Talk:Collection of chess problems

from village pump

As a semi-professional chess player, I would like to expand the chess section. In particular, I would like to add instructive chess tactical problems. Each of my .jpgs has a size of about 130kb and I have quite a few. Although this is not necessarily encyclopedic, I don't see how it could hurt to have the wikipedia also contain the internet's best source of chess problems. Below is an example:

Clicking on the picture takes you to a screen which shows the answer.

Dietary Fiber

I don't know whether putting chess problems in the Wikipedia is a good idea or not (if you can make an encyclopaedia article out of them, I suppose it's fair enough), but why are you adding them to the Village Pump? The VP is for questions about the Wikipedia. --Camembert

I wouldn't object to more chess stuff in the wiki (please link them somewhere appropriate from Chess), but 130k per image is a bit excessive. These boards could be reduced to just a few kilobytes each by using solid squares for the board and PNG instead of JPEG compression (which is inappropriate for what is essentially line-art, and thus has to use an absurdly poor compression ratio to achieve decent visual quality, hence the large size). --Brion 20:59 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)

Camemberet, I suppose I must have been asking a question at the Village Pump? Brion, PNG is no problem, but Im not sure I have a means of making solid squares. PNG doubles the size of these .jpgs. Dietary Fiber

What are you using to create the images? Can you adjust its settings? --Brion

I am not sure what your question is, but I don't see why one should clutter up the pump with this stuff. I am moving the chess problems to -- surprise -- Chess problems Slrubenstein

If you weren't so rude you might take the time to reflect on what my question might possibly be. Dietary Fiber

If you weren't so rude you might have created the page and done the link yourself. But no need to thank me -- wikipedia now has one more article. Slrubenstein

Slr, DF was giving an example of some material and asking if it was appropriate to put in Wikipedia. That's entirely appropriate for discussion in the village pump. --Brion 22:16 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining -- and my apologies. Should I delete the article? Or should we leave it until someone can compress the ficures? Slrubenstein

further discussion

I know it is probably standard, but could you explain/provide a key for the terminology (e.g. opening move, last move). It might also help to have info on how these problems are classified (what criteria) and who makes the classification. Thanks, Slrubenstein

In part at least, I think its explained already within other articles. Dietary Fiber

Itd be nice if 3 of these could go in a row. Dietary Fiber

Could you give a hint as to what I'm supposed to do next? Like, "White mates in 2 moves?" --Uncle Ed

Well, I still don't understand and I am sure others will not too. What does the 16 mean? The solution is g5 (for the first one) but which piece should go to g5? The 00 means castle, but how can that be the first move? And what is the D? I assume you are using algebraic notation -- should we provide a link here to that article? You have obviously put some work into this, and it is something you care and know a lot about. Why not add more information that will help others understand it? Slrubenstein

• Ed
  • Well Ill tell you, some people like hints and some don't. If we add hints we would want to create a way for people to choose whether or not to see them. In any case, these are not checkmate problems (of which I have about 2000 : \) but rather they are tactical situations in which there is usually one move which is "clearly" superior to any other move. My computer is actually able to rate the difficulty of problems and all of these are "very easy" but of course thats not from the viewpoint of a beginner...The first problem involves a pin, I guess thats a hint, but if you don't know what a pin is I guess the chess tactics section needs expanding

• SLR
  • Thats a question that needs to be answered with a good article on chess notation. We should use a link here if the article exists-if it doesnt it needs to be rewritten and Im tired, Ill probably do it tommorrow. As for the D00, that is ECO (encyclopedia of chess openings) terminology see list of chess openings for a list of what (ideally) would all be rather lengthy articles Dietary Fiber

What is the source of these problems? The move numbers suggest they come from actual games - do they? Can you add the source, whatever it may be, to the image page? I'm not sure what relevence the ECO codes have here - do we really need them? Will anybody mind if I turn these images into smaller .pngs (I'll use a "cleaner" set of graphics)? Sorry for all the questions at once. --Camembert

The ECO codes are relevant because if I tend to play D02, Im going to be more interested in D02 problems than C42 problems. They are from real games, the source is me. Dietary Fiber

OK. I was thinking that there's nothing in the problems here now that is specific to any particular opening, but I guess if the number of problems increases that can change. Would it be better, then, to arrange the problems by order of ECO code (to put the A00s before the D00, I mean). --Camembert

In any case, I've changed the images as I said I would. I just wonder though - should the first one (the D00) have white at the bottom of the board? I very very rarely see problems (or diagrams of any kind) with black at the bottom, even if it's black's move. --Camembert

When it is black's move, black should be at the bottom. How can I make graphics as you have done? I was intending to upload a number of these problems and I would assume u don't want to convert the images yourself. Dietary Fiber

I'm using Chessbase ( http://www.chessbase.com/ ) - they have a free version called Chessbase Light which will let you set up positions, but you'll probably have to copy it out into a graphics program to crop them and convert them into pngs. I would guess there are other ways of making the same diagrams though. Were you making the other ones with Fritz? If so, I would've thought it would be possible to change the board and piece style to match these (but I may be wrong). I wouldn't worry too much about it though - I don't really mind converting the graphics, and it doesn't matter too much if the graphics aren't the same for each problem, I think - after all, anyone should be able to upload them, and not everyone will have the same software. --Camembert

Yah, its the old Fritz 4 screen. Dietary Fiber

Confusing link

There's a terminology problem here that may require major surgery by more wiki-knowledgable persons.

The term 'chess problem' is used by different groups to mean different thing. The current Wiki article for that 'chess problem' is about composed chess problems, not the type of chess problems this particlar page deals with (which is tactical problems). Thus the link to 'chess problems' without any further clarification will possibly confuse an unsuspecting reader.

A more appropriate arrangement would be to make the (general) headword 'chess problem' have two largely disjoint meanings: the composed chess problem on the one hand, and the tactical chess problem (usually taken from actual games) on the other hand, and each of these areas can then be developed largely apart from the other.

Yes, that's a good idea - I'll try rewording it a little. --Camembert

I'm not at all happy at 'problem' being used to refer to any position that occurred (or could occur) in a game. The Oxford Companion to Chess (for many the ultimate authority) defines it as "a composition accompanied by stipulations, provided for the solver, stating that one side is to give mate, or achieve some other aim, in a set number of mmoves...", A study is "a legal position , usually composed and rarely from play, that is accompanied by the stipulation for the solver that one side (conventionally White) is to win or draw...". I think we should go along with these important distinctions. As for a position taken from play, what about "position for solving"?

Yes, I suppose that strictly speaking you're correct. If you want to fiddle with the page and move it somewhere else, then feel free. I don't really want to spend much time on it myself, because it's such a low-profile (and pretty inconsequential) entry. --Camembert