GMTonyKosten wrote on 09/27/11 at 11:50:13:


You are probably right; on reflection, my image of a BDG'er is of someone vociferous but cheap  Hence, lots of posts in the forums, but few subs...

Anonymous3 wrote on 09/27/11 at 07:18:49:

I'm afraid my programming prime was 30 years ago, and the code that makes the site run is much too complicated for me to change.

GMTonyKosten wrote on 08/10/11 at 09:59:04:


Well, you better get to work GM Tony Kosten!

Smyslov_Fan wrote on 09/18/11 at 05:53:17:


I agree, all this makes sense.

Markovich wrote on 09/13/11 at 15:10:26:

That's not unreasonable, do you fancy moving all the threads into the right section?

Bibs wrote on 09/03/11 at 03:11:37:


I second both those motions.  But please, never KID + Gruenfeld.  Much too massive, and the two are too unlike.  But KID + Benoni + Benko has real appeal and a basis in the chess of these systems.

Markovich wrote on 09/02/11 at 14:49:14:

Actually the site was set up like this before I bought it (9 years ago), so I didn't have any say in the matter. I can only guess it was because Chris Ward's Dragons books were very popular, as it does seem odd.
Many years ago I asked Chris if he would mind taking on some other Sicilians too (so we cold have an Open Sicilians 1 and 2) but he refused.

Ultimately the optimal division into sections comes down to a commercial calculation by Tony as to what is the likeliest combination to induce people to subscribe.  It has less to do with the supposed affinity of chess openings, though you could make a case that subscribers would want to follow along with that.   

Tony also has to reckon with the cost of paying someone to do a section.

Theoretically the Dutch probably deserves its own section, but I doubt it's popular enough to make it worth Tony's while to institute a separate Dutch section.  So where do you put it?  That's a problem.

But I think that combining 1.e4 ... with anything from "Daring Defenses" is a terrible idea.  I take the point about 1...g6 and 1...d6, buy why would you combine 
Alekhine's, the Scandinavian, the Caro and the Pirc, which in ensemble are much more popular than 1...g6 plus 1...d6, with systems versus 1.d4?

I have always wondered, though, why the Dragons rate a whole section of ChessPub while the mighty Gruenfeld doesn't.  I suppose that the answer is that Tony thinks that the Dragon is a whole lot more popular than the Gruenfeld.  Is that true, nowadays?  I don't know.  But you could make a strong case for a separate Gruenfeld section that would also include Pseudo- and Neo-Gruenfelds.  That would take a little strain off Flank Openings.

While I can see a strong theoretical case for combining the KID with the Benoni and the Benko, I think that it would over-burden such a section to include the Gruenfeld.   On this basis, the only Benoni-like structure that would stay with the Nimzo would be the Blumenfeld.  But you could ask, from the viewpoint of subscribership, is a comination KID-Benoni-Benko section shortchanging all those KID afficionados?  Or are there all that many KID afficionados?

Also, while I salute Prie's Quest for Chess Truth apropos of 1.d4 various, is this so much in demand as to rate a whole section?  And how many die-hard BDG people are really out there?  You could make a good case for Queen Pawn Games and Dutch Systems, for example.