IRLchess

Here are some of the items in the past month that were not the subject of separate posts, along with some description of future plans:

Games archive:

39 games were added from TWIC 923 (there were no Irish games in TWICs 924 or 925). In addition the following games were added:

Some recent games:
John Nolan – Ciarán Quinn, Branagan Cup final (3), June 2012
Paul Ward – John Hensey, Connacht League final, July 2012
Michael Waters – Stephen Scannell, Ballynafeigh Rapid, July 2012

… plus a recently-concluded correspondence game:
Steve Dunne – Albert Fekete, 9th ICCF Team Ch semi-final 3 [Ireland-Hungary], 2011

… plus sundry games from Kieran Cranny:
Kieran Cranny – Jack Killane, Rathmines Senior Club Ch 1968
Kieran Cranny – Joe Flood, Ennis Shield 1980-81, March 1981
John Burns – Kieran Cranny, Rathmines C.C. ladder 1992
Kieran Cranny – Tony Scannell, Rathmines C.C. Intermediate Ch 2004

… and Arthur Cootes:
Arthur Cootes – James O’Fee, Ulster Intermediate Ch 1973
Arthur Cootes – James McCann, QUB Open 1997

… plus sundry others:
James O’Fee- Tom Clarke, Civil Service Summer Tournament 1988
Colm Daly – Philip Short, 25th Mulcahy Memorial 1993
Gerard MacElligott- Kieran English, Armstrong Cup 2002-03
Thomas Brezing – Eddie O’Connor, Armstrong Cup 2002-03

Games archive future plans:
Last month’s update mentioned the plan to make IRLchess the archive of record for Irish games, since the ICU database is not being updated any more, at least not systematically. We’re currently up to just under 5,000 games, with another 800 or so results/fixtures.

The current ICU database has just under 20,000 games, so one idea would be to add all those straight away. The reason I haven’t done this is not that the task would be difficult–actually it would be quite straightforward–but rather because I have something different in mind. As you’ll see if you click through any of the games above, there’s a new format for games in the IRLchess archive: the games come with references, sources, and links. Most databases don’t bother with this, and for some purposes that’s fine. But much of the interest in a chess game is in the context–imagine how uninteresting a database would be if it provided only the moves of games, with no names of players–so IRLchess will provide as much of that context as possible.

Another point is that while databases are a great boon for almost all purposes, they all have their fair share of errors. Including the IRLchess archive, by the way: I’m aware of a few dozen discrepancies and there are probably more. This is also true of TWIC, Big Database 2012, the ICU archive, and BritBase. So say you’re interested in a particular game. You look in two different reliable sources, and lo and behold they don’t give the same game: perhaps one shows a string of extra moves at the end of the game. Did the shorter version omit the moves (perhaps the original source said “and White later won”, and the note was omitted or filtered out somewhere along the way)? Or did the game really end there (perhaps the extra moves are analysis mistakenly copied as part of the game, or with the commentary markers filtered out somewhere along the way)? The trouble with the usual no-frills database is that no indication is given. Even if one database compiler has spotted the error in the other database and expressly corrected it, how would you know? The plan for the IRLchess archive is to add enough detail and notes so that you know where our information comes from. (And for future versions, there will also be features giving timestamps to games, ensuring consistency between different versions, and other features; all under development).

The ICU archive developed over several years, mostly by John Hurley, Mark Orr, and David McAlister. The core seems to be collections of games assembled by John Hurley (call these the “Hurley Archive”) and a separate collection assembled by David McAlister (call these the “McAlister Archive”). (There may be some others.) An initial plan is to see how feasible it is to process these collections automatically, and for each game in the ICU archive to indicate whether it’s in one or both of the major constituent components.

You may or may not care about any of this, but on the other hand the ICU games archive is already fully searchable, so nothing is lost by not adding it in here right away.

Some items this month that weren’t the subject of separate posts:

Games archive: The ICU games archive is an excellent resource and represents a huge amount of effort by its originators (John Hurley and Mark Orr deserve much of the credit, I believe). But it seems there is no particular effort being made to keep it up to date. I’d like to aim at making the IRLchess archive the most comprehensive and current resource for Irish games.

With this in mind, I’ve steadily been adding games to the archive on these pages, all searchable via the “Search Games” feature in the right column. After some reworking of the routines this month, the process is now much simpler, so whenever a new game appears on a club web page or blog, it’s relatively straightforward to grab it and convert to a playable .htm file. I’m leaving out comments (too tricky to handle, apart from any issues of getting permission) but am adding sources, references and links where available.

Games added this month include:

Sheehan-Gibson, “Dublin league” 1997
Dooley-Dunne, Branagan Cup 1997
K. Delaney-R. Quinn, National Club Ch 2009
O’Brien-O’Donnell, Munster League 2011-12
Noonan-O’Grady, Shannon Masters 2011-12
Masterson-Waters, Ballynafeigh June Rapid 2012
Wall-Curtin, UT San Antonio Open 1992

plus half a dozen more.

You may notice that the search takes a few seconds (10-20) to generate results. In one sense this isn’t ideal, of course, but there’s a reason: each search causes each and every .htm file on the site to be opened and checked to see if it matches the search terms. So search results are always automatically up to date: as soon as a new .htm file is loaded, it appears in the search results. For future development: a speedier search, and a speedy way of generating an up-to-date pgn file of all the games on the site (to this end, the pgn source is embedded into the .htm file, as you’ll see if you do a ‘View Source’ on the files above).

Simuls: A couple of new events have been added to the Local Simuls page: these were simuls given by Alexander Baburin in 2005 and 2006. In addition, Ciarán Quinn and Philip Reilly sent in comments on simuls given by Bronstein, Spassky, and Geller. For Bronstein, I’m happy to say there is plenty of information: David McAlister sent a scan of the report in the ICJ, complete with several games, so it’s just a matter of getting around to processing it. For Spassky and Geller, though, any help would be greatly appreciated. I think Geller also played a game against three opponents in consultation? (David Dunne, Jonathan O’Connor, Paul Delaney?). I recall seeing a photo in the Dublin C.C. rooms.