I did enact your suggestions, and also left your EDIT SUGGESTION marker with chessmetrics link so we remember where this came from.

Game Collection: WCC: Alekhine-Bogoljubov Rematch 1934

Now reads-

(1) "jubiliation" in the article should be "jubilation"

(2) This sentence seems very long: "In the years since the 1929 World Championship Match a new generation of strong players had just begun to arrive on the scene, including Samuel Reshevsky, Reuben Fine, and Isaac Kashdan of the United States, Paul Keres of Estonia, Mikhail Botvinnik of the USSR, and Salo Flohr of Czechoslovakia, as well as José Raúl Capablanca, who was still trying unsuccessfully to arrange a return match for the title." I would split it into two sentences, as follows: "In the years since the 1929 World Championship Match a new generation of strong players had begun to arrive on the scene, including Samuel Reshevsky, Reuben Fine, and Isaac Kashdan of the United States, Paul Keres of Estonia, Mikhail Botvinnik of the USSR, and Salo Flohr of Czechoslovakia. In addition, the former world champion José Raúl Capablanca was still trying unsuccessfully to arrange a return match for the title."

(3) Probably Max Euwe of the Netherlands should be added to the list. He's a bit older than the others (e.g. seven years older than Flohr), and so arguably not part of the "new generation." However, he had only relatively recently joined the ranks of the elite (#10 in 1926, #5 in 1928 according to Chessmetrics). He was ranked #2 or #4 throughout 1934 (in each case ahead of Bogo). http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/...

(4) Also, should we use links for the names, e.g. Samuel Reshevsky Reuben Fine Isaac Kashdan Paul Keres Mikhail Botvinnik Salomon Flohr Jose Raul Capablanca ?

(5) Probably Keres should be omitted from the list. His breakout tournament was in 1935. In 1934 he was an unknown. http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/... Had Alekhine chosen to play him rather than Bogo for the world championship in 1934, no one would have considered that a reasonable choice. And everyone outside of Estonia would have said "who?"

In Game Collection: WCC: Alekhine-Bogoljubov Rematch 1934

Sentence now reads:

<In the years since the 1929 World Championship Match a new generation of strong players had just begun to arrive on the scene, including Samuel Reshevsky and Isaac Kashdan of the United States, Mikhail Botvinnik of the USSR, Max Euwe of the Netherlands, and Salo Flohr of Czechoslovakia. In addition, the former world champion José Raúl Capablanca was still trying unsuccessfully to arrange a return match for the title.>

We don't need to put hyperlinked player names in these mirror intros because they are merely edits.

With further regard to Game Collection: WCC: Alekhine-Bogoljubov Rematch 1934, I think this language needs to be changed:

<Under the circumstances, <<<the chess world>>> reacted with something less than jubiliation when it was announced that Alexander Alekhine's next title defense would be against Efim Bogolubov again. The match was regarded as little more than an exhibition by <<<all>>>, including Alekhine himself>

We should avoid language such as <"the chess world"> and <"all"> in all (heh) of these intros.

If we use terms like "the chess world," we should supply more than one opinion. If we don't supply more quoted opinions from "the chess world," we should at the very least supply a footnote that leads to reliable sources that actually give more of "the chess world's" opinions.

With regard to "all"- well, no.

<Bogoljubov> is part of "all" and I doubt he regarded this to be an exhibition match. However I don't want to be guessing about this. A sourced opinion from <Bogo> on this match would be good. In fact, I think it's necessary for this intro even if he were indeed the only person who thought of this match as something more than an "exhibition."

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Can anyone dig up some "chess world" opinions that viewed this Rematch with "something less than jubiliation"? I'm sure they exist. I'm equally sure we should actually find them and source them in a footnote.

If we want to include more than <Alekhine> in "all" we need to find other people who explicitly regarded this match to be akin to an "exhibition." There may well be other people.

Can anyone dig up sources for this? We need them. Even with sources, we'd still need to change the word "all" unless we failed to find a single contemporaneous source who regarded the match as an "exhibition."

"Many" or "some" for example. Which word we use depends on what we actually find- it can't depend on general "knowledge," memory, or a guess.

Thanks for dropping by with such an encouraging message.

Our goal is to create introductions to the WWC that conform to the very highest standard possible in terms of chess historiography.

<That means no guessing, and it also means not including anything that can't be referenced to reliable sources, preferably primary sources.>

We would like this feature page to be accurate, above all else. If that means letting go of some cherished bits of "chess lore" everyone "knows" about because they have been passed down from book to book, website to website, then we'll suggest you let it go.

But we have no axe to grind. We're not "cheering" for a given fact or anecdote to be true or false. We have no emotional investment in any particular fact or anecdote. We only care if it's true or not.

To paraphrase Wittgenstein, we only care about discovering, and then presenting, "all that is the case," so far as that reliably can be determined.

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I am keeping a record of every editing suggestion and every source that is posted in this forum.

