Incomplete games

[MJMcCready]

Greetings, I have been looking at my favourite website, that being britbase, muchly of late. Mostly I have been looking at the games of particular players around 1890-1910. I have noticed that there are sometimes incomplete games, somtimes only one or two moves have been recorded. How many reasons are there for this? Is it that the gamescore wasn't submitted or became lost after being submitted? Are games sometimes reported incorrectly? I was looking in particular at a game in the 1905 British championship between William Ward and Reginald Pryce Mitchell (game 60), which only has two recorded moves and was curious to know why that might be the case.

[Richard James]

WardMichell.jpg

Here's how the game you're interested in was reported in The Field (26 August 1905).

We know it was a QGD but unfortunately the complete score has not (yet) been found. So BritBase gives you the stub 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6. Of course the move order might have been different.

[John Saunders]

Greetings, I have been looking at my favourite website, that being britbase, muchly of late. Mostly I have been looking at the games of particular players around 1890-1910. I have noticed that there are sometimes incomplete games, somtimes only one or two moves have been recorded. How many reasons are there for this? Is it that the gamescore wasn't submitted or became lost after being submitted? Are games sometimes reported incorrectly? I was looking in particular at a game in the 1905 British championship between William Ward and Reginald Pryce Mitchell (game 60), which only has two recorded moves and was curious to know why that might be the case.

I'm glad you like BritBase. Re your questions, most have an obvious answer.

Yes, there are lots of incomplete games over the years. I can't tell you precisely why but I can guess various reasons. At the end of a game, unless instructed otherwise, players put their scoresheets in their pockets and leave. It's up to the organisers to provide duplicate scoresheets or ask players to hand in the scores or whatever. If they don't do that, then the game score will only see the light of day if the player chooses to share it with someone. Alternatively, if an assiduous chess journalist is present at a tournament, they might approach players for sight of their scoresheets, or take notes of games in progress. I suspect the pre-WW1 columnist for The Field, Leopold Hoffer, did something of that sort, as probably did Times columnists Samuel Tinsley and his son Edward (who wasn't much of a player but an excellent note-taker for which all UK chess history buffs should all be grateful).

I imagine what might have happened occasionally is that a journo present at a venue would ask an arbiter if he could take away the scoresheets. The arbiter might not be bothered and let them take them all. The journo would then take them home or to their office, sift through for a handful of publishable games and then bin the rest. This would of course prevent any other journo from getting their hands on them.

Good as the aforementioned gentlemen were at providing us with games from their era, the patron saint of game score collectors was Bernhard Kagan (1866-1932) who was responsible for collecting and publishing copious quantities of games from major continental events. His work explains why there are so many games from old German tournaments compared to our own relatively sparse collection of early British Championship games. (But, on the other hand, if some early Brits had done as well as Kagan, then we 21st century people wouldn't have had all the fun of tracking them down.)

As for the accuracy of scores, that also has an easy answer. The mistakes are all there, waiting to be found, as Tartakower might have said if he had been a game inputter. The mistakes start with the players. Their priority is playing good moves, not keeping score, so their scores are full of all kinds of errors and omissions. The scores then pass through the hands of bulletin editors and journalists, who might correct some of the errors but also generate a few of their own. Then magazine and book editors and game inputters get to work and the same applies. It's nobody's fault, it's just the way it is. Eventually people like me come along and try to fix the errors. I fix a few, but of course I'm bound to make mistakes of my own. As the late Stewart Reuben interpolated in a note in a chapter I wrote on a similar subject for one of his Chess Organisers' Handbook editions, "there are always mistakes". Of course he was right.

Incidentally, please don't imagine that the great names of chess are immune from this phenomenon. They too make scoring mistakes, possibly putting too much trust in their memories. Alekhine certainly had a wonderful memory but some of his published game scores differed from primary sources. I came across a similar problem the other day with the score of Karpov-R.Byrne, Hastings 1971/72. The primary/contemporary sources all agreed on the score of the game but then a few years later along came the book Anatoly Karpov: Chess is My Life by Anatoly Karpov & Aleksandr Roshal (Pergamon, 1980) with some different moves 27-32. Cutting a long story short, I think the Karpov/Roshal book has the score wrong.

