Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess

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Chessable
I'm reaching out here out of a question that some of you may have encountered before: What template is most appropriate for chapters of Chessable courses? Is this a cite book (as if it were an e-book) or cite-web (as if it were merely a website)? I'm currently going with the former at Draft:Devin gambit, as read mode seems something like an e-book, but I'm wondering if any of you have dealt with this before. — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 03:58, 28 February 2024 (UTC)


 * There are a couple of Chessable citations in the London System article that I updated quite heavily last year, so I had a look to see what was done there.
 * At the time I updated the article I wasn't sure of the correct citation style. The article was copy edited for house style by user Ihardlythinkso, and I guess it must have been him who altered the citations to . No doubt this is correct, although some Chessable courses (not the ones cited in that article) are text only and don't have an AV element, unless you count the move trainer as being 'V'. Hope this helps... Axad12 (talk) 08:56, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that. I had been more or less only been using the written book text as a source, though I agree it makes sense to use the cite AV media for the Chessable videos. — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 18:43, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
 * No problem. Good luck with the Devin Gambit draft.
 * Incidentally, if you ever feel like starting an article on the (different but not entirely unrelated) Gibbins-Weidenhagen Gambit (1.d4 Nf6 2.g4) I would happily contribute. Axad12 (talk) 19:29, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I've got some sources that cover both; my plan is to cover the Gibbins-Weidenhagen (or Bronstein) Gambit next, after I can finish up the section on the 4. Nxg4 lines in the current one. I'm a bit saddened that I can't find anything on 4. d4 in the Devin Gambit; it was Esipenko's choice against Mamedyarov, but I'm having trouble finding any written analysis of that move choice that isn't a mere blog post or lichess study. — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 21:14, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The Devin Gambit is a bit outside of my repertoire so I'm afraid I can't help there.
 * The best source on the GWG (to my knowledge) is the series of 3 long articles on the schach-bremen.de website (which thankfully my browser automatically translates to English). If you know of any better source then do let me know.
 * I did once try to get hold of the two German book(let?)s on the subject from the 1990s, but the postage from Germany was prohibitive. To be honest I got the impression that Jurgen Tonjes had condensed all the most important info from those sources into his schach-bremen articles (but I stand to be corrected).
 * Magnus Carlsen gave the GWG a spin at Titled Tuesday back in December 2023 vs GM Aryan Tari (seems like Carlsen intends to play every opening at least once in his career...)
 * There is also a Vachier-Lagrave game from back in 2019 (vs Wei Yi).
 * GM Andrew Tang seems to be the GWG specialist and has used it to rack up victories against Firouzja and Andreikin amongst others. Axad12 (talk) 22:04, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I will attempt to get what I can from the German articles (I could find the three articles about it, but my lack of German knowledge is a bit of a burden here). Schiller's Unorthodox chess openings from 1998 has eight pages (203-210) dedicated to the opening. The theory is likely going to be dated somewhat in both cases, since the website is now over 20 years old and Schiller's book is over 25 years old. — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 22:02, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The best insight into the current theory may be the 16 games by GM Andrew Tang (+14 -2) played between 2020 and 2023. Seems like these were mostly bullet games, however, so I guess he was using the GWG because it's obscure and hard to refute with only a minute on the clock, rather than because he had some ground-breaking theoretical novelties.
 * To be honest, a Wikipedia article on the GWG would only need to address the theory at a fairly superficial level re: the pros and cons of accepting/declining the gambit plus a few sample lines taken from the occasional GM games. Axad12 (talk) 22:55, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * To follow up on this all, there appears to be a free community chessable course at  which is explicitly about this gambit. I'd ordinarily have no questions on using this if the author were a titled player (as they'd be something of a subject matter expert on chess), but it's made by a club player whose day job appears to be some sort of economics role for the Central Bank of Ireland. I'm looking and I see some evidence that there's playtesting and quality control on Chessable's end (c.f. editorial control and a reputation for fact-checking in the reliable sources guideline), and the main reason I'd like to use this source is to annotate a game that includes a tournament game between two GMs that includes 3. ...Bb4+ rather than just have some pictures of certain positions with little accompanying text.
