New broadcast model for World Championship Match

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Roger,

The lack of diagrams and moves rant is born out of sheer frustration.

I cannot log onto to live sites because Mr I.T. Big Balls at my work deems it not work related.

I am allowed on here provided I do not spend all day reading and posting. Big Balls has been known to time me.

So when I see one move comments and nothing else I go potty.

But it's not just me being selfish. How do others know what they are talking about?

They see a computer suggestion on the live site, come here,
suggest it as a move of their own (with no diagram),
then go away hoping the move gets played so they can have their wee moment of glory.

Pathetic.

Personally I think because I was instrumental in bringing diagrams and PGNS to this site
and because I'm not one of Carl's Cliché people are doing it on purpose just to annoy me.

There is no way me and Big Balls are ever going to be friends. He has a girlfriend whose face
looks like a horse. She really does!. I dropped one of those funny Horse-Faced calendars on his desk
last Christmas. He hates me. (and he can probably read this.)

Hi Tryfon,

Now I'm totally confused. Who are the bad guys here. Is it Aegon or Agon (or are they the same company.)

Think I'll ask Big Balls if I can fit a wdget (what ever that is) to my computer. I'll be able to guess by the
level of panic how important it is.

[Mick Norris]

Hi all

I must say I find the entire thing disappointing with Aegon

So do I, they are a complete shower; I hate dealing with them and avoid doing so if at all possible; they have the worst website for me to use, they take ages to reply to queries; I wish they would bugger off back to the Netherlands and allow us to revert back to dealing with Scottish Equitable

Enough of my work though, I assume you mean Agon?

EDIT - there are lots of incompetent insurance companies/product providers, AEGON aren't the worst to deal with, some don't even have functioning websites

[Roger de Coverly]

But it's not just me being selfish. How do others know what they are talking about?

It's easy enough to follow if you are watching the game at another site. Many players can analyse games without a physical board.

The real point is that days, weeks, months or years later, you don't want to have to go back to a database to find out the move that the discussion was about.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Roger,

You clearly have not been paying attention.

I cannot get to another site. I'm marooned here.
In limbo wandering about the threads like a lost soul in purgatory.

I'm old enough to recall the days when we waited for days for the moves of a game.

I'm OK with that. But if others can see the game, then stroll back here with an unlabelled tit-bit,
a juicy sounding morsel with no details. what am I to do?

I call them idiots. (no other word fits), they get upset. Carl bans me for two weeks because I'm not part of his gang.

A diagram. One poxy easy to cut and paste diagram. Is that too much to ask?

Please.

[Carl Hibbard]

Personally I think because I was instrumental in bringing diagrams and PGNS to this site
and because I'm not one of Carl's Cliché people are doing it on purpose just to annoy me.

What am I missing Geoff that much is not clear especially reading on my phone?

[Carl Hibbard]

Carl bans me for two weeks because I'm not part of his gang.

Gang? No still no idea what you are on about?

[Roger de Coverly]

A diagram. One poxy easy to cut and paste diagram. Is that too much to ask?

The approach I use is to copy and paste the pgn from chessbomb or similar and then use the pgn and pos tags installed on the forum as part of pgn4web to generate the diagrams.

[Paolo Casaschi]

I cannot log onto to live sites because Mr I.T. Big Balls at my work deems it not work related.

WC games starts at 7PM UK time, so I assume no IT corporate policy issue there, unless you are in the office every day from 7PM till 1AM, but in that case your office hours are a bigger issue than the access to live games.

[Carl Hibbard]

A lot of websites are down due to the big denial of service attack against DYN so lots of spare time if you cannot use GitHub at this point.

[Carl Hibbard]

A lot of websites are down due to the big denial of service attack against DYN so lots of spare time if you cannot use GitHub at this point.

No twitter either to check status of places.

[Paul Cooksey]

I don't really believe Agon are trying to shut down all in game discussion. But they do seem to be struggling to define the commercial competitors they want to ban. FIDE has had a similar problem splitting professional and amateur chess.

It sounds like the legal action is fairly weakly grounded, and the way they are handling it suggests they think the threat might be stronger than the execution. But like other people in this thread I find it vexing.

Even if Agon manages to defy expectations about their competence and produce competent broadcast, it is unlikely to be to my taste. Their marketing and team seems to be aiming for a vast untapped audience of people casually interested in chess. I doubt that audience exists, but even if it does, it doesn't include me.

Personally I'm a fan of chess24, especially when Peter Svidler is commenting. They target serious chess players prepared to pay for a premium service, and I am part of that audience. So it is annoying Agon want to block it, despite serious players being more or less irrelevant to their marketing.

[Carl Hibbard]

Svidler needs Gustafsson the combo works nicely.

[E Michael White]

...

gosh you're back !

[Geoff Chandler]

7pm. UK time. she (the charming Mes. C.) surfs E-bay and plays online Bingo at nights.
I cannot get a look in.

I'm in with Agon. If I cannot see a live move, then none of you lot should either.

(Hi Carl, I'm only joking.)

Hi Paul,

Never caught Svidler but the best commentary I've seen was a while back
when Nigel Short and Gary Kasparov teamed up and took over.

These two took the viewers to places on the board only they could go.
They panned out the how game should go and what appeared
on the board after an hour was very close to what those two saw in minutes
and no engine. Impressive.

[Paul Cooksey]

HI Michael, Geoff

You've really been missing some good stuff while Mrs C has been on ebay Geoff, here is a random link to one of the youtube videos. https://youtu.be/xrsc9O1Qqh8?t=4m25s. Not really the same when it is not live. But as Carl says, Jan and Peter bring out the best in each other and come across as good mates.

I remember Peter being teamed up with Alejandro Ramirez for Qatar Open coverage, which was also good. But it was a bit awkward for the first couple of days until Alejandro worked out how to respond to Peter's self depreciation without offending him.

I think for live commentary without engines, a super-GM commentator is necessary or the analysis starts to veer away from the key lines. That can still be interesting, but it is no longer really commentary. But any strong GM is interesting, especially the likes of Short and Kasparov.

Agon have signed up Judit Polgar, so they are at least trying. But given what they have said I'm a bit doubtful if we will get to see much real analysis from her, in the same way that Yasser Seirawan is limited to snippets of analysis in the Sinquefield cup broadcasts. My feeling is a Sinquefield type broadcast is the best we can hope for from Agon, and I can't say it excites me.