Talk:Garry Kasparov

Infobox image, again

A slow-motion edit war is in progress over the choice of Infobox image. This should be resolved here, in the talk page. The use of the older (2015) image was the outcome of a discussion that is now in Talk:Garry Kasparov/Archive_2#Infobox image.

Informally, I think the older image is a bit better-looking, but the newer (2023) image is not bad, and, after all, it is newer. I know that other considerations, such as photo quality, which I am not necessarily competent to judge, also sometimes come into play. Bruce leverett (talk) 03:53, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Agree the older image is better-looking for the bio. (Much better.) --IHTS (talk) 05:07, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

As the person that assessed the article for GA, I agree that the 2015 photo is perfect and need not be replaced. The origin of those making that change is clear enough Billsmith60 (talk) 09:22, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

A decent-quality pic of Kasparov from 2017 has been uploaded by user Artem G. I've no objection to it if no one else has Billsmith60 (talk) 16:57, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of this discussion or edit war about the photo. I was reverted, but I still think that 2017 photo is better and is of better quality. Artem.G (talk) 05:25, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Opinions evidently differ about the 2017 photo compared with the 2015 photo. In the 2021 discussion, a version of the 2017 photo was enthusiastically replaced by the 2015 photo, not by me, but with my concurrence. Both the 2017 photo and the 2015 photo have about the same resolution; 2015 is taken from an angle and distance that, it appears to me, better shows his face (plus, I like the smile).

The recent edit war involved a very recent photo. As he ages, we may find ourselves abandoning older photos even if they're better-looking, just because they're older. But for now, the 2015 and perhaps 2017 photos are preferable to the very recent one. Bruce leverett (talk) 17:58, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Nationality, again

The "country" parameter in the Infobox should NOT mention Croatia. We are going with WP:CONTEXTBIO here. The most recent earlier discussion of this is at #Russian_v._Azerbaijani. Bruce leverett (talk) 20:52, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

World no. 1 for how many months?

"Kasparov was ranked world no. 1 for a record 255 months overall". I can't find a source for this. Actually the Wikipedia page it links to says 243 months. I didn't edit it because I don't know which one is correct. Bramentent (talk) 12:35, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Fixed, with a reference further down. The other Wikipedia article is incorrect, obviously. Thanks for posting about this Billsmith60 (talk) 11:47, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Captions

It's not normal for a caption to be comprised of a sentence. Hence, all are now clauses only. Any tweaks should retain that feature for consistency throughout the article Billsmith60 (talk) 11:07, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Where are you getting the idea that a full sentence in a caption is "not normal"?

The language of MOS:CAPTION is:

Most captions are not complete sentences but merely sentence fragments which should not end with a period. However, if any complete sentence occurs in a caption, then every sentence and every sentence fragment in that caption should end with a period.

This doesn't prohibit or even discourage complete sentences. That guidance also says that captions should be "succinct", and this encourages captions that are just sentence fragments; but modifying a sentence to make it a non-sentence, e.g. by replacing "wore" with "wearing", doesn't make it more succinct.

In my limited experience editing an FA and some GA's, I had never come across any kind of inhibition against using full sentences in captions, where appropriate. Bruce leverett (talk) 14:50, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't disagree. However, I noted "consistency" throughout the article: that's the point of my reversions, which read perfectly fine now and adhere to what you quoted above. I see no lack of "succinctness" (an awful noun) therein. Also, as an academic editor (rtd), I guarantee that it is far more usual practice to do without a full-stop in a caption by avoiding a finite verb. Of course, you have the same rights and obligations as me and can restore a mix of clauses and sentences if you wish Billsmith60 (talk) 10:30, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm not having a dig, Bruce, and won't be losing any sleep over this either. Ta Billsmith60 (talk) 12:50, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Favorite openings has bad claims poorly supported

"Kasparov's favourite opening systems were the Queen's Indian with White and variations of the Sicilian Defence with Black."

What is the claim his favorite opening system was the QID as White supposed to mean? It's utter nonsense. The claim that his favorite opening as Black is the Sicilian has much better foundation, but if I was White in a thousand games with Kasparov he wouldn't play his favorite opening as Black a single time and chess players will understand why. We must be better than this.