I am adding each edit/suggestion to the appropriate mirror edit page, for present and future consideration by the biographers.

In addition, I am keeping an external text file record of every edit we suggest here, and, most importantly, why we suggest it.

So when we are finally finished, we'll be able to give you not only an edited text, but also a meticulously sourced rationale behind every edit we suggest making to the History of the World Chess Championship.

We want this feature to become a flagship feature, not only for our website here, but for the entire internet.

As far as I'm aware, there is currently no history of the WCC online that is even reasonably accurate or adequately sourced.

Cg.com can be the first to do this, thanks to your willingness to trust your biographer staff.

Not only do they boast gigantic chess libraries, they speak a wide variety of different languages. This gives us access to a great breadth of various primary source materials.

Aha sorry I missed this one, now fixed:

<(1) "jubiliation" in the article should be "jubilation">

Game Collection: WCC: Alekhine-Bogoljubov Rematch 1934

Here's how it looks now: <In the years since the 1929 World Championship Match a new generation of strong players had emerged, including Samuel Reshevsky and Isaac Kashdan of the United States, Mikhail Botvinnik of the USSR, Max Euwe of the Netherlands, and Salo Flohr of Czechoslovakia. In addition, the former world champion José Raúl Capablanca was still trying unsuccessfully to arrange a return match for the title.>

Your fine style editing here is of more than mere aesthetic value, though that's important of course.

Every unnecessary word and phrase you take out means extra space to insert other interesting facts about the match we might want to add later.

I personally favor lengthening each of the intros a bit.

Just thinking out loud- we could take the longest existing intro as a benchmark word count.

Then I think we could reasonably make all of the intros the same length.

After all, in a sense all of these matches are of equal historical significance, deserving of equal space.

I would like to mention something at this point though.

The style editing is crucial, not just for "style" but also for sense and veracity.

But getting the sources in is key eh?

I'm not necessarily talking about the intro you are currently working on, but in a more general sense for all of the intros- once all the facts and sources we can muster are in, we may well end up entirely re-writing some of them.

That said, I don't see any need now or in the future for changing the paragraph you've been improving. It looks clean and mean, concise and accurate.

I particularly applaud the way you justified changing the names of the players in this intro by publicly linking information from the <chessmetrics> site, so then I could transfer those links to the mirror edit. I did double check <chessmetrics> by taking a look at the player bios as well, and I think it's safe to say your "new roster" is spot on.

<1. Alekhine 2. Kashdan 3. Euwe 4. Flohr 5. Bogo ... 11. Botvinnik ... 32. Fine ... (Reshevsky not on list).> http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/...

(I don't mean to imply that Chessmetrics is holy writ or something, but it's the closest thing that I know of to an objective measurement of how things would have appeared at a given point in 1934.)

Reshevsky was an up and coming young star, but not yet world championship caliber, at that time. See http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/.... It is reasonable to say that he had "emerged," as we do. But given that Fine is on the April '34 list and Reshevsky isn't, I'm now inclined to think (yes, reversing my prior stance) that either Reshevsky and Fine should both be included in our list, or neither should. And Kashdan should go first on the U.S. list in any event. Since Botvinnik wasn't yet a superstar (I think Moscow (1935) was his breakout tournament), and was less prominent (as of April '34) than Kashdan, Flohr, or Euwe, I'd put him last on our list. So I would change the list to either:

<Isaac Kashdan, Samuel Reshevsky, and Reuben Fine of the United States; Max Euwe of the Netherlands; Salo Flohr of Czechoslovakia; and Mikhail Botvinnik of the USSR>

or

<Isaac Kashdan of the United States, Max Euwe of the Netherlands, Salo Flohr of Czechoslovakia, and Mikhail Botvinnik of the USSR>.

I don't have a strong preference. The second is more concise, if that's a good thing, but OTOH it looks a little sparse. The first seems more complete, but maybe overemphasizes the U.S.

Incidentally, there are other players on the April '34 list, ranked higher than Botvinnik, Capablanca, Fine, or Reshevsky, who probably deserved more attention as possible world champion material, such as Andre Lilienthal (then of Hungary - No. 6) and Mir Sultan Khan of India (No. 7), but never got it. A third approach would be to add them in lieu of Fine and Reshevsky:

You raise a challenging point.

We should discuss this further, so please colleagues chime in with your observations on <FSR's> latest post.

To leave this intro- Game Collection: WCC: Alekhine-Bogoljubov Rematch 1934 -and likely others written in a similar fashion- is sort of like analyzing a chess game by result.

Do we want each intro to be a strictly historical snap shot of that precise time?

Or do we want to indulge the sensibilities of casual readers who may already be familiar enough with chess history to wonder why <Reshevsky and Fine> are missing from the list, but not familiar enough with chess history to know that they had yet to "emerge" at this precise time?

Whatever we decide, we should be consistent.

If we go the route <FSR> is suggesting for this intro- then we should do so for all intros, whenever this issue arises.

