Friday 20 March 2015

When small children break your database

In preparation for from trip to the Dubbo Open tomorrow, I decided to have a look at my past games from the tournament. From way back in 2003 I noticed I had played IM John-Paul Wallace and not remembering how the game went decided to have a look. The first moves looked ok although the choice of 2.Qd3 by Wallace seemed a little surprising. I wasn't sure whether this was an interesting opening experiment, or just a Carlsenesque attempt at livening up things.
However once I played a few more moves it suddenly became clear. At some point in the past my son Harry, had been playing around with my chess database. This was when he was around 5 or 6 and well before he became a 1900+ chess player. It seems he inserted a number of random moves into the game, and then saved it to my database. There was at least one other game similarly affected, although I am yet to do a complete audit to determine the full extent of the damage. 
I'm pretty sure the result is recorded correctly (a win for J-P) but sadly it seems the correct record of the game has long been lost. So all I have left to show is a game that never took place, containing moves that don't make sense.


Wallace,John-Paul - Press,Shaun [E92]
Dubbo Open Dubbo (5), 16.03.2003


No comments: