Subject: Chess History on the Web (2001 no.9) Date: 1 May 2001 10:49:59 -0000 From: "World Chess Championship" Site review - Breve storia degli scacchi It's been a long time since we looked at a Web site covering chess history from the origin of the game through modern times. This review looks at 'Breve storia degli scacchi' by Andreas Vogt. The site can be found at address... http://scacchi.qnet.it/manuale/storia.htm ...For new subscribers to Chess History on the Web, the full list of the sites that we look at is maintained on this page... http://members.tripod.com/~Mark_Weeks/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm ...Twice a month I look at a site or an aspect of a site which has not been covered by a previous review. Most of the sites listed are labors of love by dedicated amateurs who spend their own time and money to inform the general public via the Web about chess history. My intention is nearly always to discover, not to criticize. --- Since Vogt's site is written in Italian, I had to fall back on a dynamic translation service to understand the content. In the past I used the Go.com service at translator.go.com. When I accessed it for this current review I was automatically redirected to www.systransoft.com. Systransoft is the same software company which develops the translation software that powered the Go.com service. One big advantage of the Go.com service was that any links on a translated page were automatically converted to call the translation service. Clicking a link on the Vogt site, for example, returned that new page already translated from Italian into English. This made it convenient to browse a foreign language site. The Systransoft service does not provide this function. That meant that every time I wanted to look at another page on the Vogt site, I had to copy the address of the new page, return to the Systransoft page, paste the address, and request Italian to English translation. Only then could I read the translated page. This is a clumsy and time consuming method to read a Web site, so I set off to find another translation service. First, what happened to Go.com? A recent issue of the Search Engine Report (worth subscribing if you're interested in search engine technology; it's free) informed me... The Go.com site is to close by the end of February, according to a surprise announcement today from owner Walt Disney Company, marking the end of one of the web's oldest major search resources. More details on the closure, including refunds to those who paid for yearly spidering, below: Going, Going, Go.com-Gone SearchEngineWatch.com, Jan. 29, 2001 http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/01/01-go-gone.html ...So Go is gone for good. My favorite translation service had become another victim of the dot.com implosion, a frequent problem these days as Web services run out of money and investors move on to other areas. What about an alternate service? AltaVista offers a translation function called BabelFish. I was pleased to discover that this service is also based on Systransoft and that it automatically converts the links on the target page. The following address works as a starting point for the Vogt site... http://jump.altavista.com/trans.go?urltext=http://scacchi.qnet.it/manuale/storia.htm&language=en ...It returns Vogt's main page with the links to his other pages converted for automatic translation. When I first looked at the BabelFish technology a few years ago, I decided not to use it because translations were truncated after a fixed amount of text had been processed. This was very annoying for long Web pages. If this restriction still exists, it did not present a problem for the Vogt site. Go.com offered translation between English and five European languages -- French, German, Italian, Portuguese, & Spanish. BabelFish adds Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Russian, although Russian is only from Russian to English, not from English to Russian. It also offers German to French and French to German translation. --- 'Breve storia degli scacchi' translates to a 'Short history of chess'. Last year in Chess History on the Web (2000 no.13) [1 Jul 2000], I looked at 'La storia, personaggi e biblio' by Marco A. Alberti, another Italian language chess history site. Both sites offer a a complete history of chess from its origin through modern times. Except for the commercial site Britannica.com, I know of no English language site which does the same. A quick calculation tells me that the English translation of Vogt's site contains about 