Tuesday, March 06, 2007

The rest of the story

Like About Chess, I too have noticed a recent trend of defections from the chess blogosphere:
  • Temposhlucker's decision to go on (permanent?) hiatus from the ranks of the Knights Errant is a monumental loss, perhaps second only to the day that Don Q did the same.

  • Losing Goran at Chess News & Events was tempered by the fact that he continues to post at Chess Strategy. Since then, things have improved further with a new blogger taking over the reins of the original blog.

  • Patrick at Chess For Blood has decided that he is "due for a break from chess and chess blogging for awhile" and the Underpromoted Knight has decided to make school a priority over chess.
Then there is the case of Strong In Mind's Fierabras. About Chess gave you the facts, but only here will you find the story behind the story (thanks to a tip from an unnamed Knight).

As many of you may be aware, J'adoube has been advocating the somewhat provocative position that endeavoring to play moves highly rated by top chess computers (specifically Rybka in his case) is a good path to improvement. This has resulted in some healthy and spirited debate across several posts. However, it seems that somewhere along the way Fierabras' and J'adoube's point counter-point turned heated, personal and anything but healthy. Shortly thereafter Fierabras announced his intent to leave the Knights. It isn't too hard to connect the dots.

Now, I'm certainly not here to point a finger of blame at anyone. You can read the thread and draw your own conclusions. In fact, I believe that a bit of controversy can often be a good thing in terms of generating interest and readership. Nevertheless, as a general rule it would be hard to go wrong taking to heart Sancho's previous "Can't we all just get along" appeal.

Update (3/7): Comment threads at J'adoube's blog are not currently no longer available.

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