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September 13, 2007
Between the Cracks
Just a few notes here and there. I got a note from Geoffrey Borg at Global Chess (which is of FIDE) on the recent troubles experienced by the official site for the Mexico City world championship. (Full note after the jump.) That doesn't explain the near total lack of content and the general incomprehensibility of the site, but at least it makes out like they are working hard on getting the live broadcast to work. It sounds like things are solid on a purely technical level, so let's hope the local flesh is willing and able.
Speaking of notes, I got one from Luke McShane the other day, though not about chess. But he was kind enough to confirm that he just graduated from Oxford and has started in on a real job, something involving money and the large buildings that house and trade it. Ah yes, banking. Sounds fishy and uncertain compared to professional chess, but we wish him luck.
Speaking of money, spend some of yours on this auction I put up last night on Ebay and promptly forgot about. It's for a new copy of the book Kasparov Against the World and it's hand-signed by Garry Kasparov. Good book, too. I'm donating all proceeds to the Feed Mig's Cats Foundation (FeMiCaFo) or Russian democracy, whichever bugs me more.
We have had to do some stress testing with Telmex on the games transmission side and rewrite the way the games will be transmitted so that the Mambo setup on the main news server does not create problems. Anyway, we have a clear path now and we should be able to handle between 12,000 users per second and 17,000 maximum level.
TOMA which is the software we will use has a time delay before refreshing data of between 5-10 seconds so we will adjust this accordingly to handle the capacity.
In the playing area, we have set up two dedicated 4-mbit lines for transmission, one for live, and the other for backup. The whole area is additionally serviced by another 12 x 4mbit lines for offices and press centre which should keep the local crowd happy.
Outward bound we will be handled by Telmex's service centre in Monterrey and to date we have had a responsive service from Telmex. Organisers will be forwarding on a daily basis photos, commented games, bulletins and pr material. -- Geoffrey Borg
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in five minutes, the truth will be known.
Posted by: crf at September 13, 2007 14:55http://partidas.chessmexico.com/
Posted by: crf at September 13, 2007 15:14Actually ran into Luke on the Ferry in New York a few months ago, didn't bother him because he was surrounded by a ton of really attractive women.
Finance >>>>> Chess
Posted by: John Fernandez at September 13, 2007 17:37Well, the broadcast was perfect. One of the best.
The cats have more independence than anyone under "Russian democracy." With that aside, I'd still donate it to the cats.
Anyone with a "ton of really attractive women" around him deserves to be bothered. No need to be shy, they won't bite. Even if they do, wouldn't be the first time.
Posted by: chesstraveler at September 13, 2007 20:07Good improvement is logo of sponsors next to games, but man this viewer looks archaic. My grandma would make those chess pieces look better. What are they doing- giving a birth to a baby by sending a few chess games on the Internet. Theatrics. Need to be tested such that the tournament site is down. Since when content and website have anything to do with live games. Just a lousy excuse for incompetence. How they would manage 100 live games? Probably would need to bring down all Internet sites in North America so they could do a test, and later catch the first flight to the darkest corner of the earth, because it would not work anyway, unless they hire 100 people to input those games manually. It is simply inexcusable to have such a poor quality Internet site, it’s not my garage tournament, but the World Championship.
Posted by: cg at September 13, 2007 20:18Wasn't this supposed to be my prize for that one contest that you ran and never gave out prizes for?
Posted by: BlkSabb at September 13, 2007 20:29I'm envisioning a big headline on Chessbase: 'Chess Journalist keeps prizes - Sells on Ebay'.
Posted by: BlkSabb at September 13, 2007 20:58I'm envisioning a big headline on Chessbase: 'Chess Journalist keeps prizes - Sells on Ebay'.
Posted by: BlkSabb at September 13, 2007 20:59This thing gave me an error then when I resubmitted the post it got double-posted.
Posted by: BlkSabb at September 13, 2007 21:03Mig, remember this?
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=861
2 dedicated 4-mbit lines for live games is overkill. They really do not know what they are doing. Geoffrey, Geoffrey, get someone to calculate how much bandwidth you really need for 4 chess games. Would be better to give money for those lines to Mig, so he could fix this webpage, and add some content. I feel sorry for the organizer, looks like a nice guy. Why organizers continue making the same mistake- giving FIDE gang to manage promotion or technical things. Organizers do not need to forward photos, but post them- Hello, it’s a year 2007… No President of Mexico at the World Championship in Mexico? Maybe not attracted to on-line FIDE reputation. Hmmm…
Posted by: auto at September 13, 2007 22:18was pretty sure i ran into irina krush near columbia yesterday.. is she studying at columbia now ? anyone knows ?
Posted by: mz at September 13, 2007 23:20"Kasparov Against The World" was, as you surely know, "Kasparov and very many other people against The World". It was a fascinating game, but for those (of The World) who took it seriously, there is a very bitter aftertaste. I won't go into details; it is more than likely that someone here remembers them.
Posted by: Charley at September 13, 2007 23:32Guys,
it is not the number of chess games that matters. Only a few bits are sent when a move is played. However it's the number of hits that needs to be tackled. And yes for a large number of hits you need bandwidth...and a lot of it.
Let's say each move requires 0.1kb. And you have 10,000 hitting the site for the moves. A simple calculation shows that you need 1Mb for each move. Calculate how many moves are played in 4 games.
Bandwidth is never overkill for live events. Obviously the web servers have to be such to handle those hits too.
Duncan
Posted by: Duncan at September 14, 2007 01:51guys,
the number of games or the number of moves does not matter much.
What is important is the number of hits and the size of the transferred webpages.
Most of the bandwith goes to downloading of the applet and images.
The server is hosted at the server provider site. User (us) - Internet - Provider Server (displays chess moves). On the other hand, Tournament sending chess moves - Internet - Provider Server (receives chess moves). 2MB for sending 4 chess games to the server is frankly silly. User hits are on the provider server, and have nothing to do with local badwidth, but with the provider Internet connection.
Posted by: Joe at September 14, 2007 08:44You could be vieweing games actually on servers which are in Turkey, Russia, UAE or Afghanistan, but it's called Telmex and domain name is chessmexico.com
Posted by: Joe at September 14, 2007 08:49Agreed Joe.
However by what Geoffrey wrote, I think the server is not hosted at the service provider but at the same premises (ie where the tournament is).
Posted by: Duncan at September 14, 2007 10:37Games are on Telmex side (server is remote). It is obvious. Otherwise they would not need communication tests between site and server, and transmission tests.
Posted by: Joe at September 14, 2007 11:234 Mbit connection is about right if you're expecting between 12,000-20,000 active connections and just running a website and uploading applets to all the clients. The Webapp receiving the chess moves itself is just the icing, but it is the most valuable icing.
Posted by: parsnips at September 14, 2007 11:33Actually, you need less than 64k to send those 4 games to a remote server. You need higher capacity only at the point where the server is connected to users (the Internet). Uploading applets happens from server.
Posted by: Joe at September 14, 2007 11:52
