case for '0' is so weak you thought I was criticizing it. The case you yourself made for '0' was "ECO uses '0'. (All 5 volumes.)" Then after your odd anti-programmer diatribe you follow up with a couple more examples of books that use '0'. Obviously that's not making a case for '0', that's just finding examples of other people making the same mistake. I can go to my bookshelves and find just as many examples of 'O'. The greatest chess book of all time, My 60 Memorable Games", uses 'O' for example. Then you follow up with a p.s. saying "The encyclopedia format is what is best for the reader". Now if you're trying to make a point what you need to do is say why it's best for the reader. What makes it "best"?

I should also note that the one source for using '0', FIDE's handbook appendix, also uses 'O':

"0 - 0 - 0 = castling with rook a1 or rook a8 (queenside castling)"

and then a few paragraphs later:

"notated as O-O-O and known as queen-side castling in orthodox chess"

This is what I mean when I say their decision was arbitrary and a typographical accident. Even their own appendix uses two different forms, or three if you count "0-0-0" as different from "0 - 0 - 0".

Finally I really didn't finish the case for 'O'. I thought that rational of the PGN standard, which is *the* standard for chess notation worldwide, would be enough.

There certainly are other sources who follow the standard and use 'O':

• WikiBooks - Chess/Algebraic notation
• Dan Heisman - Keeping a Chess Score With Algebraic Notation
• Chess.com - Algebraic notation
• The University of Edinburgh - Tutorial on Chess Notation

DrZukhar (talk) 20:59, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

PGN is definitely not "the" standard for chess notation. It is, I quote from the PGN spoecification, "a standard designed for the representation of chess game data using ASCII text files." PGN is meant for digital exchange of chess games. How to display chess games for the human eye is something different, although PGN was so designed that a raw PGN file would be readable for humans as well. I think that in printed publications, 0-0 is more common than O-O. (There could be differences between different languages though, as with punctuation. The only English language chess book I have at hand at the moment is the Oxford Companion, which uses zeroes.)

In digital publications that could be different because programmers or editors may think it is not worth the effort to transform the coding. But Chessbase for example, uses zeroes both at its website and in its database software. I suppose some Chessbase programmer wrote a simple routine which translated the PGN "O-O" to "0-0". (The Chessbase database has its own format, but it can read PGN as well.)

When someone cites books using zeroes, you call that "just finding examples of other people making the same mistake". But why would that be a mistake? Are you to decide that it is a mistake. Perhaps they just think '0-0' looks better. So do I. Bever (talk) 01:26, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people who have beaten Garry Kasparov in chess

FYI. postdlf (talk) 01:12, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Anish Giri and COI

Would you say that the user page User:Anaso1970 is indicative of WP:COI going on? Also, what about Special:Contributions/Ormódi? Toccata quarta (talk) 11:35, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Sure looks like a COI situation with User:Anaso1970. Most of this contributions aren't TOO out of line though. I did some cleaning up of the article, though I'm sure it needs more. --SubSeven (talk) 19:25, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Approaching a milestone: 25 more chess articles to reach 4000 for the project

The article assessment table near the top of the WP:CHESS page shows that 3975 articles have been tagged with the {{WikiProject Chess}} template. Although the project has suffered some recent losses, the 4000 article milestone is near. The project page list of milestones shows that it took about 15 months to grow the project from 2000 articles to 3000, hitting the latter milestone late in January 2009. Expansion has slowed considerably since then, which is probably natural as we have written about the majority of the most important chess topics. Quale (talk) 08:04, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, good to know that things are moving along nicely; but the item below that - WP:CHESS Assessment Statistics - appears contradictory, giving the number of articles as 3966. I'm not sure I understand why there are two such similar tables with conflicting information. Brittle heaven (talk) 23:06, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Sometimes you have to click the Refresh link at the upper right of the table to get up to date numbers. I had done that for the table on the WP:CHESS page but not the other. I don't know how often the tables are refreshed automatically. Quale (talk) 23:47, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Right, thanks. Obvious when you see the refresh button! Brittle heaven (talk) 10:07, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Visual Editor

Hi, just a heads up .. there is a fairly significant bug in the voodoo behind WP:Visual Editor which breaks {{chess diagram}}. You may see unintentional breakages occur. See bugzilla:51932. It would be a good idea to also let the Chess WikiProject in other languages know about this. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:30, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Not familiar with the visual editor but it would appear the FEN-parsing functionality didn't come a moment too soon. ―cobaltcigs 10:08, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

ICC

The articles Peter Svidler and Levon Aronian (possibly along with others) mention the ICC accounts of these two players. Is it proper to include this type of information in such articles? Incidentally, the Svidler page also duplicates it in the "External links" section, for which it may be more suited. What do you think? Best, Toccata quarta (talk) 08:49, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Seems unencyclopedic to include it IMO (even in EL sec). I'm not sure the player would want the info avail to the entire English-speaking world either; just to those players on the playsite, perhaps. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 09:42, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Unnecessary, since chess players aren't gamers. If Aronian and Svidler played a blitz match on ICC, commentators and spectators would likely still refer to them by their real names, not by their handles. Plus, unlike many online games, multiple chess servers exist and many chess players have different handles on different servers. Delete. Cobblet (talk) 08:53, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Merge?

I think List of The Master Game episodes should be merged into The Master Game. I don't have the time to pursue it though. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 19:48, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Not necessarily. If the article gets expanded later on it's probably better to have the list of episodes separated out. Cobblet (talk) 08:46, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Rochelle Ballantyne

Rochelle Ballantyne says "...potential for being the world's first female African-American chess Master and grandmaster." That at least needs a reference. But also, does it violate wp:POV or wp:ball? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 20:12, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Send to WP:AfD - we can add her back when she becomes a GM. Are we seriously keeping articles for every chess prodigy in existence?... Cobblet (talk) 21:21, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

It definitely violates WP:BALL. Toccata quarta (talk) 13:15, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

I'll take that part out. Other changes or deletion may be needed. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 22:36, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Incidentally, she isn't a chess prodigy; at her current age, being under 2000 is nothing exceptional. The article on Peter Lalić (2000+) didn't get much love at AfD. Toccata quarta (talk) 03:08, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Two new articles

• FIDE Online Arena - the service just started and there are no secondary sources. Does it need its own article?
• House of Staunton - there are some secondary sources about it that aren't referenced in the article. Does it meet wp:GNG? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:32, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

No and no. WP:SPIP. Cobblet (talk) 00:21, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

FIDE Online Arena the current article is inaccuarate and contains errors. There is only a test site until October; there are many more activities besides playing chess, there are no chess variants. I changed the article containing only information taken from the FIDE announcement, but this material was removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.47.49.205 (talk) 18:12, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

FIDE Online Arena I would like to discuss this with the person who removed the text, so that a mutually satisfactory solution can be found. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.47.49.205 (talk) 18:18, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Bug In The Mobile Version of The Chess Diagram module

I've filed a bugreport here (as well as the proposed fix), but I'm not sure whether that was the right place to do it. If I was mistaken, please instruct me on how to file such bug reports.

