Today’s Pet Peeve: Player Names

Impossible Name Searches

Every tournament player knows how frustrating it is when you go to prepare for an opponent but your game database has ambiguous, redundant or confusing name entries.

For example, AlexanderV1 Ivanov and AlexanderV2 Ivanov happen to be the same person, but Alexy1 Ivanov and Alexy2 Ivanov and Alexy3 Ivanov are very different people. How are we to know the difference so that we do not prepare against the wrong person? All of the services that sell games databases have this same exact problem.

It does not matter if it is ChessBase, ChessAssistant or even TWIC. They all do the same thing, and they have not taken any steps to correct the situation.

The solution is very simple: all database services should include the FIDE identity code of each player when entering games. And, more over, popular chess programs like ChessBase and ChessAssistant should allow for searches by FIDE identity code.

End of problem! (Isn’t it???)

But don’t hold your breath that anyone will lift a finger to change anything. As long as there are thousands of fools who are willing to pay good money for flawed games databases, why should anything change?

We, the consumer, must insist that it become mandatory for score sheets to include an entry for the player’s FIDE id code, and it should also become mandatory for the tournament organizer – when he sends the tournament report to FIDE – to list the correct player names and FIDE id codes.

(This ‘Pet Peeve’ article will become a regular feature article here on this blog. Any reader with a pet peeve can write to me and let it off his or her chest.)