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Rating chart possibility

German and Russian wikipedias have a very useful tool to be able to display rating graphs on wikipedia. de:Vorlage:WikidataChart

Anyone know if such a thing could be introduced to the English Wikipedia? Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 17:07, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Databases in External links section

Some articles on chess openings include links to online databases in the External links section. Many of these links are dead, requiring us to make a decision: Should we delete them or replace them with a different database? Personally, I do not find these links very helpful as I prefer to input the opening moves into a database that I know and love. Most online databases also require a paid subscription for anything but the very basic features—Lichess being a noteworthy exception—which goes against the spirit of WP:ELREG. —Dexxor (talk) 19:44, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

I share your concerns. I think you can go ahead and delete these. Cobblet (talk) 00:11, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

I fully agree. I think you can remove those without remorse. Quale (talk) 06:15, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

interpretation of infobox data

I added two new sections about issues of interpretation of the infobox data ("country", and "[peak]ranking") at Template talk:Infobox chess biography; I'd appreciate your input on those. Joriki (talk) 07:18, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out an issue with determining peak rankings that I was unaware of, and for demonstrating that it causes problems for Wikipedia and is not merely a theoretical issue. I encourage anyone who is interested in these questions to discuss at the template talk pages you link, especially if they have ideas how to resolve the inconsistent rankings FIDE provides. Quale (talk) 02:45, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Bassem Amin

The article on Bassem Amin is in pretty bad shape. It's had a {{prose}} notice since April 2019. Does anyone feel like cleaning it up? Joriki (talk) 22:11, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Do we really need multiple diagrams in our opening articles?

A whole lot of diagrams were recently added to the Ruy Lopez and Italian Game articles, including some for unimportant lines like 3.Bc4 h6. Looks over the top to me. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 06:46, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Obviously excessive. I've reverted. Cobblet (talk) 08:12, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Some are excessive, some are required. A big part of the problem is the text requires considerable expansion on the Italian Game article. OR maybe a merging of some of the transposition that occur. Quite a contrast between lots of content in the Ruy Lopez and the Italian Game which has many spin off articles. Sun Creator^(talk) 08:14, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

The Italian Game article doesn't mention any fifth moves after 4. c3 Nf6, so it doesn't mention 5. d3, and it doesn't mention any of the old lines after 5. d4. I wonder if there are reliable sources for this. Since Wikipedia came into being, 5. d3 has become very popular.

The Fritz and Ulvestad variations are covered better in Two Knights Defense, so when we mention them in Italian Game we should use Wikilinks. The coverage in Two Knights Defense should mention Estrin-Berliner (or should cite a source for that).

It appears that in the Two Knights, after 4. d3, Black has started playing 4. ... h6, with aggressive intentions (e.g. ... g5). This is just within the last year or two, so perhaps not ready for the encyclopedia. Amazing! Bruce leverett (talk) 14:48, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Giuoco Piano covers the lines after 4.c3 Nf6. Hatnotes could be added to make it more clear that there's more material in related articles. Cobblet (talk) 17:54, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

I found an early example of 4...h6 and ...g5 from 1987, but yes it seems 4...h6 has become more popular lately. Snobby 19th Century London players would call it a "country move", but preventing both Ng5 and Bg5 seems useful, even if playing it on move 3 is taking things a bit far. Caruana plays 4...h6 quite regularly, without ...g5. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 07:42, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Hundreds of dead links

The website "chesscenter" is now an online shop; we have hundreds of links to be removed. Take care. --95.232.3.138 (talk) 17:54, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

99% of those are probably links to Mark Crowther's "The Week in Chess", which is now at theweekinchess.com, apparently since 2012! They need to be updated, not removed.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 18:03, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

We should create a template that links to TWIC. This would also help if the pages move again in the future. We have something like that with {{FIDE}}, but it generates something suitable for an external link. For TWIC we would want to generate a reference. Quale (talk) 18:09, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

I created {{The Week in Chess}} but it would be much easier to replace all instances of http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic with https://theweekinchess.com/html/twic using AWB. Other replacements are also possible, for example:

• http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/jwatson9.html → https://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews/odds-and-ends-2-improvement-and-the-openings
• http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/kolt.html → https://theweekinchess.com/html/twic274.html#5

To find these, you can search for the dead URL on archive.org, copy a sentence from the archived page, and search for the sentence using Google by putting it inside double quotes ("). Then we can ask an admin to mark chesscenter.com as dead so that the InternetArchiveBot can take care of the rest. —Dexxor (talk) 16:11, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Dexxor, {{The Week in Chess}} is nice. I didn't mean that I thought you needed to create the template but I'm glad you did—I couldn't have done it as well. I gave it a test drive on 1998 in chess and I think it looks good. Quale (talk) 04:34, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

I also wanted to mention that a fair number of the dead chesscenter links are on talk and user pages. Don't care about them. Quale (talk) 04:37, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Vampire Gambit

Hello

I've done some digging and found no mention thus far of the Vampire Gambit on Wikipedia.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqV-dq64Cg0 I'm not an expert on Chess as I have only played seriously for about a year, and I just made a Wiki account after noticing the Gambit mentioned prior, so I suspect I'm misinformed. Perhaps the Vampire Gambit has another, more common name that I do not know, or I'm simply lacking Wikipedia search experience.PurpleBeans13 (talk) 03:47, 29 August 2021 (UTC)PurpleBeans13

Hi, @PurpleBeans13:, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you will become a regular! I looked at GothamChess's video, and what he's calling a "Vampire Gambit" ( 1.c4 e5 2.f4 ) has been previously called an "English Opening: Double Whammy Variation" (including in Chess.com's opening database). I also see that since then it gets mentioned on a number of on-line forums since then as the "Vampire Gambit" but not by any reliable sources. Chess.com only has one game in it's database, and Chesstempo, only two. As it is a variation of the English Opening, it would naturally belong in that article, but it is not, under any name. However, seeing as it's so rarely played, I'm not sure adding it to the article is warranted. This is, of course, a subjective decision, and others may disagree, including you : ) SaltySaltyTears (talk) 04:19, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Chess endgame, three knights

At chess endgame an editor is taking out the checkmate with three knights, saying that it isn't basic. I think it is basic, since it is the minimum number of knights that can force checkmate. It is mentioned as an "elementary mate" in Basic Chess Endings and some other books. What do you think? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:55, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Was it cited before? (I took a quick look in page history but didn't see a cite.) If cited to BCE, I think it can stay. Quale (talk) 05:09, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

It is in BCE. It wasn't cited there. The second edition just mentions it. IIRC, the first edition has more details, e.g. the maximum number of moves to checkmate. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 14:44, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

It is cited here: Two_knights_endgame#Three_knights. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 14:45, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't seem "basic" in the sense that I have understood basic endgames, which is mates with the pieces that you start the game with. How often does one have three knights? Pawnkingthree (talk) 23:51, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

This seems little more than a novelty. Has such a situation ever occurred in any documented game, master or otherwise? Just because a respected reference mentions it does not mean it should be included in Wikipedia... contrary to popular assumption, we are allowed to use some judgement here. SaltySaltyTears (talk) 00:00, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Changes to Stalemate

Would someone examine recent changes to Stalemate? I think an editor is being too picky. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 00:30, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

What an annoying editor. Should we just delete the whole section as OR? MaxBrowne2 (talk) 11:00, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

The section in question is Stalemate#Effect on endgame theory. It is a subsection of Stalemate#Proposed rule change. The rule change is the often-proposed change to make stalemate a win for the stalemating side.

The subsection cites reference works that are not addressing the proposed change, but are simply describing various stalemate positions. So, in effect, the whole subsection is "verification failure", or ultimately, just OR.

I would have to thank the "annoying editor" for bringing this problem to our attention.

The larger section cites some old articles and summarizes them, which at least is more in line with what Wikipedia expects. It seems odd to be citing such old articles when one can find scads of newer articles by searching for "chess stalemate win" in Google, but that's another issue. Bruce leverett (talk) 15:19, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

The proposed rule change for stalemate would have implications... Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?}

Two knights endgame

At Two knights endgame an editor is disputing the fact that in general, two knights can't force checkmate. He is removing reliable sources that say that. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 00:50, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

That's quite false. I'm disputing the fact that checkmate positions with king and two knights versus king cannot be forced (which is completely different). I've provided two examples of such positions with accompanying forced mate to illustrate on the talk page. I have removed no sources merely changed @Bubba73's misstatement of Seirawan's text in the first diagram to what Sirawan actually says. I have no problem at all with the fact that two knights and a king cannot force checkmate against a lone king. This is already stated several times in the text and I haven't revised those (correct) statements. --Martin Rattigan (talk) 01:27, 13 September 2021 (UTC)