--Exizt (talk) 13:14, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Chess variant game names

The current state on WP is that chess variant game names with word "chess" in them have that word predominantly lower-case, but editor User:Samboy has quoted MOS here saying this is not correct, so I'm taking the opportunity to request discussion and try to get to a resolution of it. (If upper-case is correct, it will affect many variant article names, plus all the intra-article text that refers to game names.) There is quite an inconsistency on WP regarding this, I guess my intent is to improve that. Not really sure about discussion here, or at Talk:MOS, I've opened the latter here: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Board game names. Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 05:32, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Games are invented or created, not composed. See the first sentence of Capablanca chess or any other chess variant. So that section of the MOS does not apply and the word "chess" in variant names should remain uncapitalized. Cobblet (talk) 08:39, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I know games are "inventions", but Samboy by his edit and comments feels the MOS, which uses "composition", covers inventions. I agree "compositions" is an odd word to use if it covers inventions, but I'm not sure Samboy is hands-down wrong, since 1) the language in the MOS might be unintended semantic omission (i.e. was poorly written but intended to cover games), and 2) there is apparently is no positive MOS specific to titles for games. I'd like 100% confidence upper or lower case "chess" before asking for a MOS change to include that specificity. Samboy further feels WP should reflect how inventors refer to their games, e.g. Omega Chess, and Freeling refers to Grand chess as "Grand Chess" as Samboy has pointed out. (Do you think that's right? When is capitalization of "Chess" correct in the name for WP, never? If that is what you think, what is reason? Is your reason because lower-case is the default if no specific MOS title guideline exists? Or what reason.) Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 11:35, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I was only addressing the original issue at hand (Samboy's assertion that games are compositions.) See my comments below. Cobblet (talk) 20:56, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I think this issue is more complex that first appears too. For example, "FRC" stands for "Fischer Random Chess". In Gligoric's 2002 book, he repeatedly refers to the game name as "Fischerandom Chess". Do you think WP should instead present those names "Fischer random chess" and "Fischerandom chess"? Ihardlythinkso (talk) 11:41, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Let's follow Gligoric's lead. Of course, since this is a non-standard name for Chess960, use of the term should be avoided as much as possible. Cobblet (talk) 20:56, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Please check out Samboy's revert of my changes here. (I invited him to discuss on Talk:Capablanca chess and at his User talk, but he is semi-retired and apparently does not want to be on WP if he can help it, until 2014 judging by his recent edit sums. He opened a thread at Talk:Capablanca chess#WP:MOS and Titles where he left his argument, but it looks so far like he isn't discussing it because he already made clear in edit sums he felt inconvenienced by coming back on the WP to correct my changes, writing "Ugh", etc.) I'd like to get to a definitive answer if he is right or not. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 11:57, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

And what if sources disagree with lower-case? Take for example Alice chess. The game is represented "Alice Chess" in 1) The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants (Pritchard), 2) The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants (Pritchard, Ed. Beasley), 3) Popular Chess Variants (Pritchard), 4) New Rules for Classic Games (Schmittberger), and 5) Variant Chess article by George Jelliss here. (Not just the article titles but in the body of each of those sources; not at beginning of sentences but in mid-sentences.) So, the WP article is currently going its own way by lower-case, but is that right? - since it isn't consistent at all with the sources on that game. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 12:18, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Per the third sentence in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters, we should follow the most common capitalization style used in secondary sources, which may be different from the inventor's preference. If there are few or no sources that use "Alice chess" then we shouldn't use it either. Cobblet (talk) 20:56, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

The logic here is confusing. For example, if the guide is "what's in sources", then why is MOS specifying how to title compositions? (Why don't they just use what is in sources?) Also, some chess variant articles have limited sources, maybe even only one, slim pickings is the nature of the beast with chess variants, so there won't be a pattern to draw on, so it seems there should be a MOS-like standard as they have for compositions, re what is right or desired grammatically. (So that is what am trying to resolve. There doesn't seem to be a clear basis to know what is correct or not, and I'd like to get to definitive answer. Otherwise if one editor reverts another, a complex discussion ensues, like this one, and it shouldn't be as complex as that since the issue may repeat through hundreds of WP articles and texts.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 23:22, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

That's what the fourth sentence of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters is there for. The three sentences preceding it apply to most cases, including this one. If there are "slim pickings" for secondary sources then it should be asked whether the article satisfies WP:V at all. Cobblet (talk) 00:44, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I can count to four, but I don't see what fourth sentence you are talking about, can you specify it here, and also how it applies to what I asked? (Thanks.) Regarding "it should be asked whether the article satisfies WP:V at all", that question has been asked and already satisfied as far as I'm concerned, but that's a different issue really. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 01:57, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know why I'm being so obscure. "There are exceptions for specific cases discussed hereafter" is the line I was referring to. So if chess variants aren't compositions (to make an analogy, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is a composition, but the electric guitar is an invention) then only the first paragraph applies - follow whatever convention already exists among the sources. Cobblet (talk) 02:04, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

So are you saying if there is only one source for a given chess variant, WP should cap or not cap based on that source? Also the question I asked above ... why does the MOS find it necessary to elaborate about composition titles, why doesn't MOS simply defer to the first three sentences you pointed out? Last, it's clear User:Samboy disagrees about games not falling under compositions. I can see how there might be disagreement about that, as game inventions and the compositions named at the MOS do share creative process, and game inventions are even considered "artwork" in patent vernacular, so there is some semantic confusion admissable here and that is why I've asked for definitive answer at the MOS thread. (I would have been satisfied to see you & User:Samboy reach a consensus thru discussion, but he doesn't appear willing to discuss his edit changes.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 02:39, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Because the titles of books (chess books, even) and other works are often published in all-upper or all-lower case, so we need a convention to adhere to. Are game inventions really considered artwork by the USPTO? That's interesting to know. Still, I don't see how anyone could argue that chess variants are "compositions" if not a single article of ours describes a chess variant as having been "composed". Have you found a counterexample? Cobblet (talk) 02:50, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Also, what if there *are* multiple WP:RSs for a variant, but the sources are inconsistent in how they express the game name -- what then? (There should be a guide, rather than a "negative guide" like "since MOS has nothing specific about it, we shouldn't capitalize" when I don't know if that is a fair conclusion, unless there is something already in the MOS like that which I'm unware, that says what the default form should be when not specifically covered by any MOS.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 00:05, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Per my comment above, the MOS is very specific about what to do in situations it doesn't explicitly cover. And I'd interpret that third sentence to mean that if a phrase is not consistently capitalized by outside sources, it should not be treated as a proper name by Wikipedia. Cobblet (talk) 00:44, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

OK, I see that now. I agree with the your contrapositive interpretation too (that if it *isn't* consistently cap'd in sources, etc.). That still seems to leave it up to a judgment call however, if "consistently" doesn't necessarily mean 100 percent. (Does it to you?) Say I have 5 sources and 4 have it cap'd and 1 doens't, is it being "consistently" cap'd in those sources? (If you don't think 100% is required, and 4 vs 1 is enough, then what if there are 4 sources and 3 cap it and 1 does not? Or if you say 4 vs 1 is not enough, what if there are 6 sources and 5 cap it and 1 does not?) The word "consistently" isn't qualified or quantified for us so in the end it's subjective. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 02:17, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

In the end, every aspect of writing a Wikipedia article is a judgment call to some extent—otherwise we wouldn't need human editors at all. If I were the one examining the sources I'd be taking their quality into consideration as well, for example. Since I'm sure we've lost everyone by now, I'm going to stop. Cobblet (talk) 02:39, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Here is another view of this: Pritchard's The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants and The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants are in most cases the best WP:RS for chess variants, and there are 1,450 of them in ECV, and more in CECV. The "chess" is capitalized in all the variant game names that have the word "chess" in them. OK. (What does this mean? It means that Pritchard decided game names are in cap's, including word "chess" if that word occurs in the game name. [What else would it mean if not that?]) Let's say a new game almost made the CECV before publication, but didn't get there in time, but was published somewhere else instead. Had it made the CECV, it would have been a cap'd name. But it was published somewhere else, and perhaps "chess" wasn't cap'd there. And now the latter is the only source. And let's say we have hundreds of chess variant articles on WP and all names are cap'ing "chess" ala the Pritchard sources.

