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Jan-10-10
 | | Domdaniel: <crawf> Thanks a 10^6. That Caxton is worth chasing ... he might be onto something with his printing press. - Nonfenfe! Ye wyne will yspoile ye papyr, and ye papyr wille ygif ye wyne a woody bouquet ... |
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| Jan-11-10 | | nimh: <btw, what do you think of the survey on chess aesthetics in which CG members participated? There's a link to its preliminary results on the homepage.> I tried to complete it at first, but found it tedious. To me, the beauty of combinations is in correlation with the amount of material sacrified, provided it isn't too obvious or too much cliche. |
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| Jan-11-10 | | crawfb5: I've been thinking about this, although I said nothing at the time... Is an opening classification, either ECO or Caxton or something else, really as important as it once was? After all, back in the day of the early Informants (1960s) and the first ECO series (1970s), we had no personal computerized databases and something of the sort was necessary to impose <some> order in what were paper-based databases of sorts. Today we fire up Chessbase, Chess Assistant, SCID, etc., open a database which may contain millions of games, and do a position search or browse with an opening explorer-style tree, and find all games, even those with transpositions. We can even add new games easily several times a month from sources like This Week in Chess or Convekta. The other point of course is that, while some alternative system may have demonstrable advantages over the ECO classification, the inertial resistance to changing such a widely established system may be extremely difficult to overcome (he says while typing on his QWERTY keyboard). |
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Jan-11-10
| | Domdaniel: <crawf> You're right. My first auto-response was to think up reasons why a classification system was necessary, but the usefulness is minimal. I like to scan a list of tournament games, and when I see 'King's Indian' look for anything from E60 to E69, or Grunfeld D78-79, and so on. But, as you say, there are other ways of doing this. And no classification system has replaced the names (Sicilian, French, etc) which remain in everyday use. In fact the Opening Explorer format may be best of all. I regularly turn up positions that have been reached via - or described as - about eight different openings. Sometimes transposition, sometimes the whim of a person or machine. All we really need is a system to weed out those whims, and OE can do that. Of course, many chessplayers have a mania for detail and want to know their month-on-month winning percentage with C17. Or C18, as the case may be ... Wasn't QWERTY designed to *slow down* typewriters, because those arm things used to crash together and break at high velocity? Nice analogy, though. |
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| Jan-11-10 | | crawfb5: Yes, QWERTY was used to slow down typing on early manual typewriters, not so much because the arms would <break> as they would <jam together> and you'd have to stop typing and untangle them. I learned to type on a manual, and it's annoying to have to stop unexpectedly. It's a classic example of how widespread use of something sub-optimal can prevent general adoption of something newer and objectively better. Attempts at converting to metric measurements in the US for general use were unsuccessful for similar reasons. I'm surprised algebraic notation ever caught on here... The statistics fiends are better off with an OE-tree as well. You can filter the database for date ranges, ratings, and so on and <then> use your tree, which generally gives you scoring stats. Mine (SCID) gives you White percentage and average year for each candidate move from the current position, and if there are more than a minimum number of games, the average rating and performance rating for White or Black, whichever is on the move. Btw, SCID has an option to reclassify games by ECO code (because not all programs will classify some games into the same ECO code). They have an "extended ECO" option, but as far as I can tell that is specific to their program as I have not seen it elsewhere. I usually reclassify new games as I bring them in, just to keep everything consistent, but that may be unnecessary, given how I use the database. |
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Jan-12-10
| | Domdaniel: <crawf> Oh, I remember manual typewriters: I got one when I was about 13. The piece of tech I wanted most for the next few years was a *golfball* typewriter - none of those spindly arms, and you could actually change fonts by switching golfballs. But it never happened: I discovered computers instead. People seem to have as many different ways of using databases as they do of using this site. Despite having had Chessbase - first the light version, then the full one - for a few years, I've never really got to grips with its opening trees. One of these days, maybe... |
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Jan-12-10
| | Domdaniel: <Hear ye> Courtesy of chessgames.com, my prize of a Morphy-inspired chess T-shirt has arrived. As part of my transformation into a *total geek* I plan to wear it at an upcoming OTB tournament - with chess-pattern glasses, and a leather jacket to keep the cold out. Hmm. I wonder what Morphy would have made of leather *trousers* ...? |
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Jan-12-10
 | | OhioChessFan: Dom is the Fonzie of the chess world. |
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Jan-12-10
| | Domdaniel: <Ohio> You and I are the only ones left who *remember* the Fonz. Kids these days, grumble, bah, humbug, snort.
