ChessGames.com


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ChessGames.com is a large chess community on the Internet, with over 100,000 members.[1] The site maintains a large database of historical chess games where every game has a distinct message board for comments and analysis. Basic membership is free and the site is open to players at all levels of ability. ChessGames.com is a non-playing site where members discuss chess and analyze positions without playing chess real-time, except for team contests and consultation challenges. The site's membership has been very successful representing "The World" when competing against Grandmasters.[2] The site features allow study of openings, endgames and sacrifices, including the specific opening repertoire of every Grandmaster in the database.

Contents

History

ChessGames.com was founded in 2001 by Daniel Freeman and Alberto Artidiello in association with 20/20 Technologies.[3] They developed software to integrate a chess database with a discussion forum so that each game contains a unique message board. The concept was immediately popular as users can kibitz (post comments) on multiple games and pages throughout the site. The Kramnik—Lékó World Championship 2004 match in Brissago was broadcast live on the site.[4] This led to a substantial growth in membership and interest, which has steadily increased since then from other live events plus multiple site enhancements.[3]

Database

The site's database of chess games was originally constructed by combining six large databases while weeding out duplicate games.[5] The primary factor for inclusion in the ChessGames.com database is that one of the players should be master strength (an ELO rating of 2200 or above) to avoid low quality games and erroneous fabrications. Their ultimate goal is 750,000 games, which should represent the total number of serious chess games ever recorded.[3] The database presently contains 474,000 games.[1] Each game page lists a user feedback process to eliminate bad games, help correct errors, and remove any duplicates.

Each game on ChessGames.com is hosted on a separate web page to allow internal and external weblinks to that particular game. Although other online databases contain more games (which are not necessarily screened for quality), they typically do not permit external links to individual games, or else allow for kibitzing on each game.

Membership

There are 87,000 registered members (of which 15 percent have visited over the last three months), with 1,400 new members per month.[1] At any time, several hundred people are actively using the site.[3] Group demographics from a 2005 Questionnaire: 98 percent male, 50 percent from North America, average rating 1600-1800 with one third unrated.[6] Members post messages under a Username handle, which may be their real identity or else an anonymous handle.

Prominent ChessGames.com members include former Women's World Champion Susan Polgar, former World Championship candidate Nigel Short, prolific authors Raymond Keene and Eric Schiller, past USCF President GM Maxim Dlugy, IM Lawrence Day, WGM Yelena Dembo and Gothic Chess inventor Ed Trice.[7]

The World

The Internet Age created the potential for one Grandmaster to play against a large group ("The World") in a consultation game, starting with GM Anatoly Karpov defeating The World in 1996 followed by GM Garry Kasparov beating The World in 1999. Since then other collections of amateurs have represented The World versus one Grandmaster with varying degrees of success.[8] ChessGames.com began team play as The World in 2006 and defeated noted computer expert GM Arno Nickel.[9] The group duplicated that result by winning as Black against 2007 US Champion GM Yury Shulman.[10] The latest victory by the ChessGames.com team was over the former Correspondence World Champion Gert Jan Timmerman.[11]

Instruction

ChessGames.com's clearly stated goal for members is "to participate and learn from players stronger than yourself, while guiding those who are weaker."[12] The site is designed to be "a worldwide chess community where anybody from anywhere can come to discuss anything they want about chess."[3] Many educational items are updated daily, including the Daily Puzzle, Game of the Day, Player of the Day, Opening of the Day, and Quote of the Day. As a non-playing site, they provide links to several playing sites (real-time and correspondence). In 2005 enhanced software allowed members to embed chess diagrams in their messages, which significantly helps discuss a particular position or potential variation.

The ChessGames.com database can be searched by player, year, opening, ECO code and result. Members can create Game Collections to store hundreds of database games by any desired category: opening, endgame, tactic, player, tournament. The site's kibitzing may be searched by keyword for all messages to locate previous posts and find specific information. There are already more than 1.4 million posts.[1]

Features

ChessGames.com has created several educational tools for users:

  • The Opening Explorer helps study openings move by move, to select and review games from that particular opening, while also viewing the success rate (percentage of White wins vs. draws vs. Black wins) from games in the database.
  • The Endgame Explorer searches for games containing specific piece configurations (King and Pawn, Rook and Pawn, Queen versus Rook, etc.) to review all historical games where that endgame occurred.
  • The Sacrifice Explorer finds games based on sacrificed material (any pieces, exchange sacrifice, attacks on a given square, by opening, by player, etc.) to locate instructive games and puzzle examples, while helping to increase tactical skill.
  • The Repertoire Explorer follows one player's opening preferences as White and Black, simultaneously displaying their database games and success rate, to pattern one's opening play after a famous player.
  • Guess-the-Move is a chess training tool where members play through a database game and try to predict the following move, receiving points for correctly choosing those moves actually played.

The Explorer features are limited in the basic membership and are only fully available for an annual fee.

References

  1. ^ a b c d "ChessGames.com Statistics". Chessgames.com. Retrieved on 2008-08-16.
  2. ^ "The chess games of The World". Chessgames.com. Retrieved on 2007-12-08.
  3. ^ a b c d e Golubev, Mikhail (2006-11-01) "Interview with Daniel Freeman of Chessgames.com" in Chess Today (2185), pages 2—4. Retrieved on 2007-12-08
  4. ^ Keene, Raymond [2004-10-31]. World Chess Championship: Kramnik Vs Leko 2004. Hardinge Simpole Limited. ISBN 1843821605. 
  5. ^ "ChessGames.com F.A.Q. - Where do you get your games?". Chessgames.com. Retrieved on 2007-12-09.
  6. ^ "ChessGames.com Questionnaire". Chessgames.com (2005-09-12). Retrieved on 2007-12-08.
  7. ^
  8. ^ "Play the expert - GM James Plaskett (The 2003 rematch!)". Chessworld.net. Retrieved on 2007-12-08.
  9. ^ "The Chessgames Challenge - The World vs Arno Nickel". Chessgames.com. Retrieved on 2007-12-08.
  10. ^ "The Chessgames Challenge - Yury Shulman vs The World". Chessgames.com. Retrieved on 2007-12-08.
  11. ^ "The Chessgames Challenge - The World vs Gert Jan Timmerman". Chessgames.com. Retrieved on 2008-08-13.
  12. ^ "ChessGames.com". Retrieved on 2007-12-08.

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