2001-02-27 - 23:59:36

Games

Okay what the next several days is going to be about is data input: the sloppy pile of chess gamescores at my elbow is going to be turned into a nice orderly data file, then I'm going to send this data off to some chess websites here in America and off in Europe. This is not going to be happening anytime soon - I see at least a week's work here.

I've come to appreciate that there is a certain knack to doing this. Some players have handwriting that is very hard to read. In fact there seems to be some sort of inverse relationship between chess skill and penmanship: the best players seem to have the worst writing.

This isn't completely true though - GM Yasser Seirawan has practically the neatest cursive writing I've ever seen!

However, neat handwriting doesn’t always mean that you can make sense of the scoresheet. Sometimes in the heat of battle players will forget to write down a move or two and then at some point the game will just not make sense. Sometimes I can logically work out what the missing move must be, but other times it means that the game is useless.

At the US Amateur Teams, one of the chess businesses that had a booth set up in the lobby took the games so that they could put them up on their website. I had mixed feelings about this: they were poaching on my territory, but they were relieving me of a big job. However, when I talked to the head guy at their table, he admitted that the job was a lot tougher than he thought it was going to be, and he was quite happy to hand the job back to me.

So far I've seen a couple nice games from the grandmasters at the event, but most of the people at the US Amateur teams aren't grandmasters. Two of these non-titled players produced the following "masterpiece," presented here for the first time anywhere. Don’t you feel special?

"Mark" (white) vs. "Matt" (Black)

This is all the information that was on the scoresheet other than the game itself. Stuff like this does not make my job any easier. Judging from the handwriting of the player who turned in the scoresheet, he looks to be in Elementary School.

US Amateur Team East, Parsippany, NJ February 2001

1.e4 h5 (a very bad opening move - it does nothing to challenge white's control of the center) 2.d4 Nh6 3.Nf3 Na6 (Black is just being silly - why put his knights on the edge of the board like this?) 4.Bc4 b6? (After this black may already be lost - 5.Ne5 looks very strong) 5.Bxh6 gxh6 6.Ne5 Bb7??? (Completely missing the point. He had to play 6...e6) 7.Bxf7, mate. (D'oh!)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to work.