BTW, I wish Elvis could somehow have survived and lived to a dignified 75, and made the kind of records that Johnny Cash made in old age. |
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Jan-12-10
| | OhioChessFan: What could have been. Can you imagine Elvis doing "Fire"? Springsteen always puts me to sleep, the Pointer Sisters were great, but radios all over the world would have melted if Elvis had done it. |
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Jan-12-10
| | OhioChessFan: The things you learn online. From the bastion of credibility, Wikipedia, <"Fire" is a song written by Bruce Springsteen and originally intended for use by Elvis Presley.> Didn't know Springsteen wrote it, didn't realize he had Elvis in mind. |
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Jan-13-10
| | Domdaniel: <Ohio> Even bastions sometimes get things right. I hadn't known that either, but it's credible. |
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Jan-13-10
 | | chancho: Happy Days? Yeah I watched that back in the day.
Pinky Tuscadero was the bomb. |
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| Jan-13-10 | | Red October: am I Leather ? |
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Jan-13-10
| | Domdaniel: <Red Leather> Spooky. I remember writing a short story, years ago, with a character of that name. Personally I wear black, as befits an old depraved Goth ... I forget I'm supposed to have changed. I suppose I could try wearing a tie ... but the traditional male necktie is actually a vestigial vampire's cloak. *Vampire*. Nothing to do with *vestigial virgins*. |
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| Jan-13-10 | | Red October: <...as befits an old depraved Goth ...> that explains the eye makeup and what makes up the <I> <...but the traditional male necktie is actually a vestigial vampire's cloak.> I thought a <Croak> was more in keeping with <Frogspawn> |
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Jan-14-10
| | Domdaniel: OK. Must focus on chess now. I've entered a tournament this weekend and it's almost a year since I last played. Will I be rusty? Yes. Will it matter? Probably not. What can I do about this in 24 hours? Mmm. Practice? |
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| Jan-14-10 | | crawfb5: Maybe sacrifice a pawn or two? |
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Jan-14-10
| | Domdaniel: Hmm, yes, heh. Slit its scrawny throat ... but propitiatory sacs to deflect a deity always struck me as a bad deal. You offer up the family livestock, and the deity does its worst anyway. I'm sure some carnifex in Pompeii was frantically butchering animals when the volcano blew. I'll keep the pawns for the games. I tend to sac stuff anyway these days. Keeps me awake. |
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Jan-14-10
| | Domdaniel: Even without killing a pawn, I have a favorable omen from the gods. My new glasses - with tiny chessboard patterns on the side - are ready for collection. It's far too cold for the Morphy T-shirt, but the glasses will be sufficiently apotropaic. |
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| Jan-14-10 | | crawfb5: You could always wear the Morphy shirt <over> something warmer, but that might not be the fashion statement you want to make... Good luck in the tournament. Hope you at least have a good time, if not also a good result. |
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Jan-14-10
| | chancho: <Domdaniel> Best of luck in the tournament. |
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Jan-14-10
| | Domdaniel: <chancho> Thanks - I'll need it. |
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Jan-14-10
| | Domdaniel: <crawf> You could be onto something there ... maybe T-shirts worn over sheepskin will turn out to be the fashion discovery of the year ... |
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Jan-14-10
 | | Annie K.: <Dom> in that case, a certain player page really MUST be updated with a photo from this event. =) (Uh... guess I'm here after all... well, I just got my net access back at home. Please excuse any noticeable bubbling.) :p Oh and good luck btw. |
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