Not only are the claims bad, the sourcing is terrible. The article has https://www.nkj.ru/archive/articles/1791/ which I must read in Google translation because I can't read Russian, but I don't see anything in that article supporting any claims about Kasparov's favorite openings. Can anyone explain how that link supports the claims? The other citation is https://www.365chess.com/players/Garry_Kasparov. Ugh, a database link. I have a problem with using games databases searches to make claims in articles and I think this is generally not OK. In this case the page says that Kasparov has 37 games as White in the QID. So the support we have for the nonsensical claim that the QID was Kasparov's favorite opening as White is that he played it 37 times out of 2533 total games. I didn't take the time to determine precisely how many of those 2533 games were as White, but we won't be too far off by assuming 50%. That suggests that Kasparov faced the QID in a little less than 3% of his games as White.

The issue here is that the 365Chess database is reporting based on ECO codes. That isn't very helpful here since as most chess players know ECO codes aren't of equal "girth". The Sicilian is divided into 80 ECO codes while the QID has only 8 codes. That illustrates how the issue is especially acute as the more generally popular openings are split into more ECO codes and thus appear less popular than they are when used in a dumb games database counting way as we do in this article. We might be able to support a claim that Kasparov played more games as White using ECO code 12 than any other ECO, but that would tell the chess cognoscenti little and the general Wikipedia reader less than nothing. Quale (talk) 00:15, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

The Queen's Indian was certainly one of the most popular resonses to 1.d4 when Kasparov was active, but it's an opening that Black plays, not White. It's a bit silly to say it was Kasparov's "favourite opening with white". MaxBrowne2 (talk) 02:31, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

I had a little discussion of "favorite openings" with Billsmith60 during or soon after the GA process. It's in my talk page if you are curious.

I agree that "favorite opening" is a phrase that does not work as well for Kasparov playing against the QID as it might for, e.g., Morphy playing the Evans Gambit. Anyway, the title of the section is, "Contributions to opening theory", and it's sort of irrelevant what his favorite openings were, it only matters what contributions he made.

In the 80's and maybe the 90's Kasparov played some important games in the variation of the QID with 4.a3. A variation was even named for him; our article Queen's Indian Defense cites a book about that variation by Mikhail Gurevich.

I also agree that citing Chess365 or chessgames.com to make claims about someone's opening repertoire is not legitimate. Bruce leverett (talk) 04:26, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

I removed the sentence making claims about Kasparov's favorite openings. Something can be added to the article about this if it is supported by WP:RS and if it makes sense. If there were a verified quote where Kasparov said the QID was his favorite opening to play on the white side then it could be reasonable to put that in the article. But that claim could never be established by citing a games database search. Quale (talk) 06:20, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Notable games

Chijioke2007, Billsmith60: It would be a good idea for this article to have a "notable games" section. Many of our articles about chess players have such sections, and notable games are a well-established feature of articles about chess players in print encyclopedias, such as Hooper and Whyld's Oxford Companion to Chess. However such a section must obey the usual Wiki rules. Look for a reliable source that says that the game is notable; it's especially good if you can quote the source as to why the game is notable, and if you can quote the annotations. For this purpose chessgames.com is not a reliable source, because it is full of user-generated content. It's handy to link to the chessgames.com score so that readers can click through the game, but you have to have another source to vouch for the notability and the annotations.

I have not ventured to add a "notable games" section to this article, because I don't have a good sense of which of his games are notable. So I was happy to see the attempt by Chijioke2007, and I would encourage that editor to keep trying. Bruce leverett (talk) 22:10, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

You saying this means a lot as it was my first edit. Thank you so much. Another admin said that the edit was in "point of view" and that it was in the wrong section. Please if you can explain that to me, it'll mean a lot as I'm a first-time editor. Can you also give me an idea of a good source to use so that next time, my edit won't be taken down? Chijioke2007 (talk) 00:42, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

WRT Notable Games, "POV" refers to deciding for yourself that some game is notable, rather than relying on published sources. As I read the comments in the chessgames.com page about Karpov-Kasparov, I realized that there were several commenters who thought that that game and Kasparov-Topalov were his best, so I would guess that you were not pushing an unpopular POV, but it's necessary to find some better source, as I mentioned.

To find sources for chess articles, the easiest places to look are online chess news sources such as Chessbase, and (more recently) chess24 and chess.com. The era when Kasparov was at his peak was roughly 1980's to 2000, and it may be that his earlier spectacular games were only covered in print (i.e. magazines and books). This will make it harder to search for them, but you yourself don't have to solve the entire problem: just come up with, say, two good games, and other readers with better libraries can come up with other games.

I'm not sure what the other editor meant by "wrong section". You put the Notable games where I would expect them. I'll let him clarify what he meant. Bruce leverett (talk) 03:06, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the help. I've improved the edit according to your advice. Maybe whenever you have time, you can see whether you like it, Chijioke2007 (talk) 00:45, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, I think that you have met the requirements. Language like "one of the most famous combinations ever" is MOS:PUFFERY -- read that guideline carefully, it's important for biographical articles like this one! You'll want to tone down that kind of stuff for both games.

Some Notable Games include the score and a diagram. That might not be a bad idea here, but it's a lot of work, it's OK to leave it for later.

Thanks for this contribution! Garry Kasparov has really needed it. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:28, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Hello all. See the most recent edit summary for why these changes were reverted again. Who defines how notable a game is? However, the new editor should be able to introduce a sub-heading something like 'Some notable games' at the end of 'Assessment and legacy' – my best guess at location – but not merely two games. A minimum of five surely, referenced as attempted so far. Regards Billsmith60 (talk) 09:09, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

1).I feel like what defines a notable game is the amount of quality shown and the games that I put there are extremely high quality and are probably among the best games ever played. If you were to go through them and see the public opinion of them, you would agree.

2.) I was planning on adding more games and even if I didn't, then surely others with better knowledge would contribute.

3.) Out of the 17 World Champions, 12 have Notable Games as a totally separate section. The remaining 5 don't have that section at all. Why would we break the trend with Garry Kasparov?

With all due respect, because of the reasons stated above, I don't believe that the edit should have been reverted Chijioke2007 (talk) 10:40, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

As with everything in Wikipedia, we judge the notability of something by the extent of coverage in reliable sources. We do NOT judge it by the "quality" of the games. As unheralded and usually anonymous Wikipedia editors, we are presumed to be unqualified to judge quality; thus we MUST rely on our sources.

Chijioke found sources for both games, and they look like good sources to me. If you (Billsmith60) or anyone else does not think that these sources are reliable enough for the purpose, that's another argument. But since you did not make that argument, there is no basis for calling this Notable games section POV. I will take the liberty of restoring it when I finish posting this comment.

I hasten to acknowledge that I thought some of the language used by Chijioke was MOS:PUFFERY, which is a form of POV. I would encourage him to correct that issue, as I indicated in an earlier comment, before I or someone else jumps in to correct it ourselves. Relying on our sources does not include relying on their puffery. It's OK for chess.com or chessbase to publish over-the-top praise of some game, but we're an encyclopedia, and it's not OK for us.

The original placement of the new section was not in the Personal Life section, but after it. That is, the headings for these sections were at the same level, and they appear consecutively in the table of contents. If there is any written guidance (e.g. in WP:CHESS) about the placement of a Notable Games section, I haven't seen it, so we're just using our own judgment. Your idea of putting it under assessment/legacy looks plausible to me, but other chess biographies have put it at the level of the other major sections, so I don't want to take sides. In any case, if you think the section was incorrectly placed, the appropriate response would be to move it, not to delete it. Bruce leverett (talk) 13:50, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Okay, I understand now. I'll try and correct the language used in the section. At the same time, I'll like to apologize for my incorrect assumption as to what makes a notable game. I'll try to correct this in future chess edits. Chijioke2007 (talk) 16:49, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

It's been moved to where I suggested it should be. Hopefully that works now. Regards Billsmith60 (talk) 20:23, 2 April 2024 (UTC)