18-20.000 words. The content is organized in a straightforward manner. The index page links to 13 text pages plus a list of world championship competitions and a bibliography. The titles of the 13 pages, as translated by BabelFish, are:- - The origins - The dissemination of the game in roman age - Chess in the Middle Ages - Chess in XVI the century - Evolution and bizzarrie of the game in the 1600's and the 1700's - The romantico period of the 1800's - Towards the end of the 1800's - Chess in the first half of the 1900's - After the Second World war - The match of the century - It was of the K - The last decade - To the doors of the new millennium There's not much I can do with this review except to summarize the content of the 13 pages. I know from my own site logs that visitors to my site are far more interested in recent chess events than in historical events and that the interest in historical chess events is inversely proportional to the age of the event. If you're not familiar with the early history of the game, I hope that the following will give you a better idea about the historical development of chess. It's a fascinating story which parallels the development of human intellectual achievement. Since dynamic translation services are in their infancy, entire sentences can be rendered incomprehensible. I've performed extensive editing of the spelling, grammar, & structure of the following. It is, at best, a paraphrase and doesn't do justice to Vogt's pages. Chess! - the origins : 'the credited hypothesis places the origin in India' [...] 'the Persian game Chatrang derived from a game more ancient and of Indian origin, Chaturanga' [...] 'some think that Chaturanga comes from Chinese games' [...] 'the dissemination of the new game was fast, thanks to the merchants of the age' Chess! - the dissemination of the game in roman age : 'finds in the first Christian catacombs give an age not more recent than the 5th century A.D.' [...] 'some think that the game arrived in the Roman Empire already in the 2nd or 3rd century A.D.' [...] 'a recent archaeological find in 1996 in the region of the Essex, Great Britain' [...] 'would go back to the 1st century A.D.' Chess! - chess in the Middle Ages : 'the first written testimonies of the medieval age go back to the year 1000 and are of Iberian origin' [...] 'skill in this game was one of the virtues that distinguished the true knight' [...] 'Jacopo de Cassole of the Dominican order, died around 1325, used chess as a source of moral training' [...] 'he first true works were manuscripts on the rules and techniques of game, composed of problems' Chess! - chess in the XVI century : 'Italy became the crib of champions' [...] 'also in Spain the game had its moment of grace' [...] 'in the first place it is right to cite Leonardo da Cutro, (1552-1597), called "the Puttino"' and 'Paulo Boi (1528-1598), nicknamed "the Siracusano"' [...] 'another great player of the age was Giulio Cesar Polerio, "the Abruzzese"' [...] 'probably the most famous player of this century was Greco Gioacchino, "the Calabrian"' [...] 'the Portuguese Damiano published in year 1512' [...] 'the Spanish Ruy Lopez de Sigura was the author of the reference text for the players of the age' Chess! - Evolution and bizzarrie of the game in the 1600's and the 1700's : 'In the 1600's chess did not escape from the taste of the strange and baroque' [...] 'a chess invented by Francisco Piacenza introduced two new pieces, the Centurione and the Decurion' [...] 'in 1793, the Genovese lawyer Francisco Giacometti described a modified game of chess for soldiers' [...] 'none of these variations had a great success' [...] 'the 1700's saw the first true theoretical player, the Frenchman André Francoise Danican Philidor' [...] 'Philidor give birth to a fundamental work, that is "Analyse du jeu des échecs'" [...] 'with Philidor a new concept appears, strategy' [...] 'it was in the period of Philidor that chess players took the habit to play in the coffee houses of the cities, like Café de la Régence in Paris' [...] 'in Italy the players did not follow the classic rules of the game' [...] 'Italian works did not have a great influence on the theoretical evolution of the game' Chess! - the romantico period of the 1800's : 'the theoretical lesson from Philidor in the previous century was taken up by two Englishmen, J.H. Sarratt and William Lewis' [...] 'the "romantico" player of the age escaped from the strategic and material considerations on the chessboard, and sought the surprise blow, he unexpected and wonderful sacrifice, the hidden and sly combination' [...] 