Anand v Gelfand

[Paul Cooksey]

I doubt it, the Olympic figures considered them separately.

I'm not sure why we should consider the Olympic campaign unreliable? It is difficult to validate now, given a lot of the mid-00 sites are archived. But chess was included in the Asian Games on the basis of this campaign, and was at least considered by the IOC.

[JustinHorton]

I'm not sure why we should consider the Olympic campaign unreliable?

Ho ho

[Roger de Coverly]

The claim as to the number of players has been around for a while.

A Google search finds this comment from 2007

http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/keni ... ayers.html

This refers to a now dead link
http://www.turowski.com/chess/world2005.html

[Paul Cooksey]

I'm not sure why we should consider the Olympic campaign unreliable?

Ho ho

People don't get my jokes, and laugh when I am serious.... (that smiley is wry!)

Obviously 500 miilion is equivalent to an advertising puff, not the results of scientific research. But that is the standard we apply to claims of this sort isn't it?

I suspect it would be hard to get a completely reliable number for worldwide participation levels in just about anything.

[JustinHorton]

It might well be possible to get some proper figures from various places about what proportion of the population know the rules/play regularly/belong to a chess club/whatever and then extrapolate to the population as a whole using methods that professional statisticians would find acceptable. Obviously you'd have a wide margin for error, but that's understood.

Or you could just pluck a figure from the nether regions, as is often the case in these circumstances. (There'll probably be a lot of this during the Olympics - watch out for figures about how many people have been watching the Games. Also watch out for them being repeated uncritically.)

[John McKenna]

With reference to Paul Cooksey's link in a post above to -
www.turowskichess.com
I have a friend of that name who is quite a joker but when I tried the said link I got '404 page not found'.

[John McKenna]

OK, I see that Paul says it is a dead link. Apologies for directing anyone to the link I gave above as it does not exist either. I'll ask my mate if it was his site and what happened to it.

[Paul Cooksey]

OK, I see that Paul says it is a dead link. Apologies for directing anyone to the link I gave above as it does not exist either. I'll ask my mate if it was his site and what happened to it.

Also, it was Roger not me. But otherwise a solid effort

[John McKenna]

My thanks to Paul for that correction and for his 'solidarnosc' (to use Turowski's tongue) comment.
The remarkable thing is, though, not that I post so badly but that I post at all. (Based on a quote by H. Staunton about his efforts to play and organise the 1851 London Tournament.)
That reminds me - a certain unmentionable blogger wrote about the effect of computer preparation for the current WC event in Moscow.
Been wondering if having a host of silicon oracles second-guessing every move subdues players?

[Roger de Coverly]

That reminds me - a certain unmentionable blogger wrote about the effect of computer preparation for the current WC event in Moscow.

With White using a pawn structure from the Colle-Zuchertort and Black a structure from the Colle, when they both get their P-K4's in, there's just a general liquidation in the centre. They are both good enough not to misplay the position and they've had their engines uncover any hidden tactics. Neither player is willing at this stage of the match to do anything that creates much imbalance. In terms of what they've played, I doubt if engines help to much a degree apart from checking the tactics. So the engine says the position is about equal and quotes a line. There are probably half a dozen valid alternatives.

[John McKenna]

Some players play better than others in front of an 'audience' and when that group includes not only their peers but a vastly superior auto-tactician no wonder they are going super-stratgic instead of tactically-ballistic. Which of them will launch first?

[Michael Jones]

Or you could just pluck a figure from the nether regions, as is often the case in these circumstances. (There'll probably be a lot of this during the Olympics - watch out for figures about how many people have been watching the Games. Also watch out for them being repeated uncritically.)

I've seen Diana's funeral, the Olympics, World Cup, royal wedding and goodness knows what else claim TV viewing figures of 1 billion or more. We're told the population of the planet is about 7 billion, and given that the developing world accounts for a large proportion of that number, probably only 2-3 billion have access to a TV. Are they seriously suggesting that any single event is 'big' enough to get a third or more of the potential global TV audience watching? Pull the other one.

[John McKenna]

The first Moon landing had everyone in the world watching, or at least all who could get to a TV.

[Jonathan Bryant]

The first Moon landing had everyone in the world watching, or at least all who could get to a TV.

That reminds me of an old Douglas Adams line. Something like,

"Nobody was poor. Well, nobody worth speaking of."


Anyhoo, back to the chess tomorrow. Count me as being in the 'four draws doesn't necessarily equal dull' camp.

[John McKenna]

To expand on the above imagine this - when the first Moon landing took place part of the Earth was in light and the rest in darkness. If there was any kind of Moon visible in those dark skies poor people with nothing more than a cheap radio listened to the commentaries while looking up at the Moon in wonder...
Then some went back to chess while others went back to sleep.
Said it once, and I'll say it again. I'm still hoping for a Lasker-Schlecter scenario. Their 1910 match started with 4 draws then...