Most modern chess books have games from famous players in them, and
often not-so-famous players and sometimes games the auther invented
for the purpose of instruction.


Why do authors never publish the PGN files of the games? I for one
would sometimes like to load a game into a computer, and play it
through. This would be much easier if I could find a pgn file. In the
case of famous players, the games are often easy to find on the
internet, but one book I have on the French Defense has really obscure
games, which I can't find anywhere.

So this is rather a request to anyone writing a chess book. Why not
put the pgn files on a website and state the location in the book? If
you have written a book, and have the pgn files, please make it known.

In the case of some famous books ("My 60 Memorable Games" by Fischer
for example), then others have done this. But there is a whole load of
modern chess literature, where authors make no effort to collect pgn
files of the games they describe in their books. It would be useful to
people reading the book.

I don't think making the pgn files available will detract from the
sales. Without annotations in the pgn files, which I'm not requesting,
the pgn files will have no adverse effect on the sales of the book.
Quite the contrary, if pgn files are available, it would make me more
inclined to buy a book.

One more thing, in the UK, and probably everywhere else in Europe,
books are sold without VAT (value added tax). Adding a CD with the
games would no longer make it a book I belive, so it would then add
17.5% (in the UK) to the cost. But putting those pgn files on a web
site would be no problem.

So how about it authors ??? Give use some pgn files, so we can read
your books and quickly load up the games on a computer.

Dr. David Kirkby m wrote:
One more thing, in the UK, and probably everywhere else in Europe,
books are sold without VAT (value added tax). Adding a CD with the
games would no longer make it a book I belive, so it would then add
17.5% (in the UK) to the cost.

This is correct for the UK.

So how about it authors ??? Give use some pgn files, so we can read
your books and quickly load up the games on a computer.

That would be very useful. I think it's a matter of culture more than
anything else. Companies publishing programming books don't fear that
they'll lose sales by putting the example programs on the web and I
imagine that chess books would be just the same in this respect.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Lead Peanut (TM): it's like a roasted
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ nut that weighs a ton!

Go he http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/~gossimit/c/book.htm
---
"Dr. David Kirkby" m wrote
in message om...
Most modern chess books have games from famous players in them, and
often not-so-famous players and sometimes games the auther invented
for the purpose of instruction.


Why do authors never publish the PGN files of the games? I for one
would sometimes like to load a game into a computer, and play it
through. This would be much easier if I could find a pgn file. In the
case of famous players, the games are often easy to find on the
internet, but one book I have on the French Defense has really obscure
games, which I can't find anywhere.

So this is rather a request to anyone writing a chess book. Why not
put the pgn files on a website and state the location in the book? If
you have written a book, and have the pgn files, please make it known.

In the case of some famous books ("My 60 Memorable Games" by Fischer
for example), then others have done this. But there is a whole load of
modern chess literature, where authors make no effort to collect pgn
files of the games they describe in their books. It would be useful to
people reading the book.

I don't think making the pgn files available will detract from the
sales. Without annotations in the pgn files, which I'm not requesting,
the pgn files will have no adverse effect on the sales of the book.
Quite the contrary, if pgn files are available, it would make me more
inclined to buy a book.

One more thing, in the UK, and probably everywhere else in Europe,
books are sold without VAT (value added tax). Adding a CD with the
games would no longer make it a book I belive, so it would then add
17.5% (in the UK) to the cost. But putting those pgn files on a web
site would be no problem.

So how about it authors ??? Give use some pgn files, so we can read
your books and quickly load up the games on a computer.

Try he

http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/~gossimit/c/book.htm

or he

http://www.gambitchess.com/index2.htm

Howard Goldowsky
chesswriter
Boston, MA

Not that I disagree with your idea...it may certainly appeal to some.
However, I am one of those "old farts" g that would rather play out the
moves on a real board. The reason being, while one can certainly see the
moves on a monitor...there is something "space related" to doing it on a
regulation board..now I may be slightly off here in my reasoning but doing
it my way sort of makes it easier and imo...makes it "stick" in one's mind
better.

"Dr. David Kirkby" m wrote
in message om...
Most modern chess books have games from famous players in them, and
often not-so-famous players and sometimes games the auther invented
for the purpose of instruction.


Why do authors never publish the PGN files of the games? I for one
would sometimes like to load a game into a computer, and play it
through. This would be much easier if I could find a pgn file. In the
case of famous players, the games are often easy to find on the
internet, but one book I have on the French Defense has really obscure
games, which I can't find anywhere.

So this is rather a request to anyone writing a chess book. Why not
put the pgn files on a website and state the location in the book? If
you have written a book, and have the pgn files, please make it known.

In the case of some famous books ("My 60 Memorable Games" by Fischer
for example), then others have done this. But there is a whole load of
modern chess literature, where authors make no effort to collect pgn
files of the games they describe in their books. It would be useful to
people reading the book.

I don't think making the pgn files available will detract from the
sales. Without annotations in the pgn files, which I'm not requesting,
the pgn files will have no adverse effect on the sales of the book.
Quite the contrary, if pgn files are available, it would make me more
inclined to buy a book.

One more thing, in the UK, and probably everywhere else in Europe,
books are sold without VAT (value added tax). Adding a CD with the
games would no longer make it a book I belive, so it would then add
17.5% (in the UK) to the cost. But putting those pgn files on a web
site would be no problem.

So how about it authors ??? Give use some pgn files, so we can read
your books and quickly load up the games on a computer.

