Talk:La Bourdonnais–McDonnell chess matches

reference for it being the first important match

My Great Predecessors, pp. 23-24 talks about how this was the first match between the two leading players in the world. The first game in the book is a game from one of the matches. Is that good enough for it being the first important match? Bubba73 ^{(You talkin' to me?)}, 06:10, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's good enough for me. I should be able to dig up another source or two as well if I remember to do it. If the sources don't adequately support the claims as currently phrased we can reword so that the article is on solid footing. I think drive-by editors are generally well intentioned, but sometimes they don't know much about chess or its history and their contributions can make articles worse if not carefully watched. Recent examples include rook (chess) and Judit Polgár. Admittedly nearly all of our articles should be better sourced, so we're certainly not blameless. Fortunately the result in both those cases is that the contested claims did become better sourced, but the process seemed to me to be more painful than was necessary. Quale (talk) 06:23, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And FWIW, the first game in The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games by Burgess list a game from the match first (they are listed chronologically). Burgess doesn't have much to say about the match that would address the issue of it being the first important match, but it is the only game before 1851 in the book. Bubba73 ^{(You talkin' to me?)}, 20:31, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'Low Quality' by which standards?

The article currently states 'Harry Golombek evaluated the games and found them to generally be of low quality'. Perhaps there is no such convention in chess, but I understand that there is a convention in history that 'People are entitled to be judged by the standards of their time'. Chess theory develops over time, and the number of serious players probably also increases, so presumably every chess match from early times is of 'low quality' compared to standards of far later times. So it would be useful to know whether that's the sense in which the games are deemed of low quality, or whether they are of low quality compared to other games recorded around that time or earlier. It would also be useful to know how low they were by the standards of Golombek's day (such as British schoolboy level, average British club player, intercounty player, etc). Without some such clarification, the expression 'of low quality' seems essentially meaningless and thus arguably inappropriate in an encyclopedia. Tlhslobus (talk) 08:30, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]