Re stubs in databases: some people like them, some don't (Chessgames dot com only include complete or near-complete game scores). I find them useful for various reasons: (1) they can be used to help generate crosstables; (2) they can help to generate other stats such as head-to-head scores between notable players; (3) they highlight research work which is still to be done; (4) they can include interesting background info relating to the game or occasion; (5) they help create a timeline for an individual player's chess activity.

BritBase is a collaborative project and I'm always grateful for help. I've listed contributors to it here. If your name isn't on it, ask not what BritBase can do for you - ask what you can do for BritBase.

[MSoszynski]

There was also the hangover of the old idea that keeping a record of your moves was an act of arrogance or conceit — as if your game was bound to be of quality and importance.

[Roger de Coverly]

BritBase is a collaborative project and I'm always grateful for help.

Errors can creep in all the time. A recent update features the 1978-79 Hastings. This seemingly contained a little known Engliash player in the Premier by the name of John Peters finishing next to last. He's actually USA as confirmed from the BCM of that era.

[MJMcCready]

Greetings, I have been looking at my favourite website, that being britbase, muchly of late. Mostly I have been looking at the games of particular players around 1890-1910. I have noticed that there are sometimes incomplete games, sometimes only one or two moves have been recorded. How many reasons are there for this? Is it that the gamescore wasn't submitted or became lost after being submitted? Are games sometimes reported incorrectly? I was looking in particular at a game in the 1905 British championship between William Ward and Reginald Pryce Mitchell (game 60), which only has two recorded moves and was curious to know why that might be the case.

I'm glad you like BritBase. Re your questions, most have an obvious answer.

Yes, there are lots of incomplete games over the years. I can't tell you precisely why but I can guess various reasons. At the end of a game, unless instructed otherwise, players put their scoresheets in their pockets and leave. It's up to the organisers to provide duplicate scoresheets or ask players to hand in the scores or whatever. If they don't do that, then the game score will only see the light of day if the player chooses to share it with someone. Alternatively, if an assiduous chess journalist is present at a tournament, they might approach players for sight of their scoresheets, or take notes of games in progress. I suspect the pre-WW1 columnist for The Field, Leopold Hoffer, did something of that sort, as probably did Times columnists Samuel Tinsley and his son Edward (who wasn't much of a player but an excellent note-taker for which all UK chess history buffs should all be grateful).

I imagine what might have happened occasionally is that a journo present at a venue would ask an arbiter if he could take away the scoresheets. The arbiter might not be bothered and let them take them all. The journo would then take them home or to their office, sift through for a handful of publishable games and then bin the rest. This would of course prevent any other journo from getting their hands on them.

Good as the aforementioned gentlemen were at providing us with games from their era, the patron saint of game score collectors was Bernhard Kagan (1866-1932) who was responsible for collecting and publishing copious quantities of games from major continental events. His work explains why there are so many games from old German tournaments compared to our own relatively sparse collection of early British Championship games. (But, on the other hand, if some early Brits had done as well as Kagan, then we 21st century people wouldn't have had all the fun of tracking them down.)

As for the accuracy of scores, that also has an easy answer. The mistakes are all there, waiting to be found, as Tartakower might have said if he had been a game inputter. The mistakes start with the players. Their priority is playing good moves, not keeping score, so their scores are full of all kinds of errors and omissions. The scores then pass through the hands of bulletin editors and journalists, who might correct some of the errors but also generate a few of their own. Then magazine and book editors and game inputters get to work and the same applies. It's nobody's fault, it's just the way it is. Eventually people like me come along and try to fix the errors. I fix a few, but of course I'm bound to make mistakes of my own. As the late Stewart Reuben interpolated in a note in a chapter I wrote on a similar subject for one of his Chess Organisers' Handbook editions, "there are always mistakes". Of course he was right.