I'll state my preference now.

I think it much better to edit each intro as if it were a snapshot of the exact time of the match.

This doesn't mean there can't be some foreshadowing involved for rhetorical effect- but it does mean that such foreshadowing should not be gratuitous.

Put another way, such foreshadowing should not be the accidental or sloppy result of a failure to investigate fully the actual state of affairs in the chess world at the date of a given match.

In the case of the <Alekhine-Bogo 1934> intro, I suspect the latter case is in play.

I'm going to cast my vote for the "FSR" approach to this and all of the other intros.

I think there should be little or no anachronistic data in the intros; I don't think we should write these intros "by result," with the benefit of future knowledge.

But it's a delicate issue, and we would do well do discuss this further.

Either way we decide to go, our work would be much stronger if we investigated contemporaneous primary sources in order to find out what the actual 1934 "chess world" was saying about this Rematch.

Regarding Game Collection: WCC: Alekhine-Bogoljubov Rematch 1934 should it really be this or should it read WCC : Alyekhin - Bogolyubov Rematch 1934?

But <FSR> is right- for this purposes of this feature, we'll follow the spellings currently used in the database.

<FSR> No fear! I have several sources I will look at. I think some will prove fruitful. Our colleagues will provide even more, I'll wager.

Opinions on Game Collection: WCC: Alekhine-Bogoljubov Rematch 1934:

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Before the Match:

<"In view of the forthcoming match between Dr. Alekhine and E.D. Bogoljubow... the Cuban [J.R. Capablanca]... predicted a second victory for Dr. Alekhine...">

-The New York Times
24 December 1933,
p. 2 of Sports Section

=====

<"With all deference to Bogoljubow's chess strength, it is difficult to imagine him testing the holder to the utmost.">

-British Chess Magazine
April 1934, p. 152

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After the Match:

<"With all due respect to Bogoljubow, who as a tournament player has attained the highest flights, this result is wholly in accordance with general expectations...">

-American Chess Bulletin
May-June 1934, p.75

======

<"The result was, as we say, generally anticipated. It might indeed be called inevitable, nothing having occurred during the past five years to suggest that the challenger had any chance of defeating the holder of the title. this is no disparagement of so fine a fighter as Bogoljubow, but merely a necessary tribute to the present pre-eminence of Alekhine among the chess masters of the world.">

<The match was regarded as little more than an exhibition by all, including Alekhine himself, who said such things as this in My Best Games of Chess, 1924-1937: <<<"This game - more than any other - proves how useless from the sporting point of view was the arrangement of this second match, and at the same time explains my indifferent play on a number of occasions."1>>>>

This quotation was originally sourced to Graeme Cree's website, but the link is dead. Also, his site is unreliable in general because he does not properly source anything he writes on it.

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Here is the original Alekhine quotation in full, which is actually part of an annotation of move 29 from the 4th game of the Match: Alekhine vs Bogoljubov, 1934

After noting a suggested improvement on move 29... from <Dr. Lasker>, Alekhine goes on to say:

<"This game – more than any other – proves how useless from the sporting point of view was the arrangement of this second match, and at the same time explains my indifferent play on a number of occasions. I felt sure that Bogoljubow was no longer able to take advantage of the opportunities my play might present to him, and – very unfortunately for the general artistic value of the present match – the score 7 to 1 in my favour after the 22nd game fully justified my sanguine outlook.">

-Alexander Alekhine
"My Best Games of Chess 1908-1937"
Dover 1995 (Unabridged reprint of "Best Games" vols. 1 and 2)

Alekhine-Bogoljubov World Championship Rematch (1934)

I would say that the whole "regarded as exhibition match" should be scrapped. If there was a strong (!) contemporary source you may add it somewhere but to me it sounds like the mere opinion of the author back then and therefore not really relevant for a historically accurate text.

On page 97 of the 1934 'Neue Wiener Schachzeitung' (April), the match is announced/introduced and no scathing remark to be found. Several years had passed since the last WC match and Alekhine is quoted as saying that he was aware of the hard task ahead of him but feels confident. Bogoljubov is said to probably hope for having learned from his mistakes in their first match. Overall, a successful title defense was expected but also many exciting games rich in content (<Die ziemlich einheitliche Meinung der Schachwelt geht jedenfalls dahin, daß Dr. [sic] Aljechin den Weltmeistertitel behaupten wird. Man erwartet auch inhaltsreiche, spannende Partien und das wird wohl in Erfüllung gehen.>). Other masters: Flohr wants a match within 5 years, Capablanca has a long way to go to organize a rematch while the most serious other challenger (p. 98) is Euwe (they proved to be right).

Hans Kmoch saw Bogoljubov's play improved compared to their first match (pages 193-194).

More critical is Hannak (pages 195-196) who re-emphasizes that Bogoljubov was not the most worthy challenger and that the match proved that point (he doesn't want to decide whether Flohr, Capablanca or Dr. Euwe would have been).