English Chess Forum

Can anyone help by letting me know who to contact to get a game score corrected?

An amusing (for me and the spectators at least) game of mine now appears in Megabase 10 (and elsewhere) with an incorrect move by Black which makes a following move from White totally unsound and then Black resigns!

The game in question is game 91 from http://www.4ncl.co.uk/0910_div3-03viewer.htm

In the actual game, Black chose the unfortunate 14..Dc7 rather than 14..De7 given and then resigned on move 17.

Do I contact 4NCL, ChessBase or someone else?

Yes, you can contact ChessBase and ask for it to be corrected. I'm pretty sure I've contacted them once before when my dad's games from 1983 were published under my name. I thought it was quite funny as it appeared I had 2200 rating when I was 7. They got it corrected. Mistakes in gamescores are quite common though and I can't be asked to correct every mistake in my gamescores on ChessBase - I can find better things to do

Why bother? You have no chance of getting the game corrected everywhere now its been published incorrectly. It will be spreading like a virus through game databases worldwide.

If my games are typical, then over 1 million of the games in ChessBase's big database will have errors in them. With this season's 4NCL games 20% of mine are incorrect in the 4NCL games file (one with the last move of the game missing, and one with an extra pair of moves added at the end of the game that weren't played) and 30% are incorrect in what ChessBase published (the two preceding errors, plus one of my opponent's names has changed).

Have you seen the scoresheets the inputters are given? Some are brilliant and easy to read. Others are completely illegible. Most lie inbetween, where the handwriting gets worse as the game goes on (or nears move 40). If you tried game inputting, you wouldn't complain about the standard of it, it's very difficult.

Alex Holowczak wrote:Have you seen the scoresheets the inputters are given? Some are brilliant and easy to read. Others are completely illegible. Most lie inbetween, where the handwriting gets worse as the game goes on (or nears move 40). If you tried game inputting, you wouldn't complain about the standard of it, it's very difficult.

I wasn't complaining, I was just making an observation.

For the 4NCL, something could be done about it. I think most players will have their own databases into which they will enter their own games, so why not ask them to forward the games to the 4NCL? That would save the game inputter some time and result in fewer errors in the game scores.

It's important, I gather, to get them input as soon as possible. By the end of the season, Division One was finished no more than 24 hours after the Sunday round. Divisions Two and Three obviously took much longer. By all means e-mail the inputters the games if you've done them yourself, the text file can just be copied and pasted across.

Also, there's not just one inputter now, there's a whole team of them!

Maybe a link to a relevant mailbox for submitting games could be placed on the 4NCL homepage as I'm sure the vast majority of players wont have the personal e-mail address' of the inputters to hand

Gareth Harley-Yeo wrote:Maybe a link to a relevant mailbox for submitting games could be placed on the 4NCL homepage as I'm sure the vast majority of players wont have the personal e-mail address' of the inputters to hand

Don't worry, Mike's ahead of you.

Gareth Harley-Yeo wrote:Maybe a link to a relevant mailbox for submitting games could be placed on the 4NCL homepage as I'm sure the vast majority of players wont have the personal e-mail address' of the inputters to hand

I'm still waiting for your Warrington and Sunningdale games

Sean Hewitt wrote:

Gareth Harley-Yeo wrote:Maybe a link to a relevant mailbox for submitting games could be placed on the 4NCL homepage as I'm sure the vast majority of players wont have the personal e-mail address' of the inputters to hand

I'm still waiting for your Warrington and Sunningdale games

Ha, sorry Sean.. I decided I never wanted to see those games again. I may even have used the scoresheets for toilet paper! I have the South Wales International in a fortnight, if my form continues in its downward spiral I'll be entering the minor in your next e2e4!

Gareth Harley-Yeo wrote:

Sean Hewitt wrote:

Gareth Harley-Yeo wrote:Maybe a link to a relevant mailbox for submitting games could be placed on the 4NCL homepage as I'm sure the vast majority of players wont have the personal e-mail address' of the inputters to hand

I'm still waiting for your Warrington and Sunningdale games

Ha, sorry Sean.. I decided I never wanted to see those games again. I may even have used the scoresheets for toilet paper! I have the South Wales International in a fortnight, if my form continues in its downward spiral I'll be entering the minor in your next e2e4!

Have no fear - we have the originals!!

It grieves me to have to say this but the quality of the 4NCL games input from the final weekend was rather low. I have been all the way through the Div 1 games and found quite a number of suspect scores. This is a shame as the input quality has been extremely high in previous years. Speed may be a priority but it should not be at the cost of quality for the reasons indicated by Ian Thompson.

Also, it would be a great help if inputters could mark where a game ends with a loss on time or mobile phone ring, or ceases to be legible to the inputter. I suggest a one-word textual annotation 'time', 'phone' or 'illegible' after the final move of the game. Some inputters seem to do this but not others. Perhaps after 'illegible', the inputter could also record the number of moves that appear on the scoresheets. Ideally, draw offers should also be indicated by a textual annotation of '(=)' but I'm not fussed about this. Note, it is best not to use the Informator 'time' or 'draw' symbols as they may not be visible in some viewers or portable to some chess software programs. Text is best.

I'm glad to see someone has amalgamated all the season's games and standardised the tournament headers. Useful. The player names appear not to have been been standardised, however.

Pardon my perfectionism...

John,

I totally concur with your comments. Potentially, the game score could include much more that would add much to the way the game was played.

Do you have a worthwhile contact at ChessBase who manages the games database?

John Saunders wrote:It grieves me to have to say this but the quality of the 4NCL games input from the final weekend was rather low. I have been all the way through the Div 1 games and found quite a number of suspect scores. This is a shame as the input quality has been extremely high in previous years. Speed may be a priority but it should not be at the cost of quality for the reasons indicated by Ian Thompson.

Also, it would be a great help if inputters could mark where a game ends with a loss on time or mobile phone ring, or ceases to be legible to the inputter. I suggest a one-word textual annotation 'time', 'phone' or 'illegible' after the final move of the game. Some inputters seem to do this but not others. Perhaps after 'illegible', the inputter could also record the number of moves that appear on the scoresheets. Ideally, draw offers should also be indicated by a textual annotation of '(=)' but I'm not fussed about this. Note, it is best not to use the Informator 'time' or 'draw' symbols as they may not be visible in some viewers or portable to some chess software programs. Text is best.

I'm glad to see someone has amalgamated all the season's games and standardised the tournament headers. Useful. The player names appear not to have been been standardised, however.

Pardon my perfectionism...

As the person who did a lot of Division 1 games, I could explain if you said exactly which games you thought were suspect.

If anyone did lose on time, or because a phone rang, often the scoresheet doesn't mention it. I can only think of one where a phone went off from the last weekend, involving John Naylor.

John Saunders wrote:
I'm glad to see someone has amalgamated all the season's games and standardised the tournament headers. Useful. The player names appear not to have been been standardised, however.

Pardon my perfectionism...

This is quite annoying - I sort of assumed that it was something to do with whether you download in Chessbase or PGN format. It's quite nice to have a complete database of all 4NCL games played (and available given the absence of some of the early years) but it's far less worth it when the vast majority have games under 2 or 3 different names.