Tuesday, July 19, 2005

A System of Record

I am a keen collector of chess games. I really don't care if it's a super-GM event in Dortmund or some tournament in the Appalachian mountains. I like games of chess. For me, they are the essential record of an event having happened.

It has always struck me as more than a little odd, actually it is a tragedy, that in NSW, we do not have a habit of transcribing and recording games into a database. While scoresheets may be provided - no one actually collects these.

Imagine what gems are merely lying on some dustcovered shelf somewhere. It could be a Canfell massacre. Or a George Xie novelty. Or the genius of some future grandmaster. Who knows?

The NSWCA has a rather large bank account. Eighty thousand kahunas. I propose that the NSWCA make it absolutely mandatory to use double-sided scoresheets, in all its tournaments, and for all boards. The NSWCA can afford it. In case you're wondering if we need special rules for this, we don't. As we follow FIDE rules, rule 8.3 ("The scoresheets are the property of the organisers of the event") is adequate.

1 comment:

DeNovoMeme said...

The NSWCA has so muck dosh that it even provides its own score sheets to clubs - eg Fairfield Winter Open 2005.