Chess History on the Web
I consider myself very fortunate in many ways.
Since this entry is called, "Chess History on the Web," my fortuitousness in this regard constitutes a significant aspect of the topic. I didn't learn to play chess until I was an adult in my early 20s. My interest in chess and chess history coincided in nearly perfect synchronization with the advent and growth of that information highway, the World Wide Web. Although I'm not a historian, a chess expert or even a scholar, I was privileged to witness the blossoming of historical chess content on the web over the years from its start to present.
Back in 1996 I bought a used computer. It had a 2400 bps modem so I picked up one of those AOL floppy discs from the office supply store and signed up. I had been teaching myself to play chess using the several texts my library had on site and an application called Chessmaster 2000, a DOS program that I discovered already installed on my pre-owned computer. CM2000 had a database of 100 games. It was this tiny database that introducded me to the fact that chess games from centuries ago could be witnessed today -- a mind-blowing realization for me at the time. The exotic names of the players in that database - e.g. Alekhine, Philidor, Bogojubov, Deschapelles - really set my imaginiation on fire. I checked out the only 2 books at my library dealing with these past masters: Grandmasters of Chess by Harold C. Schonberg and Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess by David Lawson and I was hooked.
All this was occuring almost simultaneously. At that time I wasn't yet aware of the U.S. Interlibrary System which allows members to borrow any non-reference book available in any library in the United States, shipped to your local library for free, so I was looking for books mainly in bookstores and mainly in vain. Having just gotten online and trying to learn the ins-and-outs of the internet (and internet chess), using Netscape Navigator and search engines such as Lycos, Ask Jeeves, AltaVista and even Yahoo, I tried to find more about these players of old online... and there was almost nothing. I remember seeing it mentioned that at the time, 1996, there were only 100,000 websites total (just looking it up, I see that this figure is at least in the neighborhood: http://www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites/). Besides finding places to play online, I found online chess groups I could join.
Mark Weeks moderated a sort of online bulletin board or primitive forum about chess history which I believe he called "Chess History on the Web" -- this was my first real exposure to people knowledgeable in that area. I mainly lurked and tried to follow the conversations. Mr. Weeks also replaced David Dunbar as the chess history docent (I think they called them "guides") at About.com, a very popular site at the time.
One of the most constant and prolific providers of chess history content - but more in the area of facts and trivia rather than in story-telling - was/is Bill Wall. Truly an inspiration and a wonder to me, Mr. Wall's voluminous content has always given me a jumping off point or a guidepost if I found myself lost. Mr. Wall is as much part of the history of chess as he is a chronicler--- a modern H.E. Bird. Even prior to the World Wide Web, Mr. Wall was active on various internet chess outlets which makes him possibly one of the true internet chess pioneers.
ChessCafe, having opened in 1996, is as old as the web (the World Wide Web and the Internet, though connected, are not the same thing). Then a freely accessed site, it offered good, sound articles on chess theory and a small bit of chess history. As far as I know it was the first Internet home base for the chess archivist, Edward Winter.
One of the best developments of chess history on the web, in my opinion, is that of local history, mostly provided by clubs but more often as not primarily the effort of one or two individuals.
A few of my favorite history oriented club or area blogs:
Chess Dryad, a compilation of California chess history, maintained by Kerry Lawless of the Berkeley Chess Club
http://kenilworthian.blogspot.com/ maintained by Michael Goeller
http://memphischessclub.blogspot.com/ maintained by Dwight Weaver
http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com/ maintained by Martin Smith and Justin Horton
The much maligned Wikipedia, which actually started in 2001, took a long while to become flooded with credible chess content, but eventually developed into a well-spring of information about chess history.
Not directly related here, one site that shouldn't go unmentioned in IM Silman's history book review page: http://dev.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/BOOK-REVIEWS-History-c80.htm
Some things that also started showing up were decent sites from various countries, often with country-specific history. Thanks to the simultaneous development/improvement of auto-translators, resources such as these became very accessible:
Histoire des échecs
http://lecafedelaregence.blogspot.com/
http://heritageechecsfra.free.fr/index.htm
Die Geschichte des Schachspiels
https://www.schach-chess.com/Schachgeschichte.htm
Storia degli scacchi
http://storiascacchi.altervista.org/storiascacchi/index.htm
When I first started blogging on chess.com in 2007, I was the only member with a blog dedicated to chess history. Even when I quit chess blogging (to write Articles instead) in 2013, this was still mostly the case with the only other such blog being that of @Spektrowski - one of the best on the web. However, starting about two years or so ago one could find on chess.com some very unique and excellent chess history/culture bloggers such as:
@simaginfan
@introuble2
@kamalakanta
@RoaringPawn
IM Jeremy Silman and GM Gregory Serper weave history into their articles on chess improvement, adding spicy flavor to their savory content.
A couple other very good blogs, independent of chess.com, that incorporate chess history are:
Chess for All Ages - Mark Weeks (@bemweeks)
Chess Skills - James Stripes (@ziryab)
Chess history on the web has made tremendous strides during the past 20 years. I'm particularly thrilled with the accelerated development of chess history content here at chess.com in the last couple of years. Often today the issue is no longer, as it once was for me, the availability of content as much as it is the reliability of the content that's available. Personally, I find that the content offered by all the chess.com members (and others) I've listed is as reliable as it is superb.