(Howard Goldowsky) wrote in message . com...
Try he

http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/~gossimit/c/book.htm

or he

http://www.gambitchess.com/index2.htm

Howard Goldowsky
chesswriter
Boston, MA

Thanks for those. Unfortunately the books I was most interested in are
not there. I was particulary keen on the series by Yasser Seirawan
(winning chess brilliances, winning chess endings, play winning chess,
winning chess statergies and winning chess tactics).

I don't have "Winning Chess Brilliances" but have the other four. I
note there is a file of games from the ene book I don't have, but
there is only about a dozen games in the pgn file. I suspect it's far
from complete. But thanks anyway. Clearly someone has put a lot of
work into those sites.

Dr. David Kirkby

The short answer is that probably it serves the student better to play over
the moves manually, than to be able to push the "next move" button in their
chess software. I build databases of games from the books I read, inputting
the annotation myself, and I find it sticks with me much longer... it can be
a painstaking process, however.

I do cheat sometimes, and look up the games in databases, though. It's not
a bad idea, especially for games collections and opening manuals (Ever tried
to put MCO into a DB? Egad.) For instructional material mabye not so good
an idea.

"Dr. David Kirkby" m wrote
in message om...
Most modern chess books have games from famous players in them, and
often not-so-famous players and sometimes games the auther invented
for the purpose of instruction.


Why do authors never publish the PGN files of the games? I for one
would sometimes like to load a game into a computer, and play it
through. This would be much easier if I could find a pgn file. In the
case of famous players, the games are often easy to find on the
internet, but one book I have on the French Defense has really obscure
games, which I can't find anywhere.

So this is rather a request to anyone writing a chess book. Why not
put the pgn files on a website and state the location in the book? If
you have written a book, and have the pgn files, please make it known.

In the case of some famous books ("My 60 Memorable Games" by Fischer
for example), then others have done this. But there is a whole load of
modern chess literature, where authors make no effort to collect pgn
files of the games they describe in their books. It would be useful to
people reading the book.

I don't think making the pgn files available will detract from the
sales. Without annotations in the pgn files, which I'm not requesting,
the pgn files will have no adverse effect on the sales of the book.
Quite the contrary, if pgn files are available, it would make me more
inclined to buy a book.

One more thing, in the UK, and probably everywhere else in Europe,
books are sold without VAT (value added tax). Adding a CD with the
games would no longer make it a book I belive, so it would then add
17.5% (in the UK) to the cost. But putting those pgn files on a web
site would be no problem.

So how about it authors ??? Give use some pgn files, so we can read
your books and quickly load up the games on a computer.

"Curt Seefeldt" wrote in message link.net...
Not that I disagree with your idea...it may certainly appeal to some.
However, I am one of those "old farts" g that would rather play out the
moves on a real board. The reason being, while one can certainly see the
moves on a monitor...there is something "space related" to doing it on a
regulation board..now I may be slightly off here in my reasoning but doing
it my way sort of makes it easier and imo...makes it "stick" in one's mind
better.

There may be some truth in what you say about playing on a real board,
sticking in one's mind better. I'm sure reseraching that properly
could be the subject of a PhD thesis. Proving, (or disproving) this
would I suspect be very difficult indeed. Of course, it may be true
for a small number of people, or for 99% of people - who knows?? (I've
not done a google serach on it, but I doubt someone has not tried
doing some work on this).

But there are times when a real board is just not practical. I often
play with a small pocket-sized PDA on the train. I've tried using a
real board (magnetic), but quite honestly I think they are not
practical on a train. As someone pointed out the other day, he has
lost a piece.

The last day or so I've been looking at the process of checkmating a
king with two bishops. Getting the king on an edge is trivual, but
getting him in the corner needs a bit more thought. I'm sure I learnt
more from replaying the moves from a book several times on my PDA,
then I did by entering them in the first place from the book.

Then of course once you have entered the moves into a chess program,
you can then play against the chess engine. On my pocket sized PDA
there is no support for tablebases, but the last few moves (the
difficult ones), the computer can work out how you can mate it, and
hence how best to avoid it. So the fact it can find a mate in 8,
rather than 20, does not really make a lot of difference.

I think in this day and age, authors should at least give people the
option of downloading the files. Whether or not they do of course is
then entiryly up to them.

"David Carter" wrote in message
news
The short answer is that probably it serves the student better to play
over
the moves manually, than to be able to push the "next move" button in
their
chess software. I build databases of games from the books I read,
inputting
the annotation myself, and I find it sticks with me much longer... it can
be
a painstaking process, however.

I think the opposite may be true. I wrote Bookup to go over complete
openings (not just games) and eliminate the decoding of notation and making
the moves which I don't think does much for understanding. I think those
tasks are distracting.

Chess software doesn't do the mental work though. Some players do less work
when the software takes over the tedium. If you are truly clicking on the
moves without stretching your mental muscle then it's not much of an
advantage over a printed book.

I do cheat sometimes, and look up the games in databases, though. It's
not
a bad idea, especially for games collections and opening manuals (Ever
tried
to put MCO into a DB? Egad.) For instructional material mabye not so
good
an idea.

Putting MCO into Bookup is a breeze. Many players have done it and for good
reason. The instructional and training value is huge.

Mike Leahy
"The Database Man!"
www.bookup.com

Mike Leahy wrote:

Putting MCO into Bookup is a breeze. Many players have done it and for
good
reason. The instructional and training value is huge.

Is MCO available in Bookup format?

--
Cheers,
Rob