August 2005 Archives

Via the still-Scottish John Henderson, current resident of Seattle, I've had a glimpse of the massive online digital archives of the Scotsman newspaper, which go back to 1817. There's quite a bit of chess in there, including tidbits on Morphy's visit to Europe. There's even an announcement of a 21-game match between Morphy and Staunton. Oh well. (John also figures that Morphy's grave is currently deep underwater. So an item on New Orleans' greatest is appropriate today.)

In one item, a columnist chides a French paper for misspelling the American's name "Murphy" among with other inaccuracies. But 15 years later in their long obituary of Howard Staunton, the Scotsman multiplies this tenfold by both calling him "Murphy" and stating in passing that Staunton was his conquerer! Maybe there was a match only the Scotsman knew about?

The below snippets are from an item reviewing Loewenthal's book on Morphy's games in the January 26, 1860 paper. The item is written by the accomplished author, scholar, and publisher Henry George Bohn, who had put out some of Staunton's books, including the legendary "The Chessplayer's Handbook". (Bohn's editions of the classics were so well known at the time that his name gave rise to the expression "to bone up" on something. At least according to the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins.)

There is a great deal more high praise of Morphy, and though Bohn mentions Morphy's intent to play Staunton he never discusses the aborted match(es) at all. But impressive from someone who still had a professional relationship with Staunton.

I just updated US Championship website with the results of the US Open. (Actually it was updated a few days ago, but now with spiffy photos.) Three cheers for Dirt regular IM Dave "fluffy" Vigorito for achieving a long-held dream. No, not the one about the cheerleaders, the one about qualifying for the US Championship. Now the Dirt faithful have to focus their positive vibes on Yermo.

Josh Friedel has the inside track on becoming the first player to qualify via the new Grand Prix system. He almost made it directly last week but lost out to Serper on tiebreaks. There will also be a "champion of champions" internet qualifying tournament among all the state champions.

An interesting article at Wired about online cheating at poker sites using software robots. The programmer at the center of the piece has an amusing set of rationalizations about why this is okay, starting with "everyone is doing it" and ye olde "it's a service to point out the weakness of the services." Making a buck, in other words.

As the article points out, the online casino industry doesn't care so much because they make money on a percentage basis. They have to put a good face on how much they are doing about the problem, but it's really not a problem for them yet. When legions of undetectable bots make up the field, what will weak human players do? As long as there are enough new players coming in, most unaware of this issue, the industry will continue to boom anyway. That the bots aren't yet strong enough to really challenge strong players is another factor, one that won't last long.

Everybody complains about cheats using chess software online, but since money isn't an issue it's a minor annoyance for most. (Though you might be amazed by the passion this inspires among amateurs. It was by far the #1 complaint about online play at KasparovChess.) It's a more serious issue with professionals, where even GMs (among others) have been nailed for cheating in online tournaments. "Everybody is doing it" has been a popular response from those who confess after being caught. Lame, though true from looking at the games of most online tournaments.

You'll remember this hot topic about the organization mess at the World Youth Games in Belfort, France a few weeks ago. FIDE has responded with surprising speed and decisiveness, banning organizer Touze from organizing FIDE events for the next five years and suggesting that the European Union does the same.

I don't know how much bite this really has, but it's hard to imagine them being able to do much more. Fines likely aren't applicable. It's always going to be hard to deal with this sort of thing when it's so hard to find organizers and sponsors in the first place.

Some follow-up to Stan Kriventsov's letter and related comments. Thanks to Carol Jarecki and Ernie Schlich for their help. The short version is that things are backed up, attributed by Carol to the main USCF guy on this stuff, Walter Brown (not the GM with the 'e'), falling ill and taking some time off. USCF volunteer Ernie Schlich and USCF employee Chuck Lovingood in Crossville are currently doing the work for the USCF rating department.

Mr. Schlich's reply said that they had already sent some events in on the 24th and that "I hope to be 99% caught up by Monday [the 29th]. We are placing a heck of a workload on FIDE and I hope they have time to rate them all. The US Open and the HB are going to take much time." Some notes from Carol on the process and its state.