 * My instinct here is saying that the source is OK in this context—I know we don't use Lichess studies, but I think the editorial control on Chessable's end distinguishes the community Chessable courses from studies on Lichess— though I wanted to see if there are any other opinions here. I'll be moving the draft to mainspace shortly; if there's no objections, I'll try to annotate the Wei Yi vs Levon Aronian game using the course as a source. — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 17:18, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what the chapter and verse is here, but personally I wouldn't have any objection given the nature of the subject. Axad12 (talk) 18:39, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Are you saying you have annotations by a strong player, rather than just "a club player"? I would not recommend using annotations by a club player in a Wikipedia article.  Given that Aronian and Wei Yi are super-GMs, you should be able to find annotations by someone real somewhere. Bruce leverett (talk) 21:42, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * With regard to the author in the case quoted above, if his Chessable username 'pafiedor' relates to Pawel Fiedor then his standard play FIDE rating is 1485 (according to fide.com). If that is the case then I'd be inclined to reverse my previous comment. Axad12 (talk) 23:15, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Playing strength does not directly correlate with annotation quality. Reshevsky's books are notoriously poor, but I'd have no problem recommending a Graham Burgess or Tim Harding book. An amateur who has done their research and knows how to write can produce good annotations. When it comes to chess writing, Elo isn't everything. (That said 1485 is pushing it). MaxBrowne2 (talk) 23:17, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * That's about where I am on this. It's just a bit hard to find commentary on this opening for high-level games, since the opening is fairly rare (and has been used by very strong players only very recently). — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 01:33, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * It's disappointing to run across a very high-level game (or more than one such game) for which there is no very high-level commentary. But we are an encyclopedia, we can wait.  If the opening is worth writing about, soon enough the writing will come; and if it doesn't come, maybe the variation is not encyclopedia-worthy after all. Bruce leverett (talk) 03:18, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * That's fair. I think the opening's gotten enough coverage for an article, but you're right there's no need to rush with commentary for an illustrative game regarding the 3. ...Bb4+ line. I shouldn't need to stretch sourcing for that sort of thing. — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 04:07, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * My feeling on this is as follows:
 * There will already be entire chess opening articles on Wikipedia that were written by players rated at less than, say, USCF Expert level (i.e. rating of 2000-2199). No one is worried about that as long as the articles are basically correct and informative and they quote appropriate WP:RS sources.
 * However, in the case in point, the value of a 1485 player adding commentary on a super GM game is going to be limited, and the point of quoting it as a source will be low.
 * If you are higher rated than 1485 then you might as well add your own commentary.
 * If you aren't then you can probably generate commentary of higher value than a 1485 player by simply putting the game through the Stockfish analysis engine, picking out some salient sub-variations and adding some relevant gloss. If a stronger player later comes along and disagrees with what you've said then obviously they can change it for themselves. That's just the normal Wikipedia process on any article (chess related or otherwise).
 * However, three further points...
 * a) on your draft article, why is it necessary to add commentary on a Super GM game at all? Most Wikipedia chess opening articles only talk about the opening moves in general terms without going into detail on specific games (and without discussing very much after the opening has ended except on a thematic level). Illustrative games normally sit at the end of the article, free of commentary.
 * b) if you feel that the commentary in the source you cite is clearly more insightful than that of a 1485 player then that raises the issue that you raised earlier on the relevance of whether or not there was editorial oversight prior to publication, but I'm not sure that we will get a consensus on whether that can be established or whether it is relevant.
 * c) there are already plenty of Wikipedia articles about openings more obscure and unorthodox than the Devin Gambit (e.g. article on 1.Nh3, etc.). I don't see anyone claiming that those articles are any the less (or that their notability is in question) due to the lack of expert commentary on Super GM games featuring those openings. Axad12 (talk) 03:47, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * To briefly respond in part: The reason I was seeking to include an illustrative game of the variations was that something like the GA Budapest gambit has an illustrative game, and I've generally seen illustrative games in other articles (though in some, like Queen's Gambit Declined, Cambridge Springs Defense, it's without commentary). I haven't written a chess openings article before, so I'm admittedly a bit new in terms of the general style and conventions here. — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 03:59, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * If it helps, I was in the same position as you last year. I saw that there were some openings articles which were poorly written stubs so I rewrote them myself pretty much from scratch and expanded them to full articles. If you have a look at them it may help re: issues like format, level of analysis etc. in minor openings. The articles are King's Indian Attack, Nimzowitsch-Larsen Attack, London System, and Hippopotamus Defence. The content/format seems to be non-controversial as the articles have only seen minor (mostly copy-editing) adjustments since they went up. Axad12 (talk) 04:26, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Mark Schulman (chess player)
Are there enough sources to justify an article? He played in 3 Canadian championships and 1 Olympiad in the 1960s. Since I wrote my piece in the Afd discussion I did find an article by Daniel Yanofsky in the book "100 years of chess in Canada"(available only in snippet) which at least gives us a date of birth. Articles_for_deletion/Mark_Schulman_(chess_player). MaxBrowne2 (talk) 03:59, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Multiple off-by-one ratings
I'm seeing numerous incorrectly-populated ratings. For example, according to FIDE, Gukesh's rating is 2763. However, it's being automatically populated as 2764. Greenman (talk) 10:52, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Chess players' notability
Greetings, all. I suggest the criterion #1 of WP:NCHESS is changed in order to reflect the fact that both men's and women's title of grandmaster is adequate when considering a chess player's notability. (Please take a look at a relevant recent discussion in the AfD page.) The proposed new text would read as follows: -The Gnome (talk) 12:41, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
 * 1) Has been awarded the title of Grandmaster through either men, women, or combined competitions.