Incidentally, please don't imagine that the great names of chess are immune from this phenomenon. They too make scoring mistakes, possibly putting too much trust in their memories. Alekhine certainly had a wonderful memory but some of his published game scores differed from primary sources. I came across a similar problem the other day with the score of Karpov-R.Byrne, Hastings 1971/72. The primary/contemporary sources all agreed on the score of the game but then a few years later along came the book Anatoly Karpov: Chess is My Life by Anatoly Karpov & Aleksandr Roshal (Pergamon, 1980) with some different moves 27-32. Cutting a long story short, I think the Karpov/Roshal book has the score wrong.

Re stubs in databases: some people like them, some don't (Chessgames dot com only include complete or near-complete game scores). I find them useful for various reasons: (1) they can be used to help generate crosstables; (2) they can help to generate other stats such as head-to-head scores between notable players; (3) they highlight research work which is still to be done; (4) they can include interesting background info relating to the game or occasion; (5) they help create a timeline for an individual player's chess activity.

BritBase is a collaborative project and I'm always grateful for help. I've listed contributors to it here. If your name isn't on it, ask not what BritBase can do for you - ask what you can do for BritBase.

Thank you John, your answer is as comprehensive as it is informative, shedding much light on the challenges involved in your work, and the difficulties we enthusisasts encounter also.

Regarding chess in the uk over the years, what better site could there be to go to than your cornucopia of material...to choose a word GM King likes to use. Please dont think your efforts go unappreciated, that's most certainly not the case. As is the case with myself, should you take interest in particular players, a great many of their games can be accessed from your site, amongst many other things.

Regarding helping Britbase, I would love to. I will look to see if I have anything of interest and send it your way if I can.

[MJMcCready]

BritBase is a collaborative project and I'm always grateful for help.

Errors can creep in all the time. A recent update features the 1978-79 Hastings. This seemingly contained a little known Engliash player in the Premier by the name of John Peters finishing next to last. He's actually USA as confirmed from the BCM of that era.

Would it be too harsh to say that some players can be wasteful too? Not everyone is too bothered about keeping their scoresheet right? Myself included, I know many who don't bother too much with them.

[MJMcCready]

There was also the hangover of the old idea that keeping a record of your moves was an act of arrogance or conceit — as if your game was bound to be of quality and importance.

And wasn't it Sveshnikov who once argued that they were the property of the player only, and should anyone else want them, they should have to pay for them or something like that.

[MJMcCready]

WardMichell.jpg

Here's how the game you're interested in was reported in The Field (26 August 1905).

We know it was a QGD but unfortunately the complete score has not (yet) been found. So BritBase gives you the stub 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6. Of course the move order might have been different.

Thanks Richard, well it states it was a queen's gambit declined, which is what the game shows, so perhaps that was all that was reported and the tournament organizers didn't have the scoresheet?

[John Saunders]

BritBase is a collaborative project and I'm always grateful for help.

Errors can creep in all the time. A recent update features the 1978-79 Hastings. This seemingly contained a little known Engliash player in the Premier by the name of John Peters finishing next to last. He's actually USA as confirmed from the BCM of that era.

Yes, thanks. I was aware he was USA (and usually known as Jack Peters) but it looks like the CB crosstable generator has mixed him up with someone else. I always have to double-check these country IDs for historical tournaments as CB uses a player's current country of registration regardless of the date of the tournament, but I missed this one. I think the equivalent facilities in SCID and SCID vs PC work better, but I still stick to CB as my editing macros used to produce BritBase crosstables are tailored to the CB output layout.

Names are of course an absolute nightmare to get right. Distinguishing between players who share common native British names is hard enough but I admit I've absolutely no clue when it comes to construing Asian names.

Question: does anyone have tournament bulletins for the 1978/79 and 1979/80 Hastings tournaments? If so, could you check to see if they have full crosstables for the Challengers. I would like to have these for BritBase.