I guess my point is, Pritchard cap'd "chess" in variant game names, based on idea that game names are proper nouns, and, if WP is going to take on standard different from that (i.e. "what's in reliable sources"), then we are set up to have a real inconsistent-looking mess, and over what? Over lack of a standard like Pritchard imposed. We shouldn't do that, IMO. MOS should have the balls to declare "game names are proper nouns". I think that is why User:Samboy drew off that part of the MOS that he did. The only alternative is a mess, and Pritchard wisely decided for his books, not to allow such a mess. The WP encyclopedia is a big "book". There should be an equal consistency vis a vis game names. (And why again, does MOS have a specific section on "compositions"? If I would take a guess about why, I would say they do that to circumvent the situation, that some reliable sources misprint the name of compositions, using lower-case, and MOS does not want that junk to appear in the WP, so circumvents it by providing a specific section about compositions that overrides the "what is in sources" in the first three sentences you pointed out. So likewise, I have described why we need the same thing for game names, to protect consistency in the event some post-ECV/CECV variant reliable publishers do the wrong thing and "consistently" print the proper noun names in lower case. (Your argument is to include that in the WP if they do; my argument is that leads to a mess, and the compositions MOS section probably is there because the MOS writers thought the same thing vis a vis composition titles [i.e. how to protect against a mess].) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 03:27, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

On that basis I'd like to ask the MOS people to specifically mention "game inventions" in the compositions section as being inclusive. (Creating a whole new section seems unnecessary to me, but that would be second choice.) Does anyone disagree? Thanks for input. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 03:39, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Sure. I guess this would apply to video games as well. Cobblet (talk) 04:10, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I think so (I guess so) ... and table games, card games, dice games, tile games ... where there's an identifiable inventor. (Outside board games isn't my niche, so am somewhat uncomfortable generalizing. Maybe the MOS people can help w/ that!? Me thinks video games are likely commercialized so there's intellectual property stuff going on and cap'ing is always good due to proper noun etc., but I don't pretend the issue is all straightforward and walk in the park. [For example what about chess variants or games that don't have identifiable inventors, for example Pritchard says "Bughouse Chess" is an existing synonym for Bughouse, or games Fanorona or Senet -- are those unknown-inventor game names cap'd when in mid-sentence because they are titles and proper nouns?! I really do not intend to go there ... I think it's an interesting Q but would just complicate things; I'll just stick to board and possibly other-type games having identifiable inventors.]) Any further inputs are appreciated of course. Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 08:04, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

If you are hoping that the "MOS people can help", I fear you will be disappointed. They will be more than happy to dictate, but I don't always consider that to be helpful. I would like to follow our best sources (in the judgment of those like you who have some knowledge of chess variants), but that's not how the MOS people operate as they are completely unconcerned with real-world practices. If you don't care which way it goes and just want a standard to follow, then WT:MOS may be fruitful. Quale (talk) 02:27, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Zeman Attack

A new article, Zeman Attack, has no references except a link to a website. I think it should be deleted. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 15:20, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Yup, looks like someone's trying to be complete with the queen moves, even the non-notable ones. Qg4 (attacking g7) is anyway rather pointless UNTIL g7 becomes undefended (e.g. 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.Qg4) Double sharp (talk) 16:49, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Shall we PROD it? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 17:09, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, it is gone now. I didn't get around to PRODing it. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 17:44, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Edit warring by IP(s)

Comments are welcome (in fact, needed) regarding the recent editing history of the article Four Knights Game, Halloween Gambit. Thanks, Toccata quarta (talk) 03:33, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I admit I don't work on the articles of chess openings here all that much. But I think it's questionable whether these articles should be commenting on the soundness of these openings or their sidelines at all. Openings fall in and out of favor all the time. You are going to have sources that conflict with each other a LOT. Why even try and keep up with it? Soundness is basically an opinion anyway. Should a general encyclopedia be commenting on whether the Ng6 line of the Halloween Gambit is sound? State the moves of the opening, state the names and moves of 'named' sub-variations, and be done with it-- that's what I would think would be appropriate. But I hope people who actually do the work on these articles could comment. --SubSeven (talk) 02:13, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

"Soundness is basically an opinion anyway." Right. But the consensus of GMs is that the Ruy Lopez is sound, and WP should reflect that. And regarding 4.Nxe5 in the Four Knights Game, I doubt anyone could find one GM w/ opinion it is a sound opening. Of course there are a lot of openings between those two extremes, but hey! Ihardlythinkso (talk) 03:02, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Sure. I think any opening with its own article such as Ruy Lopez can be assumed to be sound anyway. My concern is more with the sidelines and sub-variations. --SubSeven (talk) 03:45, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'm following totally. Blackburne Shilling Gambit is example of opening article that does make contention on its unsoundness. (And there's some relativism here, right? I.e. what is sideline or sub-variation is pretty much an arbitrary line.) Anyway my beef w/ Halloween was that the new adds were reflecting distinct POV that 4.Nxe5 in Four Knights Game constituted "new discoveries in theory" which declare the move sound, undoing previously held theory which did not consider that. (And as mentioned I don't think there is even one GM saying 4.Nxe5 is sound. Meanwhile the IP editor first stated he "never said it was sound", "only playable", but then he reversed himself, saying he *did/does* take position that 4.Nxe5 is sound.) IMO one needs solid source(s) to make that kind of sweeping change of thought re assessment of 4.Nxe5 in Four Knights. (The IP also acknowledged same as a reversed assessment when he said "theory changes through time", etc. [He simply wants to change it *now*, in the WP article. User:Brittle heaven gave a very good response to that on the Halloween Talk page, IMO.]) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 19:35, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Commenting on soundness of openings still seems like a slippery slope to me, but if that's how it's generally done in these articles, what do I know. I think Brittle is on the right track in regards to sources. If you limit sources to key publications like yearbooks, Informants, ECOs, MCOs, etc. it can be manageable. Crucially, these are also secondary sources. Wikipedia should never be a clearing house for zero-day theory, even if it's GMs that are contributing the information. --SubSeven (talk) 00:12, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the latest source I know of that covers this line is Lysyj and Ovetchkin's "The Open Games for Black" (Chess Stars, 2012). They give a 4.Nxe5 a "?" and cite a line where they claim a clear edge for Black. If anyone's interested in adding it to the page I can give the line here. Cobblet (talk) 04:02, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Actually I just checked Kaufman's 2013 edition of his repertoire book. His recommendation improves over the Gaillard - Platel game for Black (the game where this IP had an improvement for White). Again I would be happy to provide the line. It boggles my mind, though, why we have Wikipedia articles for openings that are treated with single-line refutations in the literature... Cobblet (talk) 04:20, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I think you should add cites to both those references to the article. Unfortunately many bad openings attract a lot of attention from amateurs, and that attention can make them WP:GNG-worthy of articles. In this particular case there is more than a one refutation line claimed since Euwe and Pinski have very different ideas about how to handle the gambit. Without an article a non-specialist would find it hard to discover this. Thanks for your help. Quale (talk) 03:01, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Frankly, if it were up to me, I would delete the Halloween Gambit article entirely and redirect to the section under Four Knights Game. There I would write:

4.Nxe5?! is the Halloween Gambit. After 4...Nxe5 5.d4 Black retains the better chances by returning the piece with 5...Nc6 6.d5 Bb4! 7.dxc6 Nxe4 8.Qd4 Qe7 9.Be3 0-0 10.Bd3 Bxc3 11.bxc3 Bd6 12.cxb7 Bxb7 13.0-0 Rfe8 14.Rab1 Bc6 and "White has no compensation for his poor pawn structure" (Kaufman). Keeping it with 5...Ng6 6.e5 Ng8 7.Bc4 d5! 8.Bxd5 N8e7 9.Bg5 Qd7 also leads to a clear advantage according to Lysyj and Ovetchkin, although Kaufman notes that this line carries more risk for Black.

And then I'd give the relevant citations. I checked a few more recent books: Obodchuk (Four Knights Game, New in Chess 2011), Sakaev (The Petroff: an Expert Repertoire for Black, Chess Stars 2011) and Marin (Beating the Open Games, 2nd ed., Quality Chess 2008) fail to mention the gambit completely, while Lakdawala (The Four Knights: Move by Move, Everyman 2012) gives a weaker line for Black (White is at least equal) which is therefore irrelevant. Given that that's the state of affairs in the current literature, I don't think one can argue that the Halloween Gambit satisfies WP:SIGCOV, so we shouldn't have to have an entire article on it. I think my three sentences above ought to be sufficient. What do you guys think? Cobblet (talk) 04:08, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Put me down as a yes, definitely. It's a start in the right direction. I'd even consider paring things back even further. IMHO, a non-reference manual with limited expertise among its editorship should only aim to cover the initial moves of established, popular, named openings/variants, so that we can see the moves that characterize the (properly sourced) named variation. And go no further. Otherwise, we will constantly be challenged on quoted lines and whether they are currently the best. At present, I feel we are walking a dangerous line, which aims to give some guidance on what occurs next, when really a reference to a text that offers further information would be a much simpler, NPOV-guaranteed approach. That way, editors can simply change the cited 'recommended text' as new ones come along, rather than reviewing/updating any analysis. Brittle heaven (talk) 17:56, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

But wouldn't that plan differ little from the aim of the Simple English Wikipedia? Also, the devil's in the details ... e.g. Budapest Gambit, would you pare down the extensive coverage, and if so, how? Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 19:51, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I can definitely see where Brittle heaven's coming from. So for the Halloween gambit we'd simply say something like 4.Nxe5 is the Halloween Gambit, which current theory regards as being dubious and give my two references, replacing them with new ones whenever the next repertoire book on 1.e4 e5 comes out. For a line as trivial as this (never played at GM level and whose evaluation is unlikely ever to change) such an approach also seems appropriate.

