We discussed recently a "hook" to make it possible to submit games to CG where there is no ambiguity about which player is being referenced, by using Chessgames ID numbers (PIDs). I just made a small code change and ran it through its paces.

First, I made a bogus game for testing:

[Event "Casual"]
[Site "Berlin GER"]
[Date "1999.??.??"]
[EventDate "?"]
[Round "-"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "A Ivanov"]
[Black "Hans Schach"]
[WhiteChessgamesID "41447"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Nbd7 8.Qf3 Qc7 9.O-O-O b5 10.Bd3 Bb7 11.Rhe1 Be7 12.Kb1 Nc5 13.Bxf6 gxf6 14.f5 b4 15.Nce2 e5 16.Nb3 O-O-O 17.Nxc5 Qxc5 18.Qh5 d5 19.exd5 Bxd5 20.Bxa6+ Kc7 21.Nc1 Ra8 22.Be2 Bxa2+ 23.Nxa2 Rxa2 24.Kxa2 Ra8+ 25.Kb3 Ra3+ 26.bxa3 Qc3+ 27.Ka2 Qxc2+ 28.Ka1 0-1

Note the new tag:

[WhiteChessgamesID "41447"]

The goal here is to get the game assigned to Alexander Ivanov and not Andrey A Ivanov or Alexander Al Ivanov or any of the many other A Ivanov's we have on file.

Voila! I just processed the game and it worked like a charm. (Being a bogus game, I immediately deleted it. Trust me, it worked.)

Some notes:

• This tag will not appear on the PGN once it is inserted into the Chessgames database; it's only an intermediate measure to be used when uploading.

• It's perfectly fine to have WhiteChessgamesID without BlackChessgamesID or vice versa. You can use either, none, or both.

• You can write PID instead of ID and it will still work (WhiteChessgamesPID and BlackChessgamesPID). But officially, it's ID and not PID.

• For purposes of player identification this tag takes precedence over all other tags, including the FIDE number tags, as well as the name. Example: if the White name says "Magnus Carlsen" and the WhiteFideID tag is set to Magnus Carlsen's but you set the WhiteChessgamesID to 63155, then the game will not be assigned to Carlsen but instead to player 63155 (Magnus Carlhammar).

• With the above note in mind, be careful! This is the #1 most powerful way to dictate what player should be used. We assume anybody who uses this tag must be intimate with CG's inner workings.

• In the event that an invalid ChessgamesID is given (e.g., points to a record which is currently empty, or isn't even a number) it will ignore the tag and continue to use traditional methods to try to determine the player. The same logic applies to players who were dead (or not born yet) at the time of the game. This is a fringe clause that hopefully won't crop up very often.

• Please don't feel compelled to add this tag to every upload you make. In fact, it's probably a bad idea to take that approach. Most of the time our software can do just fine without it. If you always supply it, sooner or later even the best of us will make a fingerfehler that introduces an error. And not just a minor error, but a real howler! So, save this for cases where you think confusion might be possible.

The confusion was caused by my attempt to explain what happened. As you know there were two players (i.e. brothers) under one name for that tournament.

Some confusion is bound to happen under those conditions.

Actually, this brings up a thought I had today - doing all those correction slips can get confusing. Is there anyway to look at the correct slip submissions that are queued up.

And I didn't have to do a thing!

If you happen to post to the Chessgames Challenge: The World vs Naiditsch, 2014 game, and somebody clicks on a link to your post (from your profile, new kibitzes, etc.) it will take them right to your post, just like it works on any other sort of page.

Here's the situation: we will not change your username in the normal sense; we did that once or twice and it created all sorts of unexpected problems, not to mention the confusion it causes among other members.

However you are welcome to establish a new account with your new chosen username. We'll be happy to transfer your premium membership time over to the new account. However all your old kibitzes and game collections and Guess-the-Move scores will still be tied to your old account.

[Event "London around 1830"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Francesco Lavagnino"]
[Black "Alexander McDonnell"]
[Result "0-1"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "

click for larger view

"] [PlyCount "58"]

1. e4 Nc6 2. d4 e5 3. d5 Nce7 4. Bg5 Nf6 5. Bxf6 gxf6 6. Qh5+ Ng6 7. Nf3 Qe7 8. d6 Qf7 9. dxc7 Bc5 10. Nbd2 d6 11. Bb5+ Bd7 12. Qf5 a6 13. Bxd7+ Qxd7 14. Qxf6 Rf8 15. Qg5 Qxc7 16. O-O Kd7 17. Qg4+ Kc6 18. Ng5 Rf6 19. Qe2 Nf4 20. Qc4 b5 21. Qb3 Qg7 22. g3 Qxg5 23. Kh1 Rg8 24. a4 b4 25. Qc4 Kb6 26. c3 [%emt 0:00:00] Rh6 27. Qf7 Rxh2+ 28. Kxh2 Qh6+ 29. Kg1 Rxg3# 0-1

[Event "Madrid"]
[Site "Madrid ESP"]
[Date "1951.??.??"]
[Round "12"]
[White "Arturo Pomar Salamanca"]
[Black "Jose Sanz Aguado"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "A91"]
[PlyCount "68"]
[EventDate "1951.??.??"]

On player homepages e.g.

Jose Raul Capablanca

I think a member should be able to put for example:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ches...

i.e. the name in the pid field

This might also encourage player homepage links dynamically even from other chess websites.

The system could check that pid entry and look up the relevant ID. This is a trick I have used for some time on my own site Chessworld.net and is quite a convenience I think - I use this anyway quite often.

It may increase player homepage traffic on this site if someone wanted to flick through famous names.

user:"Chessgames Challenge"

like so Search Kibitzing

<falso contacto> Ten years! Congratulations and thanks!

<Gottschalk> <Remains difficult to add historical games to the database. After all, I'm a full member! What's wrong with the following two games?>

OK the first one is obvious: we can't take a game with a year of "????" and also sticking that <[%emt 0:00:00]> in the middle of the score is not desirable. It's also rather sloppy that "London" is stuck in the Event tag, where the Site tag is "?". But ultimately the reason why it was rejected is surely that the year is empty.

The Salamanca game on the other hand looks fine.

Finally let me say that the proper way to upload games, for premium and non-premium members alike, is to use this page:

PGN Upload Utility

<MarkFinan> <Direct messages> It's been discussed in the past on many occasions. To my surprise the notion is always met with a lukewarm reaction. I've always liked the idea, although it's easy to imagine problems that would stem from that feature.

<kingscrusher> We actually have that feature, to an extent. Suppose you want to link to Capablanca, try linking to /player/Capablanca.html like so:

I hope that's sufficient.>

Suprised to see GM Eduard Gufeld was not in the scroll down list of famous players.

He was famous enough to have a race horse named after him so I'm sure that qualifies for an inclusion.

90% of the other players on that list do not have a race horse named after them. I'm thiking you could do a new list of chess players who have had a race horse named after them.

Alekhine, Capablanca, Lasker, Karpov, Kasparov, Botvinnik, Korchnoi, Nimzovitvh, Tarrasch, Fischer and Gufeld.

Infact no need, I've just done it.