[John Clarke]

Alternatively, if an assiduous chess journalist is present at a tournament, they might approach players for sight of their scoresheets, or take notes of games in progress. I suspect the pre-WW1 columnist for The Field, Leopold Hoffer, did something of that sort, as probably did Times columnists Samuel Tinsley and his son Edward (who wasn't much of a player but an excellent note-taker for which all UK chess history buffs should all be grateful).

According to Assiac (The Delights Of Chess, p171) Harry Golombek used to do this as well, when both competing in and reporting on an event. I quote: "I like to watch him in action at a congress and to observe how methodically he copes with his manifold duties .... Having made his move and duly entered it on his own scoresheet, he will take a very much larger score-pad and, wandering from board to board, he will enter the last move or two of all the other games .... " After the session was over, Golombek would use the data thus obtained as the basis for his daily report to The Times.

[MJMcCready]

It's perhaps human, all too human, to see players in past times with such differing attitudes towards their scoresheets.

[Neil_Hickman]

Not everyone is too bothered about keeping their scoresheet right? Myself included, I know many who don't bother too much with them.

Very true. Some years ago Bedford, very much the underdogs, won the National Club Championship. A key game was David Ledger’s win against (I think it was) Jonathan Levitt. Could I find the score for the Bedford club website? Could I heck.

[Geoff Chandler]

Yes John the score of a game passed through too many humans hands for errors not to creep in. Electronic boards are a gift from the gods.

I still have a lot of scoresheets from The Scottish 2009 Championship. https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=68540 I entered all of those and I'm waiting for someone to find an error so in defence I show the original score sheet.

Yes stubs should be used on C.G. to generate their top of the page tables which can be misleading. Just one example https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=84624 Benko won, Byrne 2nd and Lombardy 3rd. No, scroll down to the table that was put in manually and see what happened.

That is a minor example, there are a few where the eventual winner appears to finish mid table. Once you know what to look for you can suss it out but a casual surfer would easily get misled. C.G. know it's a problem and one day they hope to sort it out. It should be done as it is a very popular site. Yours is much better.
(one tip - never ever open it up to Kibitzers!)

[John Saunders]

Yes John the score of a game passed through too many humans hands for errors not to creep in. Electronic boards are a gift from the gods.

Yes, game scores taken from digi-boards are a great improvement, but it still requires an expert digi-board operative to be present to iron out glitches. Luckily in the UK we have top-notch techies of the calibre of Matthew Carr to make sure everything works.

I still have a lot of scoresheets from The Scottish 2009 Championship. https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=68540 I entered all of those and I'm waiting for someone to find an error so in defence I show the original score sheet.

Showing the original scoresheet is a good idea. I've previously thought about a system for tournaments which don't use digi-boards whereby arbiters take a photo of scoresheets at game-end and send them to someone (who doesn't have to be on-site) for game input and permanent storage (on an online photo storage site?), so that if errors are subsequently detected, they can be checked against the original scoresheets. A pipe-dream, perhaps, but it might prove feasible as technology advances. (There are already apps which generate the moves from a photo of a scoresheet but they don't work well and probably never will.)

Yes stubs should be used on C.G. to generate their top of the page tables which can be misleading. Just one example https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=84624 Benko won, Byrne 2nd and Lombardy 3rd. No, scroll down to the table that was put in manually and see what happened.

That is a minor example, there are a few where the eventual winner appears to finish mid table. Once you know what to look for you can suss it out but a casual surfer would easily get misled. C.G. know it's a problem and one day they hope to sort it out. It should be done as it is a very popular site. Yours is much better.
(one tip - never ever open it up to Kibitzers!)

I like C.G. and find it very useful but I can understand why they may be a bit reluctant to include stubs on their site. When an end-user finds an interesting game entry, only to discover there are only a handful of moves available, it's a bit disappointing. I don't always include stubs on BritBase if there is a full crosstable which provides more or less the same information. On the other hand, I don't see why C.G. don't include substantial part-games where the opening moves are missing. I'm tempted to accuse them of pandering to openings obsessives at the expense of the rest of us who also enjoy other phases of the game!