For me it comes down to what I feel is more likely to deter folks like Zimbeck from trying to add their analysis to Wikipedia. I think giving the two specific lines will slow them down (I'm quite confident he'll never find anything for White there) but I could be wrong. But even if Zimbeck discovered something in those two lines and tried to add his analysis, we should simply say, "Sorry, we cannot accept your additions because of WP:OR. Please consider publishing your analysis in New in Chess Yearbook or Chess Informant instead. Thank you :)"

As for the Budapest Gambit, I can definitely see places where coverage could be shortened. For example, in the Fajarowicz Gambit only 4.Nf3 (historically the most common move) and 4.a3 (the current refutation according to theory) deserve mention; 4.Qc2 does not. After 3...Ng4 4.Bf4 g5 only the most popular move 5.Bg3 should be given, since this is also theory's current recommendation. The entire paragraph Budapest Gambit#Line 4...Bc5 with a2–a3 could be excised since White rarely plays this way anymore. The coverage of Alekhine's 3...Ng4 4.e4 could be shortened to one or two paragraphs. And so on... that article's very well written, but unfortunately its sources are outdated, which is why it covers lines that theory no longer considers critical. Cobblet (talk) 22:29, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

It's a mistake to cover only current lines. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and historical coverage is one of its greatest potential benefits. If a line is out of fashion, the article should say so, and ideally explain why. That said, I don't think Budapest Gambit is a good example of what our chess opening articles should be. It's far too detailed, and this at least raises the appearance of WP:NOTHOWTO. (I say appearance, because you know that no Wikipedia article would be sufficient for preparation by a tournament player, but that's what it looks like to those not familiar with serious chess.) This also causes trouble because the evaluation of detailed lines changes too frequently, and I fear that some of the lines are just theoretical recommendations found in a single book and haven't been thoroughly tested at a master level. I think a higher level treatment such as that in Ruy Lopez or Slav Defense is better, but I'm not entirely objective about those pages because I worked on them. Quale (talk) 06:29, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Just one point: Budapest has "Good article" rating, one of 16 Good articles at ProjChess. (Wouldn't that be the time [i.e. WP:GAC] to correct or test such a criteria as "far too detailed"? And doesn't that show there's no agreed-upon standard or criteria re breadth & depth for openings articles yet? [I think so. But that issue is systemic: there are *very few* standards or criteria for anything chess-related; ProjChess seems to float without them. In 20 years, if WP survives, that will be totally different. {But I probably won't live to see it. I would like to see some presentation consistency during my lifetime, *sigh!*}]) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 09:23, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Lax standards for chess articles in general (particularly biographies) is why I stopped editing them years ago. But of course, if we want standards, we have to set them ourselves... Cobblet (talk) 09:49, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

OMG! (I've [finally] discovered someone who feels as I do! An absence of presentation standards has dragged down my motivation too. [Am not so active w/ BLPs, but am interested to know what standards you feel are most missing there; could you explain on my User talk perhaps? Thx.]) "We have to set them ourselves". Agreed. But it takes more than one or two people. And there hasn't been the appetite necessary for that kind of collaboration. (At least since my time on the WP, 3 years.) Sincere, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 10:16, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

I think even ECO does that type of thing. (E.g. Vol C Ed. 3 drops a lot of lines given in Ed. 2, but never failing to give the latest & greatest, in many openings I've looked up. It's a pain for *me* to have to keep both volumes and consult both books, but that's because I usually want thorough coverage when I'm looking up, which is probably a different objective than what is for the Wikipedia. But perhaps that objective for chess openings articles hasn't been defined specifically before, i.e., what is the target for depth and breadth of coverage? And wouldn't it require an individual or team to have *all* openings articles in their review lense, for comparative consistency re same? A big project. And currently without definition. A single article could stand up as a model, however. Budapest Gambit might be a good candidate for that model!?) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 20:05, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Good questions. I might make a separate thread on the subject since I'm planning to write the Modern Benoni article. Just to clarify though, are you OK with me deleting the Halloween Gambit page? Cobblet (talk) 22:29, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Um, not me. I've stayed out of content issues re Halloween (single exception adding the Schiller line). An opinion to delete in light of the recent eruption from the IP looks too much like selective treatment stemming from that eruption. I wouldn't be in favor of delete unless an equal standard were applied to other opening articles with similar issues, and those issues haven't been defined or reached consensus from what I can see, there is no standard in operation here so I don't see basis for acting on one which doesn't exist. However the issue and criteria are defined, there will probably be several articles, if not a lot, that meet said criteria, not just Halloween. I guess this discussion was not what I thought it was for, so I'm bowing out at this point and will leave to others. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 00:28, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Two good, contrasting examples there I would say. The Budapest Gambit article is very well constructed and perhaps doesn’t go too far overboard with any individual lines, but there are a lot of lines (i.e. the breadth of coverage is extensive, but not so much the depth). I think if the consensus was to remain informative to a point (e.g. a sample line, occasional pointers to positional and tactical aims/nuances etc.) then this is a pretty good model. Probably, my own preference to strip opening articles down to a lesser degree of detail would be difficult to achieve now that the horse has bolted – and in this instance, we’d upset at least three respected editors, even if trimming back were an easy task, which of course it’s not. So ... if for argument’s sake we decided that the Budapest Gambit is a good model, then we can probably agree that the Benoni Defense article is not. Taking for example the section on 'Old Benoni', we are told it is 1.d4 c5, but that it may transpose to a Czech Benoni (really? Why not to a Modern Benoni also? Or a Benko Gambit? Or a Blumenfeld Gambit? Or a Schmid Benoni? … etc.). But there are some independent variations (What are they then?). It was played in an old Alekhine game (why no details?). It’s also sometimes named after Blackburne, as he’s the first player known to have used it successfully (really? Must look at the in-line reference for that one – oh, it’s a link to Chessgames.com, where there is nothing to back up the statement and even if there was, it would be the word of a random kibitzer!). Clearly a lot of work needed there, just to make some sense of it, even more if you want to bring it up to a good standard. To return to the central point, I'd be interested to hear the views of others – mainly, whether they think the Budapest article is too extensive, about right, or otherwise? Brittle heaven (talk) 00:54, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

I'll just summarize my own opinion again: rather heavy emphasis on side variations and untested analysis which needs to be removed, but otherwise all right; main issue is outdated sources, not length. Cobblet (talk) 01:42, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

What an interestingly subjective discussion you guys are having. Did you even look at my analysis? Censoring is all this is ~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.205.68.46 (talk) 04:57, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Also Cobblet, in response to the lines I could not have a response on, I have solved those lines eons ago. You say

"4.Nxe5?! is the Halloween Gambit. After 4...Nxe5 5.d4 Black retains the better chances by returning the piece with 5...Nc6 6.d5 Bb4! 7.dxc6 Nxe4 8.Qd4 Qe7 9.Be3 0-0 10.Bd3 Bxc3 11.bxc3 Bd6 12.cxb7 Bxb7 13.0-0 Rfe8 14.Rab1 Bc6 and "White has no compensation for his poor pawn structure" (Kaufman)." First of all, cxb7 is a mistake the move is my brilliant cxd7!! and then bxd7 Qe4!! QxQ BxQ Rb8 OOO and now whites active attack against the queenside pawns and his quickly activated king easily hold the balance Houdini give 0.00 on my supercomputer. Also the line 5...Ng6 6.e5 Ng8 7.Bc4 d5! 8.Bxd5 N8e7 9.Bg5 Qd7 and now Be4! Nf5 which is not even CLOSE to a clear advantage. White just plays Qd3 and the position is highly complex and dangerous. I have beaten houdini myself in blitz with this line. I will send you a free copy of my analysis if you would like to see all the lines. This would be on the article now if i was not being censored.166.205.68.46 (talk) 05:12, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Is there a typo somewhere in the 5...Nc6 line? (Because 11...Bd6 is given but not possible; and if that's a typo and 11...Nd6 was meant then 12.cxd7 Bxd7 13.Qe4 doesn't work due to 13...Nxe4 of course.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 05:46, 19 August 2013 (UTC) p.s. Are you making your own definition of supercomputer!?