In other words, things do appear to be moving forward. Much of this highlights the typical weakness of the USCF and organizations like it. You can't have a professional level of accountability when you have to rely on volunteers who are doing their best. It's not like there are loads of people clamoring to do this sort of work for free or very low pay. Or are there? I've gone on here before about the importance of setting up a good volunteeer infrastructure. Many people would like to help but they don't know how. Yet another top priority for the new board...

Well, "GM-elect" that is. Despite narrowly missing Sergey Karjakin's record of youngest GM by 23 years, Michigan's Ben Finegold is quite pleased to be America's latest Grandmaster. He's long been one of the strongest IMs around so this is long overdue. Is there a record for years over 2500 without becoming a GM? The highest-rated IM right now according to FIDE is Paragua of the Philippines. On the other side, Christiansen and Gelfand are often mentioned as skipping the IM title entirely.

You can read all about it in this fun report by IM Greg Shahade, see below. It was up at the USCF site yesterday but is gone now, but someone sent me a copy. Greg and I are in talks about turning the USCF site into something useful. Will the new board member be writing all the content himself? Anyway, kudos to Ben. (His email address says "IMFinegold" and I've cleverly registered the "GMFinegold" version to prevent some unscrupulous person from extorting beer in exchange for the account password. Gmail is better anyway.)

With the various recent cases of fictional tournaments being rated, what about rating tournaments that actually happened? American IM Stan Kriventsov is wondering why his recent US events aren't on the list of tournaments to be rated by FIDE. In fact, no US events are currently listed.

I suppose I could poke around the USCF site for a while or write a bunch of people at the USCF, but usually posting to the world is the fastest way to get an answer. I'm sure there's a lot about this process people will find interesting. Crazy about the late fees.

I'm not sure if this is tragedy, comedy, or heroism, but FIDE has just approved a request to let 15-year-old Gaston Needleman into the World Cup. This after the much discussed Continental tiebreak tournament in which he finished last and was the one player eliminated. From FIDE:

While this is a happy ending and a just reward for his excellent performance in the main event (outperforming his rating by 400 points), this is also a perverse twist. It means the entire tiebreak tournament was meaningless. A pity they didn't ask FIDE about this before wasting everyone's time. No one would have complained had they just announced all seven were qualified without a playoff. We can be 99% sure that had anyone other than Needleman finished last that person would be S.O.L.

Wildcards for outstanding juniors are a good thing and hardly rare, but promptly rendering the playoff worthless is a bit warped. Waiting till the other wildcards were announced would have been more polite to the six who qualified.

The Argentine papers have it now, all giving the same quote from Needleman: "Great! This is incredible. Now there's a lot of studying to do." The 2006 World Cup, the next stage of the FIDE world championship cycle, doesn't have a site yet.

Today I received this letter from GM Alexander Onischuk, one of the seven players in the much-discussed tiebreak at the Continental Championship. Further debunking of the original conspiracy story isn't really needed, but it's good to hear from another of the principals. (Needleman's comments are in the other thread.) If anything, I hope this teaches us all to be a little more critical when reading the news. Or, "news."

Brazil's Gilberto Milos just sent me a note. He has much similar to say on his site. Click on the "Continental Tie Breaks" item. As one of the few ever really in danger, he makes the point that because of the tiebreaks he only had to "wait" one round, the fourth, to be ahead of Needleman again.

The official site of the San Luis FIDE world championship is doing its best to provide some buzz and build-up. They've posted three player Q&A items so far, each more boring than the last. Blame the questions, not the answers. As if we're all waiting for one of them to slip up and accidentally reveal all their preparation secrets. "Well, I'm training with these four players and doing a lot of work on this opening and that defense and... whoops!"

Anyway, here are Anand, Leko, and Topalov, not that you can tell them apart by the answers. I'm guessing the event will be "tough."

How about we go them one better? Post some interesting questions and we'll put together a shadow interview collection. I'm fond of "why" questions myself, harder to just give a rote answer. Understand that they won't much like gotcha stuff about Kramnik and unification at this stage because they are under contract with FIDE right now and can hardly give an answer other than, "This is the one true championship. Kramnik who? These aren't the droids we're looking for."

The item on the Continental Championship has already started buzzing about the tiebreak round robin held to find the six FIDE world cup qualifiers from the seven players who tied with eight points. Six strong GMs and 15-year-old Argentine Gaston Needleman played 15-minute games to find a single loser, bizarre to say the least.

