Most 'HTTP 404' Are External Errors

The last action on Monday, Monday is to determine:-

• Are there errors being reported on the server log files?

The last time I looked at stats for the site was for a post on my World Chess Championship Blog, Anand - Gelfand Wrapup, and the last general stats were for Google Likes Me Why Exactly. For the month of September, my server recorded close to 2200 'not found' (HTTP 404) errors. Most of the errors were outside of my control, with many of those related to hackers probing the site for security weaknesses.

I found a few errors that could be fixed easily and made the necessary changes. One of those was a 'page not found' problem and the rest were isolated 'image not found' errors. I also found a few errors on subjects I wasn't familar with. The most frequent were looking for files with names like

• apple-touch-icon.png

but there were also a fair number of requests for

• crossdomain.xml

If you're interested, a web search will give you more info on what these files are used for. Another broken link that appeared a few times came from Bridgebase.com, Cheating at Chess Is Bridge next? The page they wanted was 1978 Karpov - Korchnoi Title Match : Highlights, but someone mistyped the address.

What's next on the agenda for Mondays? I'll start by looking at Chess History on the Web : Support material.

The Shrinking Blogosphere?

What was I trying to do when I wrote the post about William W. Corasick? Oh, yes, it was a followup to Blog Business, the last time I updated the list of blogs I follow. These are listed under my profile Blogger: User Profile: Mark Weeks. First, and most important, I updated the TWIC feed for the news site:-

• The Week in Chess

Then I deleted feeds which haven't been updated for a long time:-

• GM Boris Alterman (last post October 2011)
• Chess benefits in all areas! (February 2012)
• CHESS VIEW (March 2011)
• Confessions of a chess novice (January 2012)
• Echecs, cinéma, TV ... léger (September 2011)
• IM Mark Ginsburg (October 2011)
• JROBICHESS CHESS BLOG (March 2012)
• The Pied Chessman (January 2012)
• US Chess League News (January 2012)

Another blog which disappeared completely was:-

• Chessvine.com

This last one was surprising because twice in recent years it was put forward for the CJA best blog award: 'It Speaks Volumes' (2010) and The Last Shall Be Least (2011). Another escapee to Twitter?

After deleting those ten blogs, I added three blogs that were on my list of blogs to watch. According to Blogger.com I started the exercise with 66 blogs on my list. Deleting ten and adding three brought the total to 59, which matches the new number on Blogger.com. I'm always happy when the math works.

'One Billion Clever People'

Speech by FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov at "Chess and Education" Conference [Part 1/2] (4:40) • 'Ilyumzhinov opens FIDE CiS Conference in Istanbul on the 30th August 2012'

Part 1 is more about FIDE during Ilyumzhinov's reign than it is about 'Chess in School'; for more about the program itself, see Part 2. For more videos from the conference, see cisfide - YouTube.

1946 Alekhine - Botvinnik

Let's set the historical stage for Another Fictitious Match, the 1946 match that never was between Alexander Alekhine (b.1892) and Mikhail Botvinnik (b.1911). In connection with the Birth of the FIDE World Chess Championship, I once wrote,

When the war broke out in 1939, Alekhine had been negotiating a title match with Mikhail Botvinnik to be played in Moscow. In early 1946 Botvinnik renewed his challenge, and the British Federation agreed to host the match. It notified Alekhine of its decision in March, but he never received it. He died the day the proposal was sent. The stage was set for FIDE, inactive since 1939. The organization, along with the crown jewel of chess, the World Championship, was to be rebuilt.

Chessbase.com provided more detail in Alekhine's death – an unresolved mystery?.

In 1946 Alekhine was invited to play in a tournament in London, but under pressure from American players (Reuben Fine, Arnold Denker and others) because of his wartime record the invitation was withdrawn. He resumed negotiations with FIDE for a match against Botvinnik, which was to take place in England under the auspices of the British Chess Federation. The BCF confirmed that an agreement had been met and arrangements made in a telegram delivered to Alekhine on March 23, 1946. [...]

Correspondence of Alekhine, shortly before his untimely demise, mentioned that he felt he was being followed! Alexander Alekhine's initials were AA, so that would put him at the top of any list! Alekhine died within a day or two of the British Chess Federation voting to hold the Botvinnik - Alekhine match... so, if there was an assassin then he had to move quickly since Alekhine was about to go to England!"

After writing the 'Fictitious Match' post, I created openings for a 24 game match between the two players, using the technique described in that post. These are based on the recorded games of the two players through 1946. I was surprised how similar their opening repertoires were; for example, both played variations on the Dutch Defense (1.d4 f5). The table is in PGN format to facilitate extending the openings to longer games.