That's interesting, User:166.205.68.46. That's also all original research, and Wikipedia explicitly doesn't publish that, as you're probably aware. Nobody's trying to "censor" you: if you're looking for a place to publish your own opening analysis, there are reputable opening publications such as the New In Chess Yearbook or Chess Informant who would no doubt be pleased to accept your work. And if you published there, and your lines held up to practical tests at the GM level, we'd gladly reconsider mentioning your lines.

And by the way, I did see your first line on your site, and while it probably is an improvement over Kaufman, it's also hardly what White would want out of the opening. Regarding your second line, beating Houdini in blitz is all well and good, but now you're basically telling me to trust your analysis with a supercomputer even though you're beating said supercomputer in blitz. It's a strange double standard you have, I must say. You have a 2300 USCF, don't you? Why don't you play, say, the American Open later this year, and publish a couple of annotated GM crushes in Chess Life? Cobblet (talk) 12:51, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Wish I could but I stopped competitive chess thats why my rating stopped going up. Also you are correct blitz or taking my word for it is not really relevant sorry about that. I already know that wikipedia does not accept original work. I did not understand wikipedia and was only upset that there was unsourced analysis there and krabbes website and then I was told my website was not a reliable source. At this point I dont care since I will never contribute to wikipedia anymore. I will probably have to publish it one day. Its sad that all my hard work on gambits just sits here collecting dust. Just understand Kaufman is only one GM there are others who are friends of mine who would not necessarily agree. Correspondence chess is held to a higher standard as well. I agree the endgame is not what white wants but all that matters is that he can hold it. The truth of the position is all that matters in theory. Also, the Qd7 lines in my analysis were also in the UCO pdf where wind analyses it. They had several moves after Nf5 and I believe Qd3 was also mentioned but no analysis given. I have a copy of the pdf which has disappeared from the internet. I can even host it on my site would that make it WP:RS? After all you guys had a link to the article. I was not mentioning any line that was not already there. That also got me annoyed that the article ignored the opinions of its own sources. Also it seemed to push POV on an unsourced line. The lines were in my free ebook one my blog which is all updated now for the Qd3 line. Interestingly the line I think is the strongest is my own little secret line which is c6 instead of Qd7(after Bg5) However, I have analysed those down to the endgames and was not able to crack whites position. Even c6 after bxd5 was really complex. Although after Be6 white has Bxe6 with a fortress that has fared out ok in computer test matches. More interesting was OO where black plays what I found to be best play from there Qd7 Ne4 OOO c3 Be7 Qe2 Nh6 and h3 where my analysis becomes a gruesome battle for the f-file. Its still unclear although black holds lots of promise in these lines. No refutation yet though. I think that POV exists even on the GM level. I personally avoid it until I know for certain. I said it was playable. I have no idea if its sound however I can guarantee it is not "refuted". My opinion is that it is sound on a human level. Humans will probably never be good enough at chess to play these lines correctly even if such a refutation existed since it exponentially gets more complicated every move. That is a mathematical fact. Just look at tablebases. Interestingly, my last couple tournaments was the North American Open. Both years I desperately tried to play the Halloween but nobody played e5. I kept getting c5 where I played the wing gambit. I did draw 3 GMs though and actually had a shot at first being up a pawn last round against FM Lee (a lucky pairing) but I just offered a draw to secure the U2300 since I knew nobody would catch me. A win would have tied for first with the GMs so in retrospect I probably should have just won my game. Now I think fishing pole might be something I have a better shot at getting. I found that to be playable and improved on every single Brian Wall line. I found refutations and refuted my own refutations. Also the PINSKI Qg7 line is not even clear albeit wild to play. I could not find a quick refutation though. For example, after Qd4 Qe7 Qxg7 I thought that Nxc3 Be3 Ne4 c3 Rf8 cb4 Qb4 Kd1 dc6 f3 Be6! wins. But I looked again and found that instead of f3 white has a3 trying to play Qd4 with a trade of queens where the ending is not totally out of resources for white to play for draws. More interestingly was the insane Ke2 after Qxb4+ where f6 is the best there Kf3! dc6 Rd1 Be6 Rd4 Ng5+ Kg3 Qa5 and Kh4!! with Be2 black finds it hard to castle and the white king will escape eventually. All my test games white survived although I would not recommend it. It just highlights how hard it is to beat any line. Funny thing is, on the page it says after Qxg7 Nc3 Be3 Nd5 which is not really that good for black. Because c3 Rf4 cb4 ne3 fe3 qb4 and kf2 where black has absolutely nothing. Also there is fe3 qe3 but now be2 and rd1 and again black is hard pressed to get castled or to win. Of course thats not really a big deal since we already know that white gets the ending in the main line after be3 OO bd3 nc3 bc3 bd6 cd7 bd7 qe4 qe4 rb8 ooo and again not only does whites attack on the queenside pawns and active king hold but I am pretty sure it makes the doubled pawns insignifigant. Besides he can even push c4 and c5. He will get his king out quickly with kb2. If there is a refutation its in the bowels of one of the main lines and I am sure only Caissa herself knows as of now.166.205.68.46 (talk) 16:04, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Also I am pretty sure you could just have noticed the typo. I meant nxc3 after bd3 Ihardlythinkso. Bd6 is possible it was on b4 and after bd3 he took on c3 with his knight and then retreated to d6 as was suggested earlier. Also I am not making my own definition of supercomputer there is no need to be rude. I am running a network with 16 processors so yeah its a supercomputer. Its called a cluster. I have houdini 3 and rybka although a majority of the work was done before those engines existed. Now the computer only aids in verifying and cleaning up the lines. 166.205.68.31 (talk) 17:51, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

For the record, the main line in Qd7 goes like this:

9. Bg5 Qd7 10. Be4 Nf5 11. Qd3 Nxd4 (11... h6 12.Be3 unclear (12. Bd2!?)) 12. O-O-O c5 (12... Bc5 13. Kb1!?) 13. f4! h6 (13... Rb8 14. Nd5 (14. Rhe1!?)) 14. e6 Nxe6 15. Qc4 Bd6 16. Nb5 Nd4 17.Rxd4 cxd4 18. Bf5 Qc6 19. Qxc6+ bxc6 20. Nxd6+ Kf8 21. Bxg6 Be6 22. Bxf7= My database contains much more in depth explanation. Houdini lost several games trying to play Rb8 where his position kept deteriorating. I have analysed it pretty deep so I am familiar with the tactics. Some people think the main line is better because Brause had trouble with Bb4 after Ng8. So that goes like this: Nxe5 Nxe5 d4 Ng6 e5 Ng8 Bc4 Bb4 Qf3 Bxc3+ bxc3 Qe7 h4!! This move is an improvement over O-O for its simplicity in getting equality. O-O and Qe3 etc were interesting but I was not able to decide on a concrete plan. So instead I mapped out h4! With some truly amazing lines. Its all on my site. Really, almost every single line in the Halloween that had trouble I saved. Another was Ne5 Ne5 d4 Nc6 d5 Ne5 f4 Ng6 e5 Ng8 and many people think white is winning after d6 but in reality, black has cxd6 exd6 Qf6 Nb5 Nxf4 where I was not able find much except for a few difficult endings for white. So I made two massive improvements. The first is after Qf6 Qe2+ Qe6 Nb5 and the endgame is ok for white. However my completely original line that I created deviates before that. So after e5 Ng8 you play Qe2! with some exceptional play in all lines. There was another line too that went Ne5 Ne5 d4 Ng6 e5 Ng8 Bc4 d6 Qf3 Qd7 O-O dxe5 dxe5 nxe5 and Qe3 forces a draw however white can also play Re1 Bd6 Bf4 f6 and I have a novelty here that gets white a massive attack instead of the main line where black had a better ending. My line went, Bb5 c6 rd1! Qc7 Qg3 and all hell breaks loose. I really could go on forever I know the lines by heart. 166.205.68.31 (talk) 19:19, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Jack Collins

There are articles Jack Collins (chess player) and John W. Collins - we don't need both. The first article is a new one and it is flagged as a possible copyright violation. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:09, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

The first one was deleted and made a redirect. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 14:18, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Modern Benoni

I'm pleased to say that almost five years after User:Hushpuckena requested it on the main page, an article on the Modern Benoni has finally been created. My goal is to send it to WP:GAN, so I would appreciate any help in polishing up the article. Cobblet (talk) 07:54, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Great stuff. I've put a few brief comments on the Modern Benoni talk page, based on a quick read through. Brittle heaven (talk) 12:53, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Or, or, or...