The final crosstable looks somewhat predictable. Needleman was giving up 400 points in every game and got hammered while the GMs drew almost all their games with each other. There was only ONE decisive game that didn't involve Needleman. In his report at the Spanish ChessBase site, Carlos A. Ilardo paints a nastier picture, saying that there was a conspiracy from the start to draw quickly while playing hard against the underdog kid, who was obviously the crowd favorite at my dear old Club Argentino where the tiebreak took place. He says that some of the GM games were drawn in as few as five moves.

I surely sympathize, and that crosstable is undoubtedly cruel, but I can't get worked up about this. The system lent itself to such behavior because as soon as anyone lost a game, everyone else could just draw and be guaranteed qualification. If the huge rating underdog lost early it became a foregone conclusion that the GMs weren't going to bash each other up when the only point of this was to settle the qualification spots. It was midnight on the same day as the tough final round, one player was outrated by 400 points, and it wasn't necessary to conspire against him. Had Needleman won his first game things would have been different [He actually did! See comments.], but again, as soon as ANY game was decisive, you were guaranteed qualification by drawing all your games unless you were that loser. Playing to beat the 2240 player would also make sense, but it was Needleman knowing he had to win to come back that led to the four losses, not the GMs refusing his draw offers.

I constantly push for anti-draw rules and fighting chess, but this format was a train-wreck and a formality gone awry. In this case I find it hard to blame the players for just trying to get it over with and get some sleep instead of providing an extra show with nothing at all to gain. It's a sad example of "professional chess" for Needleman, but at the end of the day this was a professional situation and, let us not forget, he DID lose four games.

[Update: msc spoke with Needleman on the ICC and he doesn't think there was any conspiracy. He even won his first game, against Milos in the second round. Felgaer lost then to Granda and had to play hard in his games. Kamsky and Granda played a hard game early. Anyway, it all seems like yet another overblown example of Ilardo's "reporting" in La Nacion newspaper. More in my summary comment.]

Every year since 2001 Chess-in-the-Schools and the New York City parks department has put together a remarkable event right in the middle of Central Park at Bethesda Fountain. Or at least they've tried. The weather hasn't always been as cooperative as it was for this first edition back in 2001. This year they have an alternative indoor venue set up just in case. It's on Saturday, September 17, check-in at 9am sharp. A six-round swiss, g/10. Bring a set and clock if you can. More general and registration info here.

Larger versions: 800x600 (166kb) and 1600x1200 (567kb)

Cuba's Lazaro Bruzón won clear first in the Continental Championship. Seven players tied for second a half-point back. Gata Kamsky could have tied for first with a win in the final round with white, but he was held to a draw by 15-year-old (!) Gaston Needleman, who had the tournament of his life.

Unfortunately for Needleman, seven people tied on eight points and there was a round-robin playoff (15-minute games) for the six remaining world championship qualifying spots. He came last against the six strong GMs. (He might still get in if Kamsky qualifies by rating and they take from the zonal instead of from the rating list, but this is unlikely.) The seven qualifiers were straight from the list of top seeds. Bruzón, Kamsky, Vescovi, Milos, Onischuk, Granda, Felgaer. Elo rules if we conveniently ignore the 2240-rated Needleman, the 99th seed.

Based on my traffic patterns, many DD readers never visit the message boards. Meanwhile, some people seem to spend half their lives there. (Not naming names, but if you click the 'Directory' page you can see the list of most prolific posters.) It's a moderated community with over 1600 members from all over the world. There are usually 15-25 active discussions (threads) going on. The "today's active topics" link is a good place to start.

It's a pleasantly sane place, at least compared to the Usenet and considering the contentious topics - chess and non-chess - they get into. (The hard-working mods (cough cough), or the mere presence of the mods, can't hurt.) There are also polls you can create yourself, private messages, and tournaments among the members. I finally coughed up a few bucks to upgrade the board software, adding a few handy features. So sign up, pick an avatar, and join the fun.

If you are nostalgic for the early days of the internet, back when web pages were mostly poorly formatted text with ill-fitting photos pasted in, you're in for a treat. The US Chess Federation has put up a new homepage. [I've mirrored it here for when they mercifully take it down. For the full retro experience, view the page using Netscape 2.0.] I assumed it had been put together by someone's seven-year-old niece, but the tags actually say "Authors: Mike Nolan; K.R. Sloan". (They also say "demo" so I have no idea why it's live online.) This isn't a web page, it's a cry for help.