1.--
( 1.-- {AA-MB} )
( {01} 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 d5 )
( {02} 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.a3 Bxc3+ )
( {03} 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.g3 c6 4.Bg2 d5 )
( {04} 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 b6 3.g3 Bb7 4.Bg2 c5 )
( {05} 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.Nf3 Nf6 )
( {06} 1.d4 e6 2.c4 f5 3.g3 Nf6 4.Bg2 Be7 )
( {07} 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Ne2 dxe4 )
( {08} 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 c5 4.Ngf3 Nc6 )
( {09} 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 )
( {10} 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 )
( {11} 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 c6 3.e3 Nf6 4.-- )
( {12} 1.c4 Nf6 2.d4 {also 01-03} 2...e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Bb7 )
( 1.-- {MB-AA} )
( {01} 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3 O-O )
( {02} 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Nf3 Ne4 )
( {03} 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 Bg7 )
( {04} 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e3 e6 )
( {05} 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 c6 4.e3 e6 )
( {06} 1.d4 e6 2.c4 f5 3.g3 Bb4+ 4.-- )
( {07} 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 )
( {08} 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Nd5 Nf6 )
( {09} 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 d5 4.d4 c5 )
( {10} 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 d4 3.e3 Nc6 4.exd4 Nxd4 )
( {11} 1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.d4 exd4 )
( {12} 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 c5 3.Nf3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 )

The two games with '--' show a point where there was no corresponding game in that collection. For an example with Alekhine as White, in game 11 after 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 c6 3.e3 Nf6, the position was never reached in Alekhine's collection. At this point a different method of choosing White's fourth move is required. Both players were prolific writers and left a large body of annotated games -- of other players as well as their own -- which would provide a rich resource for further investigation.

What's the point of this fabrication? For me it was an exercise in matching the opening repertoires of two players using databases of their games. Note that, unlike the equally fictional 1975 Fischer - Karpov match, the two players did in fact play each other. Chessgames.com informs that they met three times over the board: Mikhail Botvinnik beat Alexander Alekhine 1 to 0, with 2 draws.

Another Fictitious Match

In The Match That Never Was (TMTNW) My Version, a personal look at a fictitious 1975 Fischer - Karpov match, I wrote,

I had both 'Bobby Fischer's Chess Games' by Robert Wade and Kevin O'Connell (Doubleday, 1972) and 'Karpov’s Collected Games' by David Levy (RHM Press, 1975), so it was easy to compare the repertoires of the two players. The job might be tougher today with the same collections available in electronic format.

Later I started to wonder, 'Would it really be tougher with the same collections available in electronic format?' I decided to do an exercise, using a fictitious 1946 Alekhine - Botvinnik match as an example.

I already had databases for both players, downloaded some years ago from GM Khalifman's GMchess.com. I saved the historical player databases from that site because at the time they seemed cleaner than similar databases from other sites. I don't believe that the files are still available on the site.

The Alekhine database had 950 games, with the last game from 1946, the year the fourth World Champion died. The Botvinnik database had 918 games, of which 371 were played before 1947, the year I used as a cutoff for examples from Botvinnik's repertoire.

I loaded the two databases into SCID, a good tool for this sort of analysis, and separated them into games with White and games with Black for each player. SCID also gave me quick overviews of the first moves for both player, as shown in the following table. Alekhine's games are on top.

Assuming a 24-game match, I can use the numbers in the table to determine frequencies of first moves for both players, then iterate the process to derive the opening for each game. If I find the time to do this, I'll report on the results in a subsequent post.

Last Inconsistencies

Continuing with The Last Refuge and Hobgoblins and Small Minds, I cleaned up a few dozen more inconsistencies, the bulk of which were introduced at the time of the 'Hobgoblins' post. Since the rest of the inconsistencies are invisible to the visitor, I'll close this little exercise and move on to the last bullet from Monday, Monday

• Are there errors being reported on the server log files?

The log for the month of September is now available, which should let me catch any new errors introduced since the 'Monday, Monday' exercise started.

A Commemorative Rook

Since the advent of the Internet, the cable, radio, and telephone chess matches of yesteryear have been relegated to the domain of chess history, from which their souvenirs occasionally appear shortlisted for Top eBay Chess Items by Price. The item on the left, titled 'Antique Chess Piece Commons v US Representatives Telegraph Match Trophy 1897', received 32 bids from 14 bidders, with a winning bid of GBP 411.41 ('approximately US $664.34). The price doubled during the last five minutes of the auction.

The inscription on the Rook reads, 'Chess match by cable between House of Commons London and House of Representatives Washington played over the lines of the Anglo American Telegraph Co. London and Western Union Telegraph Co. New York 1897. Contractors The Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Co. London'.

The item description informed,

An extremely rare antique 19th century Victorian white metal souvenir chess piece in the form of a Rook commemorating the historic match between the British House of Commons & the US House of Representatives in 1897, the match being played over two days by cable transmission the result of which was a draw.

This souvenir Rook was made by the brothers Carlo & Alphonso Guilianio, sons of Carlo Guiliano (1832-1895), the acclaimed Victorian era Italian Jeweller and bears their hallmark to the base. The elder Guiliano moved to London in 1860 and set up his own workshop in 1861. In 1874 he established a retail business, where he was patronised by Queen Victoria. By the time the chess piece shown here was made, Guiliano's sons, Carlo Joseph and Arthur Alphonse had taken over the business, which continued to trade until 1914.

As several examples of this piece are known, it seems likely that one was presented to each participant as a memento of the match. The last one of these that we are aware of came up for sale in Christie's South Kensington a few years back selling for £4375.00 hammer excluding commission.

OVERALL CONDITION: Very Good - We would remind bidders that this item is antique & pre-owned with associated light surface wear, we have left as we found it with untouched or polished patina straight out of a private estate collection here in Scotland - as shown above. Size (approx.) 3" high

Two information links included in the description were History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications : Cable Chess Matches and Collecting: Bonhams Auctions Rare Collector Chess Sets.