Does anyone consider the "or or or" format of the article World Chess Championship 2014 proper? I can't help but feel that it violates WP:BALL and WP:NOTNEWS. It's comparable to the live ratings insanity on the Carlsen page a few months back. Toccata quarta (talk) 04:26, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

The finalists at the World Cup will be known in a couple of days, so that'll sort itself out soon enough. And I don't think it's WP:BALL to point out only three players can finish second in the Grand Prix, or who the Wch finalists are. IMO, let's save ourselves the trouble of a potential edit war over something that's pretty harmless and just leave it be. Cobblet (talk) 04:42, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Nelson Mariano III

I'm pretty sure this article doesn't meet WP:GNG. Toccata quarta (talk) 05:44, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

And on a related note, Nelson Mariano II needs a lot of cleanup. Toccata quarta (talk) 06:15, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Done some editing on the article and put in my sandbox in case of deletion. Allenjambalaya (talk) 15:03, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Chess traps and WP:GNG

Can anyone please explain how any of the traps in Category:Chess traps satisfy WP:GNG and merit their own article? My opinion is that they should all be merged into List of chess traps, with some general references given. I'll do it next weekend if nobody has an opinion on the issue. Cobblet (talk) 21:17, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Noah's Ark Trap and Tarrasch Trap don't meet WP:GNG? You have a very different understanding of the guideline than I do. What problem are you trying to solve? Quale (talk) 23:47, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

The problem I see is that judging from our present standards (i.e. no standards at all), all the traps listed in Giddins's 101 Chess Opening Traps (Gambit, 1998) could potentially have their own article. Or even all the traps in Mueller and Knaak's 1000 Opening Traps. Who here has actually heard of the Vienna Game, Würzburger Trap? Or the Ruy Lopez, Marshall Attack, Rombaua Trap? I agree that the two you listed are somewhat more notable than the rest, but I would argue that neither have received "more than a trivial mention." I don't see why they need to be separated from, say, an article on the Open Spanish or the Deferred Steinitz (both of which would definitely merit a stand-alone article, IMO). Cobblet (talk) 00:30, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

To illustrate my point, compare Budapest Gambit#Kieninger trap with Budapest Gambit, Kieninger Trap. Right now the two are practically identical in content—only the latter reads more like a game guide. I frankly don't see what we'd lose by deleting the latter article right now. Does anyone foresee how an encyclopedic discussion of this trap could be expanded to the point where keeping it as a section within Budapest Gambit would no longer be appropriate? Cobblet (talk) 06:55, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

To speak to your first points, all the traps in that book probably do not warrant separate articles because they fail WP:GNG for lack of non-trivial coverage. For one thing, all the traps in Category:Chess traps have names. The number of named chess traps is quite modest, and I suspect that most of Gidding's traps do not have names. (I don't have Gidding's book, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this point). In my opinion you have an exaggerated sense of danger here. Category:Chess traps has existed since 2005, and eight years later it has no where near 101 pages in it. In fact there are 16 traps in the category, with only one page, the Rombaua Trap, added since 2009. At the current rate of growth it will take over 20 years for the category to reach 100 pages. The Rombaua Trap page may certainly need attention or possibly deletion, but that can be managed on that page itself. Again, what is the problem you are trying to solve?

• You are correct—in fact I believe none of the traps in Giddins's book have names. However, I see no reason why a trap, or any opening line for that matter, must have a name in order to satisfy WP:GNG. We have Sicilian Defence, Dragon Variation, Yugoslav Attack, 9.Bc4 for example, which satisfies WP:GNG in spades. I'll address your comments in full below. Cobblet (talk) 06:18, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

The Noah's Ark and Tarrasch Traps are extremely well known in the chess world, and since you surely know that I find your grudging admission that they are "somewhat more famous" to be disappointing. Frankly qualifying that statement with "somewhat" simply seems not forthcoming. They aren't the only well-known traps, as the Lasker, Rubinstein, Kieninger, and Elephant traps are also quite famous, although the names aren't familiar to everyone. I'm surprised that you say that the Noah's Ark and Tarrasch traps have only trivial coverage, but I guess that's just an honest difference in judgment.

• I don't dispute that the Noah's Ark Trap is well known. I would dispute that either Tarrasch Trap is well known—I've read that article multiple times over the years, precisely because I keep forgetting what they are. I have a friend (master-strength, no less) who told me he once did the same. I searched on Google Books and did find a lot of old books that mention the Tarrasch Trap by name, so I trust your assessment. Please excuse my lack of a proper education in the classics :-) That the other traps you mentioned are famous despite very few people knowing their names—I can find you many books that give the "Elephant Trap" without supplying the name, for instance; and I caught someone in the Rubinstein Trap in a tournament game years ago, showed the game to many friends, and nobody has ever said to me "Ah, that's the Rubinstein trap! What do you mean, you've never heard it called that way?"—reinforces the notion that traps need not have names in order to be notable. "More than a trivial mention" is the key to satisfying WP:N, IMO. Cobblet (talk) 06:18, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

It's good that you suggest that Tarrasch Trap would have to be merged to a spun-off page rather than to Ruy Lopez, as merging to the latter would be unworkable. I think splitting the Ruy Lopez page would be an excellent idea for reasons not connected with chess opening traps, as the page is rather unwieldy now. Unfortunately Ruy Lopez, Open Defense wouldn't be enough on its own, as the pieces that are left would still leave the main page unwieldy. (It's still worth doing, of course, even if it doesn't fix every ill of the parent page.) I worked on the Ruy Lopez page but could not think of a good solution. If you have ideas how to make this work better, I encourage it. All the same, you are suggesting merging to two pages that don't exist (there are two Tarrasch Traps, and only one is in the Open Defense). Create those pages first and then we can discuss whether the merge is a good idea.

• Sorry, I said the Deferred Steinitz when I meant the Old Steinitz. In any case, you've convinced me to change my mind on that particular article. Cobblet (talk) 06:18, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

As far as the Wurzburger trap goes, anyone who has read The Oxford Companion to Chess might have heard about it, as it's on page 451 of the 2nd edition. The Oxford Companion isn't a specialist work on chess traps or even on chess openings, but a general encyclopedia on chess. I'm sure Hooper and Whyld would have preferred to have had unlimited space for their encyclopedia, but that's a perk afforded Wikipedia that a dead tree publication in 1992 did not have. Few chess traps are mentioned in the limited space available in the book (less than 500 pages), suggesting that the traps selected for the work are notable. In general I would say that nearly everything in the Oxford Companion is worthy of coverage in Wikipedia, with the exception of some obscure names for opening variations found in the appendix. Most of the entries in the text itself (not the appendix) deserve articles on their own. The primary exceptions are again minor opening variations. For example, the Charousek Gambit should definitely be mentioned at Rudolf Charousek and might be mentioned at Falkbeer Countergambit if it is thought important enough in that context, but it doesn't merit a page of its own because Oxford merely defines it without saying anything else about it.

• Those of you who are following this discussion and know of the Würzburger Trap because you've happened to read the Oxford Companion or a very old edition of MCO from cover to cover, please feel free to poke fun at my ignorance :-) For the rest of us, here's the actual entry:

  Würzburger Trap, 628 in the Vienna Gambit, named around 1930 after the Berlin banker Max Würzburger, who spent much of the 1930s in Paris. Black's bishop on c2 is trapped (5...Qh4+ is probably an error).