 * The proposed wording does not add any content to the existing wording. The phrase "through either men, women, or combined competitions", besides being less than perfectly grammatical, does not qualify the previous part of the sentence in any way. So I did not know what you had in mind. I turned to the AfD discussion (thanks for the link), and I now have an idea what you might have meant. Perhaps you would like WP:NCHESS to mention the WGM title as well as the GM title. I definitely don't like this idea, but before I go on about it, I'll stop and check that that is what you had in mind. Bruce leverett (talk) 22:23, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, I find the notion that women athletes who compete in women-only sports and achieve the same awards or titles as men (e.g. chess grandmasters, Wimbledon tennis tournament winners, Olympic track and field medalists, etc) should have their awards or titles treated in exactly the same way as men's, as far as their use to indicate notability is concerned. -The Gnome (talk) 11:40, 5 May 2024 (UTC)
 * WGM titles are not parallel titles. They are lesser titles available to women, on the way to the same titles at the top that are available to everyone. The highest level of women competition does not involve WGMs; they are contested by GMs who are women. Accordingly, sources don't care about women who are WGMs just because they are WGMs; there are enough women GMs to care about. It's better to focus on reasons other than their titles that might generate SIGCOV. Bodhana Sivanandan, for example, meets GNG despite not even being a WGM.Regardless, NCHESS can be used as guidance when looking for topics to create articles on but it ought not to be used as an argument in AFDs. And it is already too lax. Not all GMs are actually notable. — Usedtobecool ☎️ 12:14, 5 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Agree with . A crucial point here is that the WGM title is a separate title from the GM title.  Hypothetically, as a woman is ascending the ladder of chess, she might get both.  Separate certificates, separate lapel pins, etc. Bruce leverett (talk) 14:03, 5 May 2024 (UTC)
 * For most WGMs, the next step on the ladder is to get the IM title (as many women have done, including by playing in all-woman tournaments). The unceremonious treatment of Dutch IM Lars Ootes in a recent Afd shows that IMs are not always considered notable, so presumably WGMs are not always considered notable either. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 06:30, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't call the deletion of the article about Lars Osten as "unceremonious treatment." It was a 2-1 decision. As to your deductive presumptions, well, they're personal opinions and no more, in the absence of supporting data. A good point about ELO ranges was made, though. -The Gnome (talk) 18:35, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Some of the replies seem to have some misconceptions. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 15:23, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Women's titles are parallel titles. If you go to a GM's FIDE page (e.g. ), you will see both titles listed, not just GM. I get why because of the rating requirements you want to think of it as just one ladder you can climb, but really it's two separate ladders you can climb together. The FIDE title regulations page expresses the same sentiment. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 15:23, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Regarding IMs, a male player having the IM title may not be inherently notable, but a female player having the IM title is. Every single woman with the IM title already has a page. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 15:23, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
 * For WGMs, there are ~2000 GMs compared to only about ~500 WGMs. In that sense, the WGM title is more exclusive. I think it's fair that if we think the GM title implies notability, the WGM title should as well. (The reality is probably neither really imply notability. A fairly high fraction of GMs or WGMs are notable, but not 100% in either case.) We already have over 400 (I think 450?) WGM pages out of 500 WGMs. That's a pretty good percentage around 80-90%, probably similar to the percentage for GMs. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 15:23, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
 * WP:AfD discussions involving biographies of chess players always revolve around "significant coverage"; the strength of the player or the title held seldom figure into the discussion. This is the widely recognized, but largely unwritten, weakness of WP:NCHESS, which for this very reason cannot even remotely approach authority as a test of notability, but can only serve as a guideline.
 * You observation that the WGM title is as good a predictor of notability as the GM title, if not better, is something I hadn't thought of, but it makes perfect sense. Women are still quite rare in organized (adult) chess, and wherever they go, all eyes are upon them. This translates to more coverage, for better or for worse, in publications of all kinds, all the way up to our reliable sources.  In spite of what I wrote earlier in this conversation, I could hardly object if WP:NCHESS were revised to reflect this. Bruce leverett (talk) 23:22, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
 * While discussions involving biographies of chess players should indeed revolve around significant overall coverage in sources, the additional criteria for notability available through WP:NCHESS can stand on their own. As to your remarks about WGMs, we're in firm agreement. That's why I proposed a change in the wording. Suggestions? -The Gnome (talk) 07:37, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Your observations, Sportsfan77777, are spot on. -The Gnome (talk) 07:37, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Style to display chess moves
Recently User:Neo Purgatorio changed a lot of opening articles to go from explicitly mentioning the move number to implicitly using a numbered list to get it (e.g. diff, so :1. Na3 vs. # Na3 ). We discussed it a bit on their talk page. I realized that it doesn't look like WP:CHESS currently has any guidelines or suggestions on how to display moves? Anyway, I think that maybe we should have such a guideline added.

