Today’s Pet Peeve: Scrooging PGN

Sites that don’t share PGN files

It is so exasperating how, in today’s cutting-edge online chess world, some tournament organizers can put together a really fancy website with Live Games, video commentary , photos, round by round results and interviews…BUT don’t bother to do the simplest of things:  make the pgn file of the games available!

There is NOTHING simpler than allowing for a PGN download. There is NOTHING more important for a serious chess fan than being able to download the game scores to his computer for replaying.

While on the topic of PGN files, the leading LIVEGAMES sites (Chess24; ChessBomb;ChessBase) offer subscriptions to readers whereby the PGN files of each tournament can be downloaded free.

But is it really free if you have to pay a subscription?

Of the above sites, the most accessible seems to be ChessBase, as most of the PGN downloads do not yet require a subscription. But that might soon change…

TWIC used to provide the PGN free of charge, but they seem to have entered into some arrangement with the live broadcasters and Mark Crowther will now only publish PGN files once a week.

So much for the right to freely transmit moves and game scores….I suppose it is all a reflection on how much the online chess community is suffering financially.

Chess players steadfastly refuse to part with their hard earned money unless there is a big sale, making virtually every profit-minded online chess enterprise an exercise in frustration. Thus turning the lowly PGN into a desperate type of Fool’s Gold…