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Apr-22-17
 | | saffuna: <a kid would throw it at the ground than give it back...and Wesley is not a kid anymore...He is the current US chess champion and the MVP in the Pro Chess League and plays chess like it was Stockfish making the moves ....Does CG really expect Wesley to just drop it as easy as it thinks?> I know I should let it go, but this is just ridiculous. All I and others are asking for is a historicallly accurate bio on his player page. No player should have control of his/her bio. The only exception would be if it clearly said "Written by Player X" at the beginning. |
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Apr-22-17
 | | chessgames.com: <No player should have control of his/her bio.> The CG Editors have control of the bios, and Daniel Freeman has a kind of Editor-in-Chief status. If you notice, the biography is improving, in both style and substance due to their work. (See Edit History: Wesley So) The old bio was far too long, made at least two or three outright false claims, it contradicted itself, made no mention of his recent achievements, included things that were horribly out of date, and for a kicker it had stale links to (potentially) malware sites! The new one, while deficient of a few features, is accurate, concise, and nicely formatted. If I had to pick between the original and what we have now I'd toss the old out in a heartbeat. Nevertheless, it's a work in progress. If your only complaint is that we're not working on it fast enough, I don't know what to tell you, other than you are free to email chess@chessgames.com and apply for CG Editor status yourself. |
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Apr-22-17
| | saffuna: <chessgames> I don't have, nor have had, any objections to your policy as presented on this page. My objection is largely to the posters who seem to think Wesley So is God and chessgames must bow to his every with because he is a great player and potential future champion. <chessalem> in particular. I will wait for more improvements to the bio. I simply cannot fathom how his time at Webster and SPICE can be ignored. As I said, it's like Michael Jordan without UNC and Dean Smith. I did object to Wesley So's original post, and I still do, but I think chessgames has responded well. |
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| Apr-22-17 | | zanzibar: <chessgames> <[So's old bio] made at least two or three outright false claims> Could you please list each one, for the sake of accuracy? . |
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| Apr-22-17 | | morfishine: Thank you <CG> for the quick response ***** |
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| Apr-22-17 | | WinKing: Daniel I sent you an e-mail. |
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Apr-23-17
| | chessgames.com: <Could you please list each one, for the sake of accuracy?> I can try.
The most egregious one was <So's father taught him the moves at the age of seven.> which is, I've been told on good authority, is a fiction. The statement <In 2013, he moved to live and study in the USA at Susan Polgar's chess academy> may need to be updated to read 2012; I'm not quite sure. (I've found both years stated as fact on different websites.) Regardless of the exact year, the statement <He is now part of the Webster University chess team, under the SPICE Program run by GM Zsuzsa Polgar.> is ridiculously out of date and should just be removed. Also it is silly to say <He is now officially the USA's #2 player> when he just won the US Championship and is the highest rated US player; clearly #1 by any standard you wish to apply. There were also some concerns of the results, e.g. in one event "second place" might correctly read "tied for second"—or maybe not, there might have been a Sonneborn-Berger or similar tiebreak. I'd have to pore through the old bio to find those points of contention; although when it comes to enumerating achievements I would trust Wesley's provided list and think it's sufficient. |
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Apr-23-17
| | saffuna: <The statement <In 2013, he moved to live and study in the USA at Susan Polgar's chess academy> may need to be updated to read 2012; I'm not quite sure. (I've found both years stated as fact on different websites.)> This refers to the biography of Wesley So on his player page, right? That sentence does not appear in the bio I am reading. Maybe I am looking at the wrong thing, but the bio I see does not include any mention of Susan Polgar or her chess academy. |
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| Apr-23-17 | | zanzibar: Thanks <chessgames>. Whether he learned the moves at age six or seven, the question remains if his father taught him the moves. This is always interesting info to include in any bio. There's a bigger issue raised by the following:
<Regardless of the exact year, the statement <He is now part of the Webster University chess team, under the SPICE Program run by GM Zsuzsa Polgar.> is ridiculously out of date and should just be removed. Also it is silly to say <He is now officially the USA's #2 player> when he just won the US Championship and is the highest rated US player; clearly #1 by any standard you wish to apply. <<>>> This raises a simple issue. Any such statements in a bio should be red-flagged, and rewritten with the proper context. E.g.
<He is now officially the USA's #2 player> should instead be written as
<As of <such and such a date> he was officially the USA's #2 player> Similarly for the Webster matriculation (whenever exactly it was). Transient info does pose an update issue. A simple idea is to have a section specifically designated as Transient, marked by a last update date. Such info can be migrated to the main bio section as it ages out. (It's just an idea, not necessarily a "good" idea) |
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| Apr-23-17 | | zanzibar: <chessgames> I hope you're also aware of this post by <chessical> over on the Bistro: Biographer Bistro (kibitz #16409) |
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Apr-23-17
| | chessgames.com: <I hope you're also aware of this post by <chessical> over on the Bistro> Only just now, and it's wonderful work by Chessical. While some people complain, other people roll up their sleeves and get to work. <<He is now officially the USA's #2 player>should instead be written as
<As of <such and such a date> he was officially the USA's #2 player>> I agree it's 100 times better, but as a rule of thumb even this is discouraged as per my post Biographer Bistro (kibitz #16400). However for the case of top 3 or 4 players one may be tempted to break this rule due to their sheer importance. However, seeing that Wesley's biography was years out of date even after achieving #2 worldwide status, perhaps it is a solid policy in all cases. Of course, saying "He won the US Championship in April of 2017" is the same as your sentence, and that would be perfectly fine. When we get into specific ratings and ranks in the rating charts, it really makes for dull reading and quickly becomes dated. |
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| Apr-23-17 | | NakoSonorense: Hi, <chessgames.com>, No word on the app yet?