  To me, this is exactly the sort of "trivial mention" WP:N is talking about. No mention of who he played it against or if he even played it at all—did Würzburger even play chess? Nor are we given a source that might answer such questions. Predictably, googling "Würzburger Trap" only turns up sites that quote the Companion essentially verbatim. Likewise, a search on Edward Winter's site turns up nothing. While I don't doubt much of the content in the Companion merits coverage on Wikipedia, I'd also assert that many entries, particularly minnows like this one, definitely don't deserve stand-alone articles. Cobblet (talk) 06:18, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

As for your second points, the standalone Kieninger Trap article certainly isn't essential, but it has some practical advantages. For one, it affords greater space to explain what's happening. I'm afraid that I'm boggled that you consider this "game guide" like material, as it is a simple explanation of what's going on and why. To use your logic no Wikipedia chess page should ever explain why any move is made or not made, as that makes the page a "game guide". Instead we can just list reams of variations without giving the non-chess specialist reader any help to understand what's going on at all. The only difference between this explanation and the overwhelming detail of much of the Budapest Gambit page is that a beginner or non-specialist would have some hope to follow what's going on in the standalone page. The second advantage of a standalone page is that it is easier to put in a category. There is a pretty good alternative, however, which is to create a redirect and then put the redirect in the category. If all the pages in the category were deleted we could simply rely on List of chess traps instead. Although there are advantages to categories and lists, it is not essential to have both. Quale (talk) 02:14, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your detailed reply. In light of your comments I've taken a more careful look at Category:Chess traps. I believe Italian Game, Blackburne Shilling Gambit; Légal Trap; and Ruy Lopez, Tarrasch Trap would likely satisfy WP:N and can stay. The others should either be merged into List of chess traps or the article of their parent opening, because most of these list the Companion or a similar reference book as the lone reference. My problem is that IMO, this is not "significant coverage" per WP:N; and if it is, there are likely hundreds of traps that also meet WP:N.

After all, there are dozens of books on chess traps. Most of these books cover at least a hundred traps—some cover many more than that. They're not dry lists either—each trap gets some sort of explanation/analysis. If a short entry from the Companion like the one I quoted above counts as "more than a trivial mention", surely the type of coverage in these books also counts as "significant." Plus, it's hardly uncommon for one trap to be covered in several of these books. It follows, then, that there are likely hundreds of traps that receive "significant coverage" from multiple independent, reliable sources, easily satisfying WP:GNG. I think this is absurd: a lone entry in the Companion does not automatically make any chess topic notable enough to deserve its own article. So most of the articles in Category:Chess traps should be merged.

Why do I care so much about merging these articles? Because there are other opening articles like Greco Defence; Giuoco Piano, Jerome Gambit; Irish Gambit; and Four Knights Game, Halloween Gambit; that fail to satisfy WP:N, for exactly the same reason: a lack of "significant coverage", IMO, and I'd like to merge them into Open Game or Italian Game or Four Knights Game at some point. If there are people here who'd like to have a discussion on what exactly ought to constitute "significant coverage" for a chess opening, I'd be happy to get into that in a separate topic. Let me make it clear once again that my intention isn't to delete content, it's to make sure only openings satisfying WP:N get their own article.

WRT Budapest Gambit, Kieninger Trap, I'm afraid you've completely misconstrued my meaning, so I'll try to clarify what I meant to say. My only specific complaint about that article would be the line "note that Black's queen pins White's e-pawn against its king, so 9.exd3 is illegal since it would put White's king in check" which IMO is definitely instruction, not information. Hence my saying it reads more like a game guide. My general complaint about that article, and the reason why I'd like to see it merged, is that virtually everything else in the article is also covered under Budapest Gambit#Kieninger trap and Budapest Gambit#On the way till 10...d6, and in a tone more appropriate for an encyclopedia, to boot. I see no need for "greater space to explain what's happening", as you put it: it's already all there. I think we could treat most of the other opening traps in a similar fashion, and leave the ones that aren't amenable to such treatment in List of chess traps.

WRT your last point: we could also mention the Kieninger trap and other such articles in List of chess traps and link from there to Budapest Gambit#Kieninger trap, for example. Cobblet (talk) 06:18, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I've only just started poking around the chess articles, but it does seem like it would be useful for this WikiProject to put forth its own notability criteria for openings in general (not just traps). I feel ill-equipped to take a stab at it myself; would either of you be up for coming up with a draft that could then be applied to all the articles rather than this seemingly difficult back-and-forth referencing individual examples. If what I'm suggesting has already been tried, I apologize; I didn't dig through the talk page archives here. --Rhododendrites (talk) 06:48, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Sorry about the long delay replying to you—I haven't had much time for Wikipedia in the last few days, but also I hoped that this discussion would attract other comment. It's unlikely that we will agree on the core issue, so the opinion of a few other people will probably be necessary to give this a definite resolution. You aren't alone in suggesting that the chess trap articles should be merged or deleted, so there are other editors who agree with you even if they haven't spoken up here. (If you look in the talk page archives I think you will find at least one prior discussion about this. I advocated keeping the articles just as I have here, but there was no strong consensus developed either way.) I won't reply to everything you wrote because my initial points still stand, but I do have just a few more things to say.

You miss the point when you compare inclusion in a book on chess traps to a short entry in the Oxford Companion. No matter how extensive the analysis in a specialist work, inclusion in the Companion is a much stronger indication of notability by the nature of the editorial process used to select the items for a general reference. The specialist works will be much more all inclusive, while in contrast the printed general reference will be much more selective. The Companion includes the topics that Hooper & Whyld thought most important to provide an overview of chess. Books by Giddings and Chernev and others include all the chess traps they could find to fill a book.

References are thin for many of the articles, although I think most of that can be remedied. (To be fair, my "horrible outcomes haven't been demonstrated in the eight years that we've had these articles" can certainly be turned around here. Since they've been here for eight years, why aren't they better cited?) Two pages with more than the Companion as a reference are Magnus Smith Trap (an interesting note from My 60 Memorable Games, although here it's fair to point out that Fischer doesn't refer to it as the Magnus Smith and there's no reason to believe that he would have recognized that name) and Siberian Trap (where again the name is a possible issue, although Burgess does use it).

Concerns about a single sentence in an article (your complaint about Kieninger Trap) are generally best handled just by just editing the article. That doesn't require achieving consensus about an entire category. It might still be good to merge the page, but you can fix that problem right now. (I don't necessarily agree that it is a problem in this case, but I haven't given it much thought.)

I appreciate both your chess knowledge and enthusiasm for improving chess coverage in Wikipedia, and your willingness to take on difficult tasks. While I agree that bad content should be removed (Kingston Defence was a success in that area), my opinion is that at this time we can make the greatest improvement to chess coverage in Wikipedia by adding more good content (or even great content, if we can manage it), rather than removing what we have. I'm a little surprised that you are directing your energies to removing or merging articles, rather than improving them or creating new ones. (I think you have some good chess knowledge to share with Wikipedia, and I would think that you would want to add that new content rather than just rearranging what other editors have written. I haven't added much new of value in years, but others have done a lot more.) Along those lines I also don't agree that merging irregular chess opening pages is a good idea. That's a whole other long discussion we can have if you like, but in addition to the same sort of arguments I've made here there is the limited number of irregular openings (only 13, and until the rules of chess are changed so that White has more than 20 possible opening moves there won't ever be any more) and the fact that the openings don't share any useful context other than the fact that they are rarely played chess openings. You don't learn anything more about 1.h3 to have 1.Nh3 discussed on the same page. I'm afraid that all this seems to me to be not helpful to make Wikipedia better. Nothing is stopping you from creating a great page on the Open Defense to the Ruy right now without having to merge anything at all. Quale (talk) 00:16, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Five years ago, I rewrote our articles on the Sicilian, Nimzo and French. Reorganized that Ruy Lopez article you keep bringing up, as well—if you don't like it the way it is now, you should've seen the mess it was in before. I'm working on something in my sandbox right now—it isn't quite ready yet, but almost. Saying that I'm "directing my energies to removing or merging articles, rather than improving them or creating new ones" is a little unfair.

