Talk:Australian Chess Championship

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[edit] Need full names

I only found two good sources for this information

These both do a lousy job giving full names of the winners, prefering initials in most cases. For C.J.S. Purdy this is fine, but it's obnoxious for the others. I filled in as much as I could from the ACF and FIDE ratings lists, but progress was hard for winners before 1990 and almost impossible for the Juniors and Girls. There are also a few entries that are suspicious:

  • 1949 Junior Champion -- SW. Levick or W. Levick? I guessed W.
  • 1888 Champion W. Cane, 1897 Champion W. Crane -- are these both right, or is this the same guy? Both references have them this way....

Corrections and missing info you are appreciated. Quale 02:55, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Whyld vs. the ACF website

I updated the Men's champions using Whyld, Guiness Chess, The Records (1986). It doesn't agree with the Australian Chess Federation records page at a few points:

Year Whyld ACF
1888 Crane W. Cane
1906 Viner J.L. Jacobson
1938 Koshnitsky Koshnitsky & Steiner
1967 Hamilton none
1978 Shaw Jamieson
1984 Johansen & Solomon Johansen
  • 1888 - Probably a typo on the ACF site.
  • 1906 - Possibly a year confusion on the ACF site, since Whyld gives 2 tournaments for 1897 with Julius Leigh Jacobsen (note misspelling on ACF site) as the winner of one of them.
  • 1967 - ACF site doesn't have an entry for this year.
  • 1978 - Not sure what to think of this one, either Terrey Ian Shaw (Whyld) or Robert Murray Jamieson (ACF web site). Whyld marks entires decided by tie-break or playoff with an *, but 1978 is not so marked, so there's no indication of a joint championship for 1978.
  • 1984 - Whyld says that Stephen John Solomon was a joint champion, but ACF doesn't list him.

In all cases I used Whyld as the more definitive source, as the web page asks for missing winners and spelling corrections. Quale 04:47, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

1984 is definitely Johansen alone. He won a playoff against Solomon 4-0. For the others, I have access to a 1981 book which I can check later. But I thought (a) Shaw never won an Australian championship, and (b) Hamilton won 2 in the 60s. If you look at the Lajos Steiner page it seems he wasn't even in Australia in 1938 and even if he was he wouldn't have been eligible for the title; perhaps the ACF page is confusing an earlier visit. Peter Ballard 05:07, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
p.s. most players aren't commonly refered to by their full names, so I'd omit the middle name in most cases. Except Wallace and C.J.S.Purdy. Peter Ballard 05:13, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
OK, I've got "Australian Chess - Into the Eighties", by Ian Rogers, Sun Books, 1981. It agrees with Whyld on 1888 (W.Crane), 1906 (W.S.Viner) and 1938 (Koshnitsky, though it says 1939). It agrees with ACF on 1978 (Jamieson). Strangely it doesn't have anyone for 1967. I find it hard to believe we went 4 years without a championship, so I suspect the omission of 1967 is a misprint. Peter Ballard 09:31, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
The 1981-2 tournament bulletin says Hamilton had previously won in 1965 and 1967. So I'm guessing that the Rogers book omitted 1967, and that the ACF website used Rogers as a source. Peter Ballard 10:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
What does Whyld have for 1972? Rogers has Hay (not Fuller and Hay shared), both in the table at the back and in the introductory text. Peter Ballard 09:39, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your speedy research. I'll check Whyld at home tonight and report what I find. Thanks also for pointing out 1938. I put it in the comparison table but then forgot to comment on it. About 1938 v. 1939: Whyld says 1938–9, and gives 2 year dates for several of the championships (I put these in the article) while the ACF web site uses only single years for each championship. Don't know what we should do with these. Unfortunately there are a lot of mistakes made in these sorts of things, and when WikiPedia makes them, other people copy them and it gets worse.... Regarding full names, I agree that we should use the most common forms. That may be difficult to determine, because while Albert Edward Noble Wallace is a mouthful, the ACF web site says A.E.N. Wallace which I really wanted to expand. If we write articles on each of these players, that could take care of it since the articles would give the full names. I'm open to suggestions on how to handle this best. Quale 15:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Regarding middle names, the Wallace I had in mind was John Paul Wallace, who is always refered to like that (I think it is actually a hypenated "John-Paul"). I've no idea what to do with the earlier Wallace because he's so far before my time! I'd also like to change the years: the tournaments always begin after Christmas and finish in January, but to my knowledge the championship always refers to the year in which the tournament finishes. That's the case for the ACF website, the Rogers book, and the 1982 bulletins I happen to have. Peter Ballard 00:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Good, then we should definitely change the dates back to single years. I like the simplicity of that a lot better too, and we want to follow common practice. Looking at 1972, (or 1971–2 as it appears in the book), Whyld says Fuller & Hay. The back of the book has bios that give the full names, and it gives Maxwell Leonard Fuller (b. 28 Jan 1945 Sydney) Australian champion 1971–2 (joint), and Trevor Hay (b. 17 Oct 1945 Wagga Wagga) Australian champion 1971–2 (joint). I looked in Gaige's Chess Personalia and it confirms the bio details for Fuller and Hay but makes no mention of the Australian championship for either. (Personalia lists some key championship dates but not all, so the omission doesn't tell us anything either way.) The only other possibly independent source I have is Golumbek's Encyclopedia of Chess, which gives M. Fuller and T. Hay as joint winners in 1972. Golumbek doesn't list a championship in 1967, so I'm inclined to think that Whyld is mistaken and there wasn't a championship that year even though it leaves a gap. Golumbek in agreement with Whyld gives two winners for 1897 and W.S. Viner for 1906, so the ACF web site doesn't seem to be especially accurate. Your sources are probably better than mine, so you should fix up the table as you see fit. Quale 00:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Whyld not only gives a 1967 winner but he also gives a venue. I also have a tournament bulletin from 1982 saying Hamilton previously won in 65 and 67. I also remember reading an old newsletter (which sadly I threw out) which I'm pretty sure said Hamilton effectively won three titles in the sixties because he came second to the Australian-American Walter Browne in 1969. So I'm pretty confident that both Golombek and Rogers are wrong in omitting 1967, though I'll try to research it more. For 1972, I'll leave the joint winners in, but again I'll try to research it more. Rogers' book (in its introductory text, not the table at the back) explicitly mentions Fuller's three Open wins (73, 75, 79), and Hay's 72 win, so if Fuller really tied in 72 the omission is puzzling. But I'll leave Fuller in for now. Peter Ballard 01:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Another good resource I found is http://www.ozbase.com.au/ It has a Hay-Fuller tie in 1972, but it also has a Rogers-Laird-Depasquale tie in 1986, and omits the playoff which Rogers won, so that doesn't prove anything one way or the other. As for 1967... unfortunately it has nothing from the years 1964 to 1969. Peter Ballard 05:59, 31 May 2007 (UTC)