The Campbell Report - July/Aug 1997 - Part 2


The Debate On Taking Advantage of "Non-Chess" Errors

This column has carried many comments from readers on the topic of taking advantage of errors such as notation mistakes, bad "if" moves, sending moves based on analyzing the wrong position, and so forth. I've seen this discussion continued in the CCLA magazine Chess Correspondent and more recently in the Letters to the Editor department in Tim Harding's outstanding new international cc magazine Chess Mail. Some topics never seem to die and, sometimes, the debate appears to be more of an argument where neither side appears to be listening to the points made by their opponents. I continue to claim that it's inappropriate to label opponents as "bad sports" when they decline to allow move take-backs but take full advantage of each opponent's error. As in all areas of dispute I encourage everyone to consider the opponent's viewpoint (actually think about it from the other guy's perspective ... no, I mean actually consider their viewpoints seriously).

I finally wrote a full article on this subject "The Two Faces of Correspondence Chess" which can be viewed on the Internet at John Knudsen's excellent correspondence chess site (see below for the web address). You may also enjoy reading Alex Dunne's comments on this subject in his column "Check is in the Mail" in the Summer 1997 issue of Chess Life (the issue between June and July). USCF is publishing this undated issue to make an adjustment in the cover date.

Ralph Marconi -- Super Team Captain

APCT'er Ralph Marconi of Joliette (Quebec), Canada has recently been appointed Team Captain of the Canadian Team in the NATT IV tournament. He was already team captain for the West team in the APCT All-Star Regional Team Championship and the NAPZ team in a big ICCF team match. In our private correspondence Ralph wrote: "Imagine this: I might be Team Captain on three winning teams: NATT IV Candian team, APCT All-Star team, and the NAPZ team (100 bd match) - VERY unlikely though, but nice to dream about nevertheless!" As a team captain for the Great Lakes team in the APCT event I understand Ralph's feelings here and I wish him luck ... in all but the APCT All-Star, of course!

Chess on the Internet

If you haven't checked out chess sites on the web for a while I suggest you give them another chance. In my opinion there has been great improvement during the last year. Here are a few web sites I recommend as worth a look. I welcome suggestions from you for additional sites to mention in the future. These sites are the ones I've personally discovered and found to be useful and entertaining. By the way, if you aren't already on the Internet I suggest you get there as soon as possible. Rapid delivery of chess news, huge numbers of games available to download to your database, contact with other enthusiastic chess players, rapid delivery of chess moves for correspondence competition and all sorts of other chess material (articles, book reviews, etc.) make the Internet more chess-friendly almost on a daily basis. You can even play APCT-rated games by email.

John C. Knudsen's Correspondence Chess Page - http://www.arrowweb.com/chess/INDEX.HTM
John Knudsen is a true cc enthusiast who has started a web page devoted to our form of the game. There's a lot there of interest. I thought enough of it to submit an article on the two faces of cc for his page. John is trying something new with his electronic chess books. His page for readers to submit opinions holds much promise. He has the complete lineups for the APCT - ASPCC 30-board match and I'm hoping he'll be able to post results as they come in. This is a site well worth visiting and one that holds great promise for future developments.

Chess is Fun - Jon Edwards - http://www.princeton.edu/~jedwards/cif/intro.html
This is the web page of APCT and USA champion Jon Edwards. If you have a friend or relative who wants to learn the game this is a good place to start. Edwards presents the game step by step beginning with the basics, and he does so in a very attractive format. My hat's off to Jon Edwards who has made a real step towards returning as much as to the game as it has given him. Way to go, Jon ... you're the best!

The Chess Cafe - http://www.chesscafe.com/
This is Hanon Russell's page and it's full of interesting material, including book reviews and columns "The Kibitzer" by Tim Harding and "Dutch Treat" by Hans Ree. A recently added "Bulletin Board" with reader questions and comments is quite interesting and addresses a number of current topics. This site appears to add good features on a regular basis and is one of the best on the Internet.

Inside Chess Online - http://www.tcc.net/chess/chess.html
Yasser Seirawan's page is mostly a commercial site giving information on the Inside Chess magazine and products available from his company ICE. There are also some book reviews by Jeremy Silman. There are many articles from the magazine reproduced here that could make this site attractive. For instance, some of Nikolay Minev's columns "Tactics, tactics and more tactics" are available here and make very entertaining reading.

This Week In Chess - http://www.tcc.net/twic/twic.html
Mark Crowther started TWIC as a personal project and it became THE chess source on the web. The objective is to report on all the important chess events of the week and it does a good job of this. Crowther has apparently established a world-wide network of reporters to keep a steady stream of chess news coming into his weekly report. He started it as a labor of love but has now turned it into a profession. If you notice a similarity between his web address and that of Inside Chess that is no accident as he now works for them to produce this high-quality web site on a professional basis. If you only look at one web site this is the one. It's one of the few sites that's constantly updated. With its frequent updates you can follow the round to round results of the big Super-GM tournaments including the opportunity to download the games in PGN or ChessBase formats. In fact, many players use this site for their main source of games for their chess databases. Of course, this is heavily oriented to OTB chess, as are most chess sites.

U. of Pittsburgh Chess Club - http://www.pitt.edu/~schach/
This is a wonderful site for chess database users. You can download a number of utility programs. Primarily you can download hundreds of thousands of games in a variety of database formats (PGN, CB, CA, Nic, BookUp). Many database users apparently use this site as their primary source of games.

ChessBase USA Homepage - http://www.chessbaseusa.com/
This is primarily a commercial page for the ChessBase USA office. It's fairly new and will probably evolve quite a bit so you might want to check it out, especially if you are a ChessBase user. CB users will want to read the weekly T-NOTES newsletter. The recently added News Group is interesting with comments and questions from readers along with some replies from ChessBase staff. A recent mailing from ChessBase reported a future feature that should be of particular interest to APCT'ers if it proves to be factual (you'll have to watch this magazine for any official announcements). ChessBase announced plans to add a special APCT section with tournament announcements and APCT articles. I've also heard rumors of a Canadian cc organization being added to this page and other cc organizations may also be represented, such as CCLA. This site merits watching for future developments. It's worth noting that the CB-USA President Don Maddox is a fellow APCT'er.

Chess Mail Online - http://www.chessmail.com/
This is Tim Harding's web site for the new international cc magazine Chess Mail. Besides ordering information there are some articles available from previous issues of the magazine and current international cc news.

July-Aug 1997 Part 1


copyright © 1998 by J. Franklin Campbell

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