chessgames.com chessforum |
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Apr-23-17
| | chessgames.com: <No word on the app yet?> Actually there is. One of the programmers went MIA and the project was shelved for about year but just recently the team has reassembled with a replacement, a very sharp programmer, and we're meeting regularly (via teleconference) about the progress made. Some team members think we can get a beta test out in a few weeks while others have a longer (more realistic IMO) timeframe. So the short answer is, "Yes, we hope to have an app soon." It will first appear in the form of an Android app but an iOS app will soon follow. (The delay will exist only because of Apple bureaucracy that is absent in the Android world.) Keep in mind the app will not be a generic chess database app that interfaces with CG, it will be a mobile playing platform called the "ChessGames PlayZone." Meanwhile I'm working on making the site itself more mobile friendly, one page at a time. Right now I'm working on a mobile-friendly advanced search. |
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Apr-24-17
 | | Domdaniel: As the 'improved' So bio is in the news, has anyone else noticed that Wes is described as both 8th and 9th youngest Gm in its early lines? <"the eighth youngest player to attain the GM title in history" ...
"the ninth youngest chess grandmaster in history".> ... you can take the boy out of the quasi-fascist 3rd-world dictatorial state, but you can't take the (etc.) ... |
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Apr-24-17
 | | SwitchingQuylthulg: According to Wikipedia's list, So is currently the tenth-youngest GM in history; but that's another stat that would likely need regular updating. |
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Apr-24-17
 | | Annie K.: The practical solution would probably be to just say that in year ____ he obtained the GM title, at the age of ___, which made him the __th youngest GM in history at the time. |
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| Apr-24-17 | | zanzibar: <AnnieK> has the right idea. That blankety-blank! |
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Apr-25-17
 | | jessicafischerqueen:
Hats off to <Chessical> and our <Webmaster> for trusting such stout historians to produce this improved bio: Wesley So Still no mention of his connection with <Szuza> though. Maybe it's not actually important enough to include, but I'm almost entirely unfamiliar with that detail in his career. Others, though, have said it should be included. |
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| Apr-25-17 | | zanzibar: <CG> in the master tournament list, which is a list of years: Tournament Index
Would it be possible to arrange it so as not to split any year over two links? A small convenience, to be sure, but I hit it oh-so-often. |
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Apr-25-17
| | chessgames.com: <Would it be possible to arrange it so as not to split any year over two links?> We could do that only if we gave up on the current "50 events per page" format. Perhaps we could switch to a year-by-year format, but that gets a little odd looking for some of the older years. Do you know that if you search on a year it will pull up all of those tournaments? So if you are looking for a specific year that feature wouldn't really be needed. |
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Apr-25-17
 | | offramp: I think there is going to be a time in the future when chess broadcasts cost money. I think chessgames.com should be showing more live broadcasts now, while it is cheap or free. There is nearly always a tournament going on somewhere, I think you should show one of them. I have already complained to the chessbookie about the tectonic pace by which new funds arrive. It used to be one thousand tal$ a quarter, now it is 2000 tal$ for users, but I asked for the periods to be months or two months. |
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| Apr-25-17 | | zanzibar: <<chessgames> <<z> Would it be possible to arrange it so as not to split any year over two links?> We could do that only if we gave up on the current "50 events per page" format.> Ah, so the lists are generated on the fly?
I overlooked that obvious strategy.
<Perhaps we could switch to a year-by-year format, but that gets a little odd looking for some of the older years.> To tell the truth, I think the 50 items/page, while convenient for the software generator, isn't that useful for users. I'd prefer having variable length grouping - but with more obvious years. E.g. 100-year or 50-year or 25-year or 10-year or 5-year or if absolutely necessary 1-year groupings. Of course, there should be some max items/page that determines the size of the chronological interval. BTW- this would be a very natural place to introduce navigational indices with backlinks. <Do you know that if you search on a year it will pull up all of those tournaments? So if you are looking for a specific year that feature wouldn't really be needed.> I might have known about this at some point, but I stopped using it. Somehow I thought it easier to just click, scroll, click. I relooked at the search feature, and might comment on some of the quirks which come up. |
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Apr-25-17
| | chessgames.com: <offramp> I think you're right. I can't imagine how places like chess24 can afford live GMs to give away free broadcasts unless they expect that to be advertising for a future pay-per-view offering. So let's make hay while the sun shines. I think we'll start covering Shamkir after the break day. In other news, <Stockfish> showed me a very interesting anomaly today. After going through some 17,000 Opening Explorer positions it plunged to depths of 35 ply at times, with hundreds in the 30s, but one particular position broke all records with 105 (!) ply. The position was this: 
click for larger viewFunny little variation, you can see it at the Opening Explorer. |
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| Apr-25-17 | | zanzibar: <chessgames> what do you mean 30-ply vs. 35-ply vs. 105-ply? What criteria are you using?
(E.g. most searches are fixed time, seeing how deep the engine gets, or fixed depth, allowing the engine as much time as needed. I assume you aren't doing a fixed-time search, so what exactly are you doing?) |
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| Apr-25-17 | | zanzibar: Let me guess the opening - a Ruy Lopez, exchange, with 5.O-O Bg4 6.h3 h5 |
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