One of the reasons I stopped in the first place was this question: what is the point of me trying to write a well-balanced article on the French when we allow entire articles on 1.e4 e6 2.d4 f5 to stand? For me at least, it's been very encouraging that that article was finally deleted earlier this year. But this is the real reason why I brought up the chess traps: if you allow entire articles on trivial opening lines to stand (and that's what most opening traps are), there's no point in anybody trying to write a balanced article on an opening that's actually important, because clearly any trivial line that's ever been played (or even just analyzed—see the ongoing discussion on the Halloween Gambit) is going to have to be included in the discussion. User:Rhododendrites's unhappy with me deleting a cited mention of the Katalymov Variation (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Qd5) of the Rubinstein French, for example, even though it's played thirty and fifteen times less frequently than the two moves that are covered in the article, and there are two other moves in that position after White's fourth move (five and two times more frequently played than 4...Qd5, respectively) that aren't mentioned either, and rightly so. If we had a separate article on the Rubinstein possibly all five moves could be pointed out: but there's no way a general overview of the French should have to.

To say there are a "limited number of irregular openings" is a fallacy. How are all twenty of White's opening moves any more noteworthy than Black's twenty legal responses to 1.e4 or 1.d4? (Since White usually plays both d4 and e4 against something like 1...Na6, they really just transpose.) Should we have articles on all of them as well? (I'm rather surprised we don't, but I'm definitely not going to complain.) It's amusing you should mention 1.h3 as an example of an opening you can't learn more about by discussing a different opening move on the same page, because that was actually Basman's tongue-in-cheek "improvement" over 1.g4. That would be a logical merge, IMO. And it would be also be logical to have an article on irregular chess opening that talks about why moves like 1.Nh3 and 1.a4 are rare, but that doesn't change my opinion that neither move deserves an article on its own. There's virtually nothing to learn about 1.Nh3 in the first place—the essence of non-notability, isn't it?

Of course, I'm sure some crackpot has published a pamphlet on 1.Nh3 at some point (I suspect it's happened more than once, actually), but it doesn't make any sense to me that we have an article on that but not the Soltis Variation in the Yugoslav Dragon (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 0-0 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.Bc4 Bd7 10.0-0-0 Rc8 11.Bb3 Ne5 12.h4 h5), which has not only been played nearly a thousand times at master level but even had a 240-page book written on it—and that was almost 20 years ago: if Mayer rewrote that book today it might be double in size.

By the way, I wouldn't put nearly as much faith into Hooper and Whyld's judgment as you do. I was trying find out more on Kaarle Ojanen for the article I'm working on, but they don't have an entry for him. Instead of learning about someone who became an IM in 1952 (making him one of the very first players to earn that title) and a correspondence IM later as well, we get to learn about a banker from Berlin who may or may not have played chess. Wunderbar, ja! Cobblet (talk) 13:57, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

To be clear, Talk:French_Defence#.22Non-notable.22_lines my comment on the French Defence page was not a complaint at what you had removed but a question of what the standards are, because I didn't see consistency outside subjective judgment. The more I read on this page, I see that there's a lot of thought that has gone into such decisions, but it's still not clear what an agreeable standard would be (as you point out). I still think trying to delineate a notability criteria specific to this wikiproject would be productive -- and if consensus can be reached here, project-endorsed notability guidelines tend to hold considerable weight when it comes to editing/deletion discussions. --Rhododendrites (talk) 16:43, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the Ruy article, I consider myself mostly responsible for the current state of that page, both the good and the bad. (There is plenty of bad, especially the lack of inline cites, but I didn't know any better in 2005.) Before I worked on it it looked like this on 14 July 2005. There are a few other edits mixed in, but the 31 October 2005 version represents mostly my updates, and the article organization today is hardly changed from that eight-year-old page. Your 26 February 2006 edit was a much needed and appreciated improvement, but I see it as incremental rather than radical.

Since an irregular opening is a rare or unusual initial move by White, by definition there can be at most 19 of them (20 − 1, although in fact there are 13). There are a large number of irregular defenses, but any of those that is significant can be covered as a variation in the page on the main opening. Not coincidentally, that is the general practice we follow today. There are some exceptions, such as Ruy Lopez, Hopkins Gambit, but the fact that that page should be deleted has nothing to do with the existence of thirteen articles on irregular opening moves. As suggested earlier by either Bubba73 or Brittle heaven, the proximate blame for insertion of insignificant and bad chess opening variations or creation of entire articles on the same is poor citing practices in our chess opening articles. As demonstrated by my 2005 and 2006 work on Ruy Lopez I'm certainly as much to blame for this as anyone, but the solution to the problem is to improve citation in our chess opening articles and ruthlessly weed out uncited and poorly cited material on crap variations. This is much easier to do in a well-cited page such as Modern Benoni.

1.Nh3 is not like an irregular defense because it is not a variation of any other opening. Putting it at irregular chess opening is not useful because that page provides no useful context. As I said before, discussing 1.h3 and 1.Nh3 on the same page is of no benefit to the reader because they don't share anything other than being rare and weak ways to open a game. You aren't the first person to suggest merging these articles, but it isn't a very good idea because it provides no benefit and actually makes some things worse. For example, it's easier to include a diagram in an individual article than to put 13 diagrams in irregular chess opening. Some people really seem to break out in hives at the sight of any short article, and immediately insist on merging it into something else. I do not understand this. Some articles are going to be short and should be short. Look at a paper encyclopedia some time for examples. Perhaps some of the problem is that you seem to view chess only through the lens of a pragmatic tournament player, when the world of chess encompasses a lot more. Not everything of interest or value in the world of chess is found in an opening repertoire book by Gambit or NIC.

All of White's 20 ways to open a game deserve an article because they are significant in being the only opening moves to a chess game. Because of this, they all also have fairly widely known names, which is not only an indication of their significance but as a practical matter gives us something to use as a page title. All of Black's 20 responses aren't significant enough to warrant individual articles because those that are not recognized as a major defense are either completely insignificant or can be discussed in the article on the White opening. They are also not significant because there are 400 possible positions after Black's first move, and not coincidentally most of them do not have widely known names. As a general rule, classifying something into 20 slots with widely known names is more significant than making 400 distinctions, most of them with no agreed upon names. (This is so obvious that I shouldn't have to point it out, and I really don't understand why you continue to make the argument that Black's 400 defenses have the same status as White's 20 opening moves.) In fact we don't have and never have had articles on 400 insignificant chess openings. But you continue to insist we must take action because terrible things could happen, even though those terrible things simply haven't ever happened even after a decade.

Regarding your article contributions, I value them a great deal. My actual concern is your repeated "I quit working on chess articles because I was offended by the existence of some articles that I think should be merged or deleted", and "I won't improve any chess opening articles until my demands are met to merge or delete these articles I don't like". If you think the Soltis Variation deserves an article, you should start it. (As should anyone else, of course.) I really really really don't understand how the existence of Mieses Opening or Tarrasch Trap makes your task impossible or even harder, but you won't stop complaining about it. It's your seeming insistence on so many preconditions and that everything be your way before you will contribute that I find disappointing. And I find this disappointing only because you really know chess and you have contributed and can contribute a lot, and I would be happy to have Wikipedia benefit from your work. Now you've demonstrated your talents with the really nice Modern Benoni article, and we are richer for it.

When you attack the Oxford Companion for not having an article on an IM and Finnish champion, well that's really weak sauce and sounds desperate. You can do better than that. I've already written more about this than I should have, as the more I write the less likely other people are likely to contribute their ideas. Unfortunately I wrote enough in this thread to inflict tldr; on most editors long ago. Also at this point it's probably clear that I'm finding continued repetition of the same points to be likely to just make me write even crankier things. I don't want to do that, because I respect your opinions even when I don't agree with them and I don't want to get so pissy as to suggest otherwise. In this case I think that some of your arguments have merit, although I don't agree for the reasons I've given. I should just leave it at that. I like your work, and I don't want to do anything to discourage you to contribute. Quale (talk) 07:07, 28 August 2013 (UTC)