That has to get the post of the year award in the annual chessgames thing, lol. It seriously should though :)

"Ice berg ahead!" was less prophetic.

In order to clear up possible misunderstandings, I'd like to say that I am quite certain that <JessicaFischerQueen> is not in any way associated with the <Thanh Phan> account. This is based on logfile forensics, email exchanges with both of them, and just plain common sense.

Having alternate accounts is not a violation of Chessgames rules per se, so even if this conspiracy theory were true, it would not be scandalous. But for the record, it's just not true.

< Richard Taylor: Well I've done it, I've entered the New Zealand Chess Championships. This year it is an Open so anyone from zero rating to 2600+ can enter and there is at least one GM on 2600+ and some strong players from overseas about 2300 to 2500. It is not too late to enter. GM Murray Chandler and others have organised it. GM Bischoff from Germany comes to NZ quite frequently and combines it with a holiday I think. Also seen a lot is IM Riemsdijk who is a strong player. And others. It starts in Auckland on Jan 1st. 9 rounds starting 1.30 pm each day. There are good prizes. It is in a great setting (Devonport).

Links here:

http://www.newzealandchess.co.nz/NZ...

http://www.newzealandchess.co.nz/

Rd10 http://xadrezdonorte.com.br/contine...

Rd11 http://xadrezdonorte.com.br/contine...

Granda was crowned continental champions for the third time cosecutiva. However, this time he had to share the first prize with five outros.Congratulations to Granda and all these that equaled the score. http://chess-results.com/tnr147485.... Because they won the most important tournament outside EURASIA and whose technical level is roughly equivalent to the championship of the United States.

Tie-break ( worthing 4 vacancies for the World Cup )

I know you're not a great fan of national leagues, apart from the Bundesliga and the Russian and Chinese Leagues, as these are extremely strong competitions.

What about improving the possibility of getting an overview over a player's tournament/match career? It is possible via the tournament index search function, although the order in which the events appear, looks strange to me (why not according to date, so that you can follow one's career. E. g., if you want to see just the latest results of Carlsen and/or Anand prior to the match).

And there are also mistakes, e. g. even when specifically searching for <akiba rubinstein>, Hamburg (1910) is displayed (he did not participate, but is mentioned in the intro) and also the Rubinstein Memorial (2000). It should concentrate on the participants only (probably like it is done for the "Notable tournaments" list).

It would also be much easier, and may avoid problems with players having the same surname, if it was directly accessible from the player page. E. g., like a button says "Show tournaments and matches" or something, and when you click on it, a list in chronological order appears, maybe even looking like the list of chess games.

<parisattack> We are a "jack of all trades" but if anything is our specialty, it's openings. In what way should we offer more opening content?

<OhioChessFan> We've been making some changes to the page headers. Let us know if the problem seems to have gone away or if it persists.

<AylerKupp> Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I haven't communicated with Naiditsch recently, but it looks like he just lost track of the days. That can happen on a honeymoon :-)

<FSR> Wow, incredible game. We've got something slated for Halloween but look for it soon after that.

<Karpova> I see what you are saying, but it's not a mistake that your search brings up events that the player did not participate in. Think of it like a Google search: the order is the perceived 'relevance'. For example, if you search for "Tal" you'll get not only events that Tal played in, but also the Tal Memorials, and any event that even mentions his name. But also like Google, you can look for an image of a duck and get results apparently irrelevant. To a degree, that's intentional.

You should make the following *incredible* <STOCKFISH> win from yesterday at the <TCEC SEASON 7 STAGE 2> tournament a <GAME OF THE DAY>: Stockfish played on down by a full rook for 20(!) moves and won the game.

----

[White "Stockfish 231014"]
[Black "Jonny 6"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Round "05"]
[Date "Wed Oct 29 2014"]
[WhiteClock "0:04:29"]
[BlackClock "0:32:07"]

<parisattack> We are a "jack of all trades" but if anything is our specialty, it's openings. ...>

I am not seeing that Dan, sorry.

Comparing to 365chess, ChessPublishing, the new Chopin...

Step One would lead back to the game Database, expanding same would be my first wish. I understand the games do not input themselves and if you upload a game with an error you can hear the squeals from miles away.

Step Two would be the naming system - its awful.

Step Three would be making it easier to get to the opening forums...a separate section and menu would be nice.

Quite a few other possibilities but of course one issue is there doesn't seem to be much interest in openings here at CG.com.

Being a unicyclist and visiting the Rogoff page are the only certain signs of mental illness.

<<chessgames.com: <Thanh Phan> No, that's not normal, even by the Rogoff page standards. We're contemplating what should be done right now.>

I also always find it very hard to find specific forums for the openings. I sometimes stumble across the forums by accident. Do only popular openings have forums?

However you'll still be trapped within the artificial constraints of the ECO system: 500 discrete groups of openings which largely reflect what was in fashion in the 1970s when the system was invented.

The best thing we could do to improve our opening categorization is probably to endorse a better system of opening classification. We wouldn't have to abandon ECO altogether but at least we'd have a decent alternative.