Just because everyone CAN make a website these days doesn't mean everyone should, especially if it's for a large organization and not, say, vacation snapshots. There is something to be said for splash pages and simplicity, but good design and navigation can overcome them. I don't expect everyone at the USCF to be a professional web designer. But I would expect that a few of them have actually surfed the web. Things just don't look like this anymore, with good reason. There's no reason the USCF site can't look as good as the tennis association site or even the mostly volunteer-run Chess Scotland site.

I don't want to be mean to those who spent their precious eight minutes putting that page together, and of course this has nothing to do with the gigantic picture of Maurice Ashley (158K!). But yikes. I'll even put my money where my mouth is and offer to do a new homepage for free. (Not an entire site and navigation.)

[Update: In the comments is a Usenet post by one of the USCF people who posted the new homepage page with his explanation and my comments. It mentions there is a $25,000 budget item for the website. But they don't really need a whole new website. They need a redesign and re-org and someone with skills who can run it with design in mind. Blowing 25K on a new car doesn't mean you know how to drive it.]

When Adams lost to Hydra 5.5-.5, one of the things that upset me the most was some of the commentary on the ICC. Hydra's brilliant combination at the end of the second game was not unveiled gradually in a dramatic way, but instantly cited by computer programs. This practice has always bothered me and my brother [IM Greg Shahade], who went as far as to instate a no-computer analysis rule on ICC coverage of the New York Masters.

If someone wants to use computers to analyze top level live games, that's fine, but why not be courteous? Some people might enjoy the drama of not knowing exactly when Kramnik is up 4.37 pawns and Leko should resign. Others might even want to train their own tactics rather than have Fritz force-feed them variations.

It's always a complex question for me when I'm analyzing a game or an opening: When to turn on Fritz? I'm tempted right away, but as soon as the engine purrs, I stop thinking and my eyes glaze over... mesmerized by the crunching of numbers on the bottom left corner of my screen. A frequent problem is that Fritz will often choose a weird move as the main variation while a normal-looking, but losing, move doesn't even show up on the screen. What this means for me is if I overuse Fritz in analyzing, I'll misunderstand the logic of a game. Much of using Fritz well is knowing when to turn it off. (or ignore it)

From an Icelandic magazine recapping the Fischer saga, the last paragraph has something of an update:

This is an ironic twist because most of the Icelanders who brought him there never really expected Fischer to stay in Iceland. They expected him to take his new passport and head somewhere where he'd be less conspicuous, perhaps back to Hungary or to Serbia.

The Kasparov-Karpov match fixing accusations have been a Fischer staple for quite a long time and seem a natural extension via paranoia of the very real arranged Soviet draws that he denounced in his playing days. In 1996 Fischer claimed that he had proof of the K-K fixing in copious notebooks that had disappeared when his storage locker was emptied.

Just in case you thought chess sponsorship was tough, and it is, this article on the US marbles championship might cheer you up.

Nothing like a little schadenfreude when we're surrounded with poker on TV 24/7 and big prizes for who can eat the the most hot dogs.

The dismal, horrible, really, really bad result of the Russian men's team in Gothenburg last week even made it into the English versions of the Russian papers. Kommersant has a long piece on the crisis facing the traditional power, only exemplified by their 14th-place finish in Sweden. Finishing with silver in the Olympiad last year was considered a shock. But 14th?

Since Russia was the top seed anyway, perhaps they are right in not taking any players to task. Grischuk and Morozevich have apparently said they'll play in the world team event in October. Aside from the "Russia - World" rapid match, Kramnik hasn't played for Russia since 1996. Kasparov has been lamenting the lack of young Russian stars for a while now. The World Youth events showed that there are still some strong kids, but they are far from the dominance of the old days, when there would be two or three Russians at the top of every boys' category.

In the article, Yuri Razuvaev has a complaint recently leveled at the US team: not using these competitions to bring up young talent. Plucking the best by the rating list is conveniently objective, but is also short-sighted when it comes to the reserve boards. Few will duplicate the sensational results Kasparov and Kramnik had in their Olympiad debuts, but they bring energy to the team and a foundation is built for the future.

