* * * *

As for Pitt archive, I'd be very happy with the projection down to tournament space.

Heck, I'd be temporarily happy finding just this zip file:

ftp://ftp.pitt.edu/group/student-activities/ches-
s/PGN/Events/1992/92talqpg.zip 1992 Tal Memorial Quick Play

or maybe this:

ftp://ftp.pitt.edu/group/student-activities/ches-
s/PGN/Events/1992/92talmpg.zip 1992 Tal Memorial

The memories linger... http://chess.eusa.ed.ac.uk/Chess/Li...

(I actually read on a blog somewhere that the archive might be resurrected by someone connected with the old site, but nothing seems to have come of it)

* * * * *

Can we get the <CG> zipfiles with pid/gid/tid's?

<[Chessgames_ID White_pid.Black_pid.gid.tid]>

Well, Winter is one of my heroes, it's true. He's always welcome on the Bistro, at least by me. There's always room for "one" more.

Re: <Quote of the Day> feature.

We've already been down this road before.

I know it's fashionable to dislike <Mr. Urcan>, which makes sense, since he has such a terrible personality. When he accused me of ripping off images from <Mr. Winter> for a chess history documentary, I replied in length at the <ECF> forum. <Daniel>, you mentioned to me that I was way more even handed and conciliatory in my response than was necessary, with regard to possible copyright infringement. But I received no response from him, which is typical of his arrogance.

That aside, however, he is correct about our <Quote of the Day> when he writes:

<the site (cg.com) has only to follow the recommendation in C.N. 8651: “Give the source of a quote if it is known. If it is not known, do not give the quote.”’>

<Karpova> and I both suggested this the last time the topic came up.

We also suggested eliminating the feature if the quotes could not be made in a way that was not dubious and unsourced.

It's a front page feature, and as such is read by many people on the internet. In my opinion, the feature is currently substandard, and a poor advert for what is in most respects much, much the best chess site in the world.

<Daniel> Please cite these quotes to a reliable source, or consider dropping the feature.

Many of us are working long, long hours in the Bistro and elsewhere to improve the chess history content, and thus the academic reputation, of this website.

I understand that <cg.com> is not a "chess history website," but listing a daily dubious, unsourced quote every day on the front page is undermining our efforts. This is a great website, largely due to its diverse, vibrant fellowship and to so many fun features. But this particular feature is not fun to many of us who toil on the accuracy of the <cg.com> datahase.

I'm not asking for the world here- collectively, we have, or have access to, an enormous bank of reliable chess history sources.

Re: Quote of the Day Feature-

I have an idea. Why not open this feature up to the membership? I read chess history books every day, and I often come across a "bon mot" or three. I'm sure other readers have a similar experience.

Why not open up a submission page, similar to the "game of the day pun" submission page?

Just one rule: all submissions should be cited and sourced in the box on the front page- and sourced to a *reliable* publication.

365 days in a year- we could give you an array of much greater magnitude than that to choose from. Hundreds upon hundreds of reliable, sourced quotes to choose from.

I think the idea of using quotes taken from this site by users themselves is brilliant. No problem with sourcing there!

Yep. Wanna bet? ;)

This is one of the very oldest features of the site. I can't remember if it predated the puzzle of the day or the game of the day, but they all were created circa 2002.

The idea was to make a live (as opposed to static) webpage that changed daily, with several "of the day" features. Features like this are hard work, so I wanted at least one of them that would run virtually on auto-pilot and not be a chore. So we assembled a list of chess quotes from various internet sources. Some of the quotes were great, others dubious, some are attributed to 3 or 4 different people, and so forth. No doubt, it's a mixed bag. I think the file has over 1000 quotes now.

We knew that this was a very facile feature from the very start, and never intended to make it a scholarly survey. We even have imposed a rule that the quote cannot be longer than one sentence (or two short ones), so the vast majority of really interesting quotes are off-limits to us. The ideal quote we're looking for is a zinger along the lines of "I don't believe in psychology; I believe in strong moves." Short, sweet, famous, poignant.

There's a reason why we pushed that feature to the most least-viewed portion of the homepage. It's what some webmasters call a "fluff feature." We've never pretended it to be anything more.

Then, over the years, we added more valuable daily features to our homepage relegating the QOTD to near meaninglessness. The thought has occurred to us to remove it entirely, but why bother? Is it actually toxic? Does it need a disclaimer? I see it more like after-dinner mints in a bowl at a fancy restaurant. They might not be the finest confectionary in the world, but they are free, and nobody's forcing to you take one.

The notion of the "Kibitz of the Day" (or week?) is a lot of fun, but that will require some sort of voting mechanism.

So in short:

1. Getting rid of it altogether seems unnecessary and extreme. Excepting Mr. Urcan and Mr. Winter, we've never received any complaints about it. For those who are keen on finding things to criticize, that's a really easy target.

2. Turning the QOTD into a true scholarly project by collecting interesting quotes and citing them properly is ambitious, but even then it wouldn't be best handle by the QOTD feature due to our HTML-size constraints. Even given a scheme to solve the space considerations, I am still skeptical about the scholarly value of such an undertaking. It's not a terrible idea but is really the last thing on my mind right now regarding Chessgames expansions.

<This match was a reprise of the Anand - Carlsen World Championship (2013) by a point, thereby qualifying for the title rematch. the year before.>

But how is one supposed to find this player on <CG>?

An "Advanced Search" on <Alexander Alexander> yields this:

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

Lots of Alexander, but all singles and not a double in sight.

Is this a flaw with the <CG> advanced search algorithm?

Knowing the year this player was active allows him to be located.

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

(Though one has to go to a game to go to the player)

On the other hand, the E-Z search works:

EVAN ESAR, 20,000 Quips & Quotes

There are quite a few attributed chess quotes to be found here:

http://www.notable-quotes.com/c/che... and

www.notable-quotes.com/c/chess_quotes_ii.html

<Check and mate! Now king me!>

It's lucky not to have been cited here:

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

But it's a lot of hard work, disentangling all the folklore that goes into a good quote. And so few, if any, do it as well as Winter.

He's practically owns the entire field, also turning it into a business:

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

In fact, if one does a google image search on <attributed chess quotes> almost all the links on the first page point to Winter's work (either from chesshistory or chessbase).

Well, there is the other page I cited, and this:

http://onthemainline.blogspot.com/2...

E.g.

[Source "<Learn Chess from the Greats> - Peter J. Tamburro (2000) - p156"]

or

[Source "Deutsche Schachzeitung v41 N6 June 1886 p175 #4877"]

Normally, <CG> strips these out.

The Swiss xtab for the <98th US Open, Orlando (1997)> can be found here: