Let's look at a real example. Suppose you wanted to discuss Bobby Fischer's (alleged) 180 I.Q., and the book about Fischer "Endgame". Which page on this site would you visit to discuss it? Try... Garry Kasparov

It's important to understand what happened there, where topics obviously Fischer related found themselves on Kasparov's page. It was really very natural: the participants were having a discussion which got off on a tangent, and pretty soon they found themselves discussing something that they knew very well would fit better on a different page. But nobody expects that suddenly everybody should move over to the Fischer page—of course not; people don't behave that way. So they stay where they are, happily off topic for a while.

If you want to discuss (for example) the current FIDE championship cycle, the page for Kirsan Ilyumzhinov would be as good as any. But we don't seriously expect important topics like that to limit itself to a specific page, ever.

Faceebook social plugins for websites:

http://developers.facebook.com/docs...

e.g. Chessbase article

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail...

(see bottom for "like")

I think this might be a good idea if people have a friends network on facebook - you could put these likes on pages here as an experiment, and see if it increases awareness of pages.

click for larger view

Black moved the rook from f1 to f2. The scoresheet on the game page records this as <62...Rf2+>, whereas the original PGN has <62...R1f2+>. While the shorter form is logical since the f6 rook cannot move to f2, I believe the longer is more commonly used to avoid confusion. (I'd expect it to be easier to program as well, but that's not my area.)

http://scm-l3.technorati.com/11/05/...

Cashier at Subway discussing some app on her cell phone: You really need to get that.

Me: I don't have a cell phone.

1. Is it bad form to submit a derivative pun if you think it's an improvement on one currently submitted? Gelfand's win over Grischuk was submitted as "Gelfand the Grey" but since Gelfand had white in the game and the current Gelfand (triumphant, emerging from a long struggle) seems more aligned with the Gandalf from later in LOTR, I thought "Gelfand the White" was better. But is it out of bounds to submit that?

< Is it bad form to submit a derivative pun if you think it's an improvement on one currently submitted? > That's an interesting question. Originally we were running a contest, and I think we specifically prohibited that kind of behavior. Now our goal is to make the best puns possible and the "winners" aren't even given any formal recognition, so I don't see any harm in doing that.

<Gelfand's win over Grischuk was submitted as "Gelfand the Grey" but since Gelfand had white in the game and the current Gelfand (triumphant, emerging from a long struggle) seems more aligned with the Gandalf from later in LOTR, I thought "Gelfand the White" was better. But is it out of bounds to submit that?>

Haha, that is very clever. No, go ahead and submit it, I bet it quickly exceeds its inspiration.

<Also, is it possible to remove a game from the voting booth once it's been used as GOTD?> Admins can do it, and they are supposed to do it when the pun is indeed used as GOTD. We really should go through the list and purge the ones that were used.

<Someone (several people?) have been entering things that are not puns, but descriptions of what happens in a game ("Bishop sac"). There are a lot of these.> Hmm, it sounds like somebody doesn't have quite the right idea. Perhaps they just think that an excellent game pick will be enough to be noticed. I'll see if I can locate the ones you mention.

This brings up a bothersome situation that might be better off discussed on the CG Librarian chessforum page. You see, each game is determined to be a certain ECO by a very complex algorithm that contains thousands of FEN positions. What we really need to fix this game, and others like it, is the FEN definition which absolutely establishes that it's D76. You see, if you look at the position in Neo-Grunfeld, 6.cd Nxd5, 7.O-O Nb6 (D76), it never is actually reached in the game.

So the software needs it's huge position library expanded by a FEN, or possibly a few, to recognize the different ways this opening can arise.

<kingscrusher: BTW I hope you don't mind me livestreaming chessgames.com earlier for some analysis of past Anand vs Gelfand encounters> Mind? It's fabulous! We're watching your livestream now in the office, and it's great. Livestream is really a brilliant innovation.

There's more than one piece of software that gets confused in situations where the disambiguation is not given, and we have to pick one method for consistency, so we picked the long format.>

I think this is the right decision, but it doesn't appear to be happening that way in the database.

In the example I mentioned (Leko vs Kramnik, 2004), the question arose because Black's 62nd move was given in the short form (62....Rf2+ rather than 62...R1f2+).

Another example can be seen in this common opening:

<1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3 O-O>

Opening Explorer

A common fifth move for White is Knight from g1 to e2. The Opening Explorer gives this in short (5.Ne2) rather than long (5.Nge2) form.

Incidentally, that Gelfand vs Grischuk, 2011 game is listed as D73 (which is as plausible as D76) on the scoresheet - only the game header has an incorrect KID code.

There are rules of thumb that can be followed, especially in flank openings. If White plays, for instance, 1.Nf3, but follows up with e4 or d4 a few moves later, it usually transposes to a position also reached via 1.d4 or 1.e4 - and that should take precedence. Certain openings are defined by pawn breaks: both the Grunfeld and KID feature ...Nf6/...g6/...Bg7, but the former has ...d5 and the latter ...d6 (and certain Pirc, Modern, and Benoni positions are also reachable...)

Some cases are almost undecidable, though, or a matter of taste. I came across this one the other day: J Tambini vs V Jones, 2010

It's given as A48, and called 'the London System'. It certainly begins like one, but one of the system's defining moves is e3 (after Bf4). Here e4 is played in one go, which changes things; it would be a Pirc if the White Knight was on c3, but it goes to d2 ... does this make it a Modern Defence or Robatsch [B06]? I'm not sure. Structurally, it turns out something like an irregular Philidor - the kind that can be reached via 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6, or from a Pirc after 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Bd3 e5.

[A48] - which usually describes a King's Indian without a White c4, may be best after all. I dunno. But it isn't a London System, unless the burbs of Londonistan have changed since my last visit.