Mig 
Greengard's ChessNinja.com

uschesschampionship.com

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Well, it was a rush job and there isn't much content yet, but at least I didn't have to resort to Viagra to get this site up. www.uschesschampionship.com is the official site of the 2005 US Chess Championships in San Diego. There are a few things I need to tweak (Mozilla/FireFox mangling my style sheets for one) and it's probably riddled with typos. But I think all the links and images are working okay at least. And the essential info is there except the rules and regulations page. That's because they haven't quite decided the rules yet!

Apparently even more funding has come in at the last minute, so it could go over the current $255,000. Then there's the tiebreak situation. Shabalov and Akobian saved us from embarrassment in 2003 by fighting hard while all the other leaders played pathetic 10-move draws in hopes of going to rapids or splitting the big prize a dozen ways. AF4C honcho Erik Anderson is very keen (an understatement) to avoid such a possibility by carrot and/or stick. They are still considering the best way to break ties without swinging thousands of dollars on a few rapid games.

16 Comments

The site looks neat and no fancy stuff either. I like it!

It's a good-looking site, Mig.

Very nice! Lots of information, very well presented. Interesting associated information as well. It is a site that encourages exploration because it's interesting to do so, rather than one that insists on it because it's too hard to find what you're looking for. :)

One small caveat: there is no "Men's title." There is a gender-restricted women's title, and an overall title that could be won by either a man or a woman.

In my ideal world, the USCF would offer three titles: Men's, Women's, and Overall. And three top 100 lists, for that matter. But as it stands, there are two titles: Overall US Champion, and a gender-restricted Women's Champion.

--duif

Thanks all. I know there's an overall title and avoid "Men's" as often as possible. But it's like the Olympiad; when you mention them side by side it sounds bizarre to say "Overall and Women's titles" or something similar. There are various creative ways to avoid doing that, but sometimes it's worse. I try never to call someone the "Men's champion," for example, but "US champion."

It would be silly to create a restricted men's title. Women's titles are affirmative action and such is not required for men.

Ah, found one that was a replacement typo. I hadn't slept for 40 hours by the time I finally posted the site, so I'm surprised it's legible at all!

I think when possible it should just be "US champion" and "US championship" instead of using the superfluous word "overall." Champ is champ and shouldn't need a modifier at all since "Women's" is always used when meant.

Nice site Mig! Will the live games have commentary? That's preferred for us small fish. I noticed on the ChessNinja message board that you said bios on the players would be coming up.

Any chance you could add something more personal than simply when/where they were born, what they won, where they live, blah, blah, blah? You know some personal stuff so that we can better CONNECT with our chess heroes. Favorite quote or joke, favorite movie or novel, favorite drink other than vodka (haha). Y'know, like in Just Checking In in New in Chess.

Yes, just "US Champion" works fine for the overall.

The site looks OK in FireFox to me, but looking closer there are big problems with both the xhtml and the style sheet code. I commend you for trying to using xhtml 1.0 transitional but you have dozens and dozens of code errors on the page.

xhtml is rather strict about these things, even in it's "transitional" version.

With so many errors the look of the site on a proplerly compliant browser is going to be rather a random factor. So I don't think it's really fair to blame firefox for not displaying a page with a broken stylesheet correctly. Actually, it's doing you a favour.

My suggestion is to get the Firefox Web Developer 0.8 extension - great for html coders. Instant access to a good validator any time you think about it.

Actually I ended up not using the elements I'd planned that would require the XHTML and then ended up using a hacked-together style sheet replacement at the last minute. I had to put the site together in a few days, unfortunately. I didn't mean to blame Firefox; it's what I use. But it isn't user-friendly when it comes to error handling (i.e. unless you're a coder).

I don't have Firefox, but the website looks great on IE.

Is the US championship going to affect the turnout at the National Chess Congress?

Good looking site indeed, also was pleasantly surprised that the prize fund is so large.
Best of luck to all the participants.

/wishes he was back in San Diego

Some comments on Internet question your list of US Champions. Where did you get your list?
I did not notice a list on the USCF website.

I believe the list was compiled by the AF4C last year; I didn't make it. Perhaps John Henderson did. You could generate it from several books and/or databases, however. Soltis and McCormick have a book on the US Championship up to 1996.

As for the USCF site, I don't think they've even linked to the championship site yet...

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    This page contains a single entry by Mig published on November 18, 2004 4:03 PM.

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