'he who in England and elsewhere became the official voice of the chess culture of this period was Howard Staunton who founded "The Chess Player's Chronicle ", a point of reference for the players of the age' [...] 'Staunton met and beat Cochrane, Horwitz, Harrwitz and Saint Amant' [...] 'refused to meet MacDonnell, la Bourdonnais, and above all, the American Morphy' [...] 'in 1851 Staunton organized the first true international tournament in London; the competition was won by the German player, Anderssen' [...] 'personages of great strength emerged; la Bourdonnais (1797-1840), the Irish player MacDonnell (1798-1835), the French player Deschapelles (1780-1847)' [...] 'Anderssen (1818-1879) won important tournaments in London 1851 and 1862, Hamburg 1869, Barmen 1869, Baden 1870, Altona 1871 and finally Leipzig 1876' [...] 'also the Austrian Baron von Kolish (1837-1889), Loewenthal (1810-1876), the Russians Schiffers and Chigorin (1850-1908)' [...] 'the greatest player of the romantico period was however the American Paul Charles Morphy' [...] 'a new factor appears with Morphy, the prominence rapid piece development' Chess! - Towards the end of the 1800's : 'the final part of century XIX was one of transition for chess, where beside the romantic players of the previous period appeared the first modern players' [...] 'Blackburne (1842-1924), Tarrasch (1862-1934)' [...] 'the greatest player of the end of the 1800's was Wilhelm Steinitz (1836-1900)' [...] 'Steinitz was the first true chess professional' [...] 'he directed for several years the prestigious review "The International Chess Magazine"' [...] 'with the victory against Anderssen, in London 1866 with the score of 8-3, Steinitz achieved the unofficial title of world champion' [...] 'instead of trying at all costs to find the forced combination and the spectacular conclusion, Steinitz often headed to a long positional war, wearing away his adversary' [...] 'the Bible of those years, "Handbuch des Schachspiels" by Bilguer and von der Lasa, was first published in 1843' [...] 'theory made great progress in the endgame and the opening' [...] 'remarkable progress came also in the field of historical search. Among the greatest investigators of the age were the Dutch university professor Antonius Van der Linde (1833-1897), the Englishman Duncan Forbes, and von der Lasa' --- The following paragraphs present only a superficial outline of Vogt's material. Chess! - chess in the first half of the 1900's : 'Emanuel Lasker' [...] 'Lasker placed the accent on a factor that had been neglected, the psychological factor' [...] 'Rubinstein(1882-1961), Spielmann (1883-1942), Nimzowitsch (1886-1935), Reti (1889-1929), Tartakower (1887-1956), Bogoljubov (1889-1952)' [...] 'in 1924, in connection with the Olympiad tournament of Paris, the Federation Internationale des Echecs (FIDE) was founded' [...] 'José Raul Capablanca' [...] 'Alexander Alexandrovic Alekhine' [...] 'Evfim Bogoljubov' [...] 'Max Euwe' Chess! - After the Second World war : 'with the passing of Alekhine the title of World Champion had become vacant' [...] 'in 1948 competition between the six strongest players of the moment' [...] 'Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik became the new World Champion' [...] 'David Bronstein' [...] 'Vasilij Vasilievic Smyslov' [...] 'Mikhail Tal' [...] 'Tigran Vartanovic Petrosjan' [...] 'Spassky' Chess! - the match of the century : 'Boris Vasilievic Spassky' [...] 'Robert James Fischer' [...] '1972 Reykjavik' [...] 'invited in 1975 to defend his title, the American player tried to impose unacceptable rules for the match' [...] '1992 Yugoslavia' Chess! - It was of the K : 'Anatolij Karpov' [...] 'Viktor Korchnoi' [...] 'Garry Kasparov' [...] 'FIDE President Florencio Campomanes' [...] 'GMA (Grand Masters Association)' Chess! - the last decade : '1990 Kasparov - Karpov, New York - Lyon' [...] '1993 PCA, Kasparov and Short; FIDE, Karpov and Timman [...] '1995 Kasparov - Anand' [...] '1996 Karpov - Kamsky' [...] '1998 Karpov - Anand' Chess! - To the doors of the new millennium : 'WCC' [...] 'Kirsan Ilyumzhinov' [...] '1999 Las Vegas; Khalifman - Akopian'. --- What's missing? Computers, including the influence of database technology on the development of the game, are not mentioned. Except for the most recent world championship matches, there is very little about the development of women's chess. There may be other gaps, but again, my intention is to discover, not to criticize. There's a lot to discover here. Bye for now, Mark Weeks