GM Vadim Milov posts a long open letter detailing his unsuccessful case to challenge FIDE in court over his inability to play in the Tripoli KO WCh last year. I respect his decision not to play under clearly unequal conditions, but I wish he had continued to call FIDE and Libya's bluff. The entire debacle and attendant debate was covered here in detail, just used the search for Libya and start at the bottom. Milov's plight was covered here.

The choice of Libya was dubious as best, but forgivable considering the lack of alternatives. Discarding the announced alternative venue in Malta was a travesty that led to Israelis and many Americans bowing out of what was the first FIDE championship in three years. Where to next? Does Kim Jong Il play chess as well as he plays golf?

This suite of interesting events starts tomorrow in Germany. The headliner is the GRENKELEASING rapid match of Grischuk taking his turn to put his head into Anand's mouth. There's a legends event with Karpov, Korchnoi, Spassky, and Unzicker, held to celebrate the latter's 80th birthday. Seems like a "friendly," but there is little doubt Korchnoi would love to beat Karpov and equally little doubt that if Karpov wins he will count it on his list of tournament victories. (As others have pointed out, his record was/is so impressive because it was almost exclusively composed of very strong events. In the past ten years he's started counting all sorts of rapids, matches, and rubbish. In that case there would be at least a few players with more career wins by counting small regional events, etc. I've seen Miles suggested as one.)

Svidler will face Almasi in a shuffle-chess match sponsored by FiNet. (Fischerandom, Chess960, whatever.) These gamescores screw up most databases, but the games are often worth the effort. Then there is the mighty Ordix Open with 63 GMs at last count.

I'm using the names of the sponsors of the events because hey, they have sponsors! Mad props to the amazing organizer, Hans-Walter Schmitt. It looks like an great festival, and I can't even read German.

If we're out for something to chew on, the continued proliferation of rapid events like this one is a good topic. FIDE has gone back to classical chess for a few key WCh events, bless them, but many top players play more rapid than regular games now. I think they should be incorporated into the rating formula, although some fans worry this could make the games more boring because there would be more at stake and players could be more conservative.

(Apologies to Fred and Ginger.) Gata Kamsky is the top seed at this year's Contentinal Championship, which started today in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He's clearly going out of his way to face some strong competition before he plays at Corus next January. I first met Gata in Buenos Aires, at the Polugaevsky Sicilian Thematic.

Other top players in the 11-round Swiss include the Cubans Bruzon and Dominguez, Peru's Granda Zuñiga, Brazil's Vescovi and Milos, and Argentines Felgaer and Ricardi. Seven other Americans are playing ("but we're all Americans," cry the Latinos), led by Onischuk, Ibragimov, and Shabalov. Canada is in da house with Spraggett. Few upsets in the first round. The ridiculous $200 entry fee has been much criticized in Argentine chess circles.

This week I'll be meeting up with Jennifer Shahade, the 2002 and 2004 US Women's champion, Black Belt and Dirt contributor, and the author of the new book "Chess Bitch: Women In The Ultimate Intellectual Sport." (Due out in September 05, book description below.) I'm finally going to start running occasional book and product reviews and this seems like a good place to start.

My requirements are simple: the item and access to the author. (Phone or email okay.) I'll tip the forthcoming item, you post some questions, then I'll post my comments with the author's answers. Various vendors keep offering me affiliation deals but I haven't decided whether or not to accept one or not. I get around 150,000 visitors and half a million page views per month (and 2,000,000 hits if you enjoy big, irrelevant numbers), and Alexa lists Ninja as getting more traffic than Chess Cafe, which is sad if true. I know from comparing Alexa's guesses (extrapolated from visits by people using the Alexa toolbar) to my own stats that theirs are weird, but relative traffic levels should be fairly accurate.

Anyway, linking to a place to purchase the items makes sense, although from some of the bizarre and offensive comments posted under the Polgar item, apparently making any money (even for charity) from chess is a sin. Please write my landlord about this chess world vow of poverty, will you?

Getting back to the topic, post your questions for Jen about her book. And suggest something/someone you'd like to see here next. (I'm going to do Susan Polgar's fine book just to spite you bastards.) If you are an author and want to see your life's work torn to shreds by anonymous strangers, let me know.

[Susan Polgar has weighed in with an insightful post on things brought up here and in the item on her simul.]

