25 January 2007

An Amazing Coincidence

I found this yesterday, 'Written by John Knightly':-

Ten Most Common Myths About Chess!
http://www.chesscircle.net/chess-history/ten-most-common-myths-about-chess.html

1) Chess is a hard game to learn
2) Chess has been around for thousands of years
3) Chess is just a waste of time
4) To play chess you need to be a genius
5) Chess is for geeks
6) Chess has been solved by computers
7) Computers are better at chess then humans
8) Chess is a sport
9) Chess is not a sport
10) Women do not play as well as men

It looks a lot like a piece I wrote in June 2006:-

Top 10 Myths About Chess
http://chess.about.com/od/beginners/tp/aa06f17.htm

1) Chess is hard to learn
2) Chess is thousands of years old
3) Chess is a waste of time
4) You have to be smart to play chess
5) Chess is for nerds
6) Chess has been solved by computers
7) Computers play chess better than humans
8) Chess is a sport
9) Chess isn't a sport
10) Women can't play chess as well as men

The first bullet on the ChessCircle.net version reads like this:-

1) Chess is a hard game to learn : Many people will claim that chess is an extremely difficult game to play. However this is just not true. While it may not be easy it is definitely not that hard. Playing chess involves learning how to move each of the 6 types of pieces on the board. The piece with the least value has the most complicated moves. There are also rules about how to attack and defend the King. And do not forget rules about when the game ends in a draw. The one aspect of this myth that is true is that it is very difficult to learn to play chess at the level of Master.

Mine reads like this:-

1) Chess is hard to learn : Chess may not be the easiest game to learn, but it is far from the most difficult. You have to learn the moves of the six pieces, where the piece with the least value, the Pawn, has the most complicated moves. Then you have to learn the rules about attacking and defending the King, including castling. Then there are a few rules about games where neither player wins. • One aspect of this myth is true -- it is hard, very hard, to learn to play chess well. One player in a hundred achieves mastery

***

Here is another page from ChessCircle.net:-

The Best Ways to Lose at Chess
http://www.chesscircle.net/chess-strategies/the-best-ways-to-lose-at-chess.html

1) Ending your game prematurely
2) Take the first move that comes into your mind
3) Take the last move that comes into your head
4) Play with extreme confidence
5) Ignore the endgame
6) Allowing your opponent to invent new rules
7) Touching the wrong piece
8) Oops, I forgot to press my clock
9) Cheat and get caught
10) Trust in your computer

And here's mine, also written in June 2006:-

Top 10 Ways to Lose at Chess
http://chess.about.com/od/improveyourgame/tp/aa06f03.htm

1) Resign prematurely
2) Play the first move that enters your head
3) Play the last move that enters your head
4) Play overconfidently
5) Forget about the endgame
6) Let your opponent invent new rules
7) Touch the wrong piece
8) Forget to press your clock
9) Get caught cheating
10) Trust your computer's advice and analysis without question

***

Since About.com has exclusive right to my content, I'll see what they have to say about it.

5 comments:

Jim said...

I just love content leeches who then use that to plagiarize. I hope you nail the bugger good.

H.K. said...

This is quite sad. It must have been quite a weird sensation to see your words on another website.

Mark Weeks said...

Jim, Hungarian Knight - Thanks for the show of support. I've had entire articles copied (often out of ignorance of copyright laws) more times than I care to remember, and probably far more than I realize, but this is the first time that someone has gone to such lengths to disguise the copying.

More interesting would have been: 'Here's what this guy has to say about top chess myths [with a link to my original]. Here's what I think [...]'. It would also have taken less work than rewriting the original.

I'll post any follow-ups to this blog. - Mark

Blue Devil Knight said...

That sucks. At some random blog someone had copied, with minor word changes, an entire blog post of mine, and it was annoying. This plagiarism of your stuff is even worse.

Gaurav Narain Saxena said...

Here's an interesting myth I found:

If a player is the last one to touch their own pieces - they win the game.