I think it should recommend the existing style and discourage the numbered list style. Reasoning: chess moves are not really a numbered list. The move number is a primary part of the text, not just a count of items - imagine if there's 4 buildings with names prepended with "1/2/3/4", we wouldn't use a numbered list but rather include these as part of the name. It is surprising and confusing to go into edit source and have the move numbers "disappear". Additionally, most browsers copy & paste will exclude numbered list counts, which is explicitly not desired. Try going to Descriptive_notation and copy pasting the move list (which uses the numbered list style); you'll end up with no move numbers. Copy-pasting a directly written version works fine, though. The two styles display basically identically, so why would we want to go with the harder-to-edit, harder-to-copy version? (Also, machine ingestion is mostly not our problem, but automatic analysis of text also probably wants to see the move numbers explicitly.) And while it can be worked around, it's extra-annoying to use a numbered list style if the move list doesn't start at 1 (doable, but why are we doing this extra work again?). I don't really see any advantages of using the numbered list style, but I'll let Neo Purgatorio or others make the case for why they're worth considering. SnowFire (talk) 15:48, 23 May 2024 (UTC)


 * I'm personally fine with either being done here; my impression on the articles, since I'm not all that familiar with chess notation but have grasped the basics of it, was that they were meant to be numbered but simply were not and thus could have used numbered lists. I was looking at it through a formatting standpoint, but I did try to check WP:CHESS to see if there was anything specific on it. I do think the point you've made about not being able to copy chess notation as a result of numbered lists has merit. Neo Purgatorio (talk) 16:01, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and reverted the changes I've made; this discussion should still probably play out, however, since there aren't any guidelines here relating to what to do. Neo Purgatorio (talk) 05:10, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Gadgets now loadable on a per-category basis
I know that there was work in progress on creating a chess game extension, in place of trying to deploy the chess game gadget. Note it is now possible to trigger a gadget loading by placing a page in a configured category. Template gadgets has a bit of description. The first request on English Wikipedia is to support a gadget that implements Conway's Game of Life; see Talk:Conway's Game of Life. Thus it is finally possible to deploy the existing chess game gadget, with it being loaded only on the pages where it is needed. isaacl (talk) 23:26, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Izaak Appel
Appel was a strong Polish/Jewish player who "disappeared" while living in Lviv (or possibly Kyiv) following the 1941 Nazi invasion of Ukraine. He was almost certainly killed in 1941, but as is often the case the precise circumstances of his death are unknown. Currently we have a very unsatisfactory situation where his "disappearance" is sourced to a self-published Bill Wall page. Can we find something better? Gaige maybe? It would be better if we could say something like "Appel died in unknown circumstances following the 1941 Nazi invasion of Ukraine". MaxBrowne2 (talk) 01:32, 30 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately all that Gaige says on page 12 of Chess Personalia is
 * Appel, Izaak    POL
 * *   c1905
 * †   c1941
 * Quale (talk) 02:40, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Akira Watanabe (chess)
Would someone from WP:CHESS mind taking a look at Akira Watanabe (chess) and assessing the subject's notability (as chess player)? I'll ask something similar at WT:JAPAN given that the subject might possobily be notable for reasons other than chess, but the current focus of the article and claim of notability seem to be the subject's chess achievements. The article also appears to be a translation of the Japanese Wikipedia article ja:渡辺暁 (based on User talk:Ebefl) but is lacking proper attribution per WP:TFOLWP. A lack of proper attribution cn most likely can be "fixed", but a lack of notability can't. For reference, the Japanese Wikipedia article does seem to be pretty much the same content-wise and is also basically only supported by a single WP:PRIMARY source (the other sources listed as "references" seem more like "explanatory notes").-- Marchjuly (talk) 21:51, 23 June 2024 (UTC)


 * I made a couple of quick searches but didn't find anything interesting. There is a book, "How to Play Chess Like Akira Watanabe", by John C. Murray, which I thought might be promising, but it is "independently published" (roughly equivalent to self-published).  I also found an article in the Yale Bulletin about him, but it was from when he was a visiting scholar at Yale, and I would hesitate to call that "significant coverage". Bruce leverett (talk) 02:08, 24 June 2024 (UTC)