A few nice photos of a cool board and pieces I just stumbled into on the blogosphere. You can also go to the main Flickr page and search everyone's photos for chess pics, with interesting results.

This great event is well underway in Gothenburg, Sweden. The traditional powers have risen to the top for today's sixth round, with France now being a member of the elite with Bacrot on board one. ChessBase has handy charts, games, and photos. Russia is climbing again after a slow start and Ukraine is doing well despite not having Ponomariov. van Wely is doing great on board one for the Dutch on the heels of his strong Dortmund showing. Teammates Sokolov and Tiviakov are higher rated, so I'm assuming that they are following tradition and putting the Dutch champion on board one.

John Henderson pointed out to me that this is the 50th anniversary of the infamous Gothenburg Variation disaster, one of the all-time classic chess anecdotes. In the 14th round of the 1955 interzonal, the four Argentines were all paired with black against four of the mighty Soviets. Three games followed the exact same sacrificial variation of the Najdorf Sicilian, now known as the Gothenburg. All three Argentines (Najdorf, Panno, Pilnik) and their special preparation were wiped out in short order by Keres, Geller, and Spassky, respectively. Less remembered is that Petrosian beat the fourth Argentine, Guimard, but he played 1.d4 and Guimard didn't play the Sicilian anyway.

The British Championship is being held at the same time and most of the top players went to Gothenburg instead of the Isle of Man. So defending champ Rowson is the top seed. A Scot winning two years in a row?!

This is way too easy, but even Peter Leko's football matches end in draws! Cool event. I want Finegold and Yermo on my celebrity all-star bowling team.

Never one to settle for just one record, US GM Susan Polgar seems to have broken quite a few during her marathon simul in Palm Beach Gardens. The main one is the most games going at the same time, which she has pushed up to 326. (If you wonder why people don't do this sort of thing often it's because it's hard to get opponents to stick around. Even at brisk five seconds per move that's still almost half an hour between visits to your board!)

The level of opposition isn't really the point of these things, so getting into wins and win percentages seems a bit silly. It's a feat of endurance and PR for the game and her foundation, and certainly a considerable one in all categories. It lasted 17 hours, 1,131 games, and required walking about a marathon's worth of distance (well, nine miles actually). (In 1984, Hort played a total of 663 games in a simul in Germany that lasted over 32 hours. Nobody sane will ever break that record. (Several people have reminded me that Gideon Stahlberg did 400 games in 40 hours in 1940. This was on the same list I checked for the Hort record but somehow my brain didn't digest it.) It has gotten good AP coverage, though the Washington Post is one of the few to run a pic so far. There is now a pictorial report up at ChessBase.com.

Susan Polgar has posted a long note in another thread.

The official site is on the air. This link goes to the English version. The event beings on September 27. It's a predictably heavy website, also chock full of historical, typographical, and every other type of mistake you can think of, in both the Spanish and English versions. (Maybe "Vishwanathan" represents a Barcelona accent?) As for the "history of chess" page, that popping sound you just heard was Edward Winter's head exploding. They plan to run a live move broadcast from a slow site hosted in Argentina, which should hold up for around 19 seconds.

It's a pretty site and I do very much like the tango-themed official logo. The building where the event will take place is still under construction. The event hasn't gotten much attention in the national press, surprisingly. The local paper "Diario de la Republica" is covering it, which isn't a surprise since I believe it is still owned by the local ruling Saá family that is behind the tournament's support. There is a heavyweight political battle going on right now between President Kirchner and his rival Duhalde that is getting most of the ink in the national press these days.

There is nothing about rules or regulations, most of which were already covered by FIDE's release (.doc) about the event. The classical seven-hour time control is the most relevant. It's not too late to apply Corsican anti-short-draw rules.

Not mincing words, that headline comes from one of the coaches of the US World Youth team that just finished well in Belfort, France. I'd already mentioned one report of miserable conditions at the event from the president of a different federation. But coach Aviv Friedman gets into the details on the record today. 100F (38C) degree playing conditions, poor transportation, over-charging for miserable hotels, bad pairings, the list goes on. Aviv's entire three page letter is below. The conclusion:

He also notes that this isn't related to the result of the US team, which was quite good, including the first gold medal in quite a while, by Alex Lenderman in the U-16.

Others are posting links to similar reports below. Here's one from the Scottish federations site.