hi philidor,
appreciate your input. more contact (of various kinds including what you mention) with top players is on the horizon within 2010. we will probably start doing a few things like this within a month, and ramp up over a 6 month period.
cheers!
david
Silly idea. I really don't care what Carlsen thinks about an Anand-Topalov game, where up to move 20 everything has been analyzed at home with Rybka. I don't want to see those dry games analyzed, I don't care about the great novelties a player found at move 25.
By the way, since when Kosteniuk is so good to have an opinion about Anand-Topalov games? I heard even Svidler at several moments while commenting such a game saying that the position is certainly too complicated to evaluate for a human, but most likely both players know their home-prepared analysis.
I think the level of preparation at WC games is of a much higher level than for ordinary tournaments, even though they also feature preparation beyond what I could fathom.
to me that doesn't really mean high level commentary is useless. Even if a GM is following a home prepared line, he must have some reason to believe that it is good. Often this isn't so much the + 2 evaluation from Rybka, but a combination between a sound evaluation and his own positional judgement.
GM's understand positions at a deeper level. How engines helped them arrive there isn't really relevant once they start explaining, nor does the fact that they did detract value from their explanations.
... I don't want to see those dry games analyzed...
Dry games? I suspect that you didn't actually watch any of the games from this year's WCC. Those were some fantastic games. It was some amazing chess. Even as a lower level player, I didn't fully understand the position, but I could tell the games weren't dry.
I dunno. The average rating here is under 1300. How many players actually benefit from high level analysis and A-class learning materials?
I dunno. The average rating here is under 1300. How many players actually benefit from high level analysis and A-class learning materials?
I'm under 1300, I learned a lot from watching the broadcasts of the games.
I wasn't specifically talking about live broadcasts. I was thinking of stuff like having video footages done by chess com itself instead of the same picture over and over because of copyright issues, I'd like to read D Pruess' interview with Mrs. Aruna, or what Kramnik thinks about Anand's performance in the WC etc, or how Aronian, Carlsen, Ivanchuk etc assessed the WC beforehand (close followers of all online WC reports would know what I'm referring to), I'd like exclusive pictures of Kosteniuk's latest simultaneous exhibition
etc.
I had the same idea in mind a while ago...
Just be patient, I'm sure Chess.com will arrange that. TTT - things take time. 
I think it is both strong and not that difficult to reach at the same time. To name things, I'm not expecting chess com to compete with chessbase on that aspect, which is a very large and rooted organization with their relations and all, but leaving some technicalities aside (which chess com has already established) other sites such as chessvibes, chessdom or europe echecs etc are basically just a few people (maybe even 1?) travelling with their cameras to high level events. It seems very possible for chess com to do that, if they pick the right people.
To be frank, I don't want to criticize any other sites from this platform so I'll try to keep it short: I think there is a lot of room to improve in chess reporting, and chess com, which has a much larger community and a much better technical foundation than all of those sites (but one) can surpass what's already being done.
I don't see what D Pruess' broadcasts have to do with any of this.
I think chess com does a great deal for chess in general, I mean, yes, a truely great amount of deal. Hundreds of thousands of members from all around the world, and the site still improves fast. That's great, I respect that a lot.
But one of the things that Chess com lacks in my opinion is that it's not "in there" with high level chess players. There are lots of sites it seems that can get in touch with Anand, Kramnik, Kosteniuk, Polgars, Topalov, Carlsen, whatever, they get interview videos, they ask their opinions about the WC expectations, they can get them to analyze some games, in summary, they are IN there with the best. And I ask myself, what does chess com lack to do the same, or even better, when it already has the largest chess community?
So, I would like chess com to step up in their personal relations with the top of chess, and bring us more than SonofPearl's entrtaining coverages, which are great considering the material. But the point is, the material itself can get larger.
To cut it short: in my opinion chess com is the best chess site in general, but there's a large distance to cover when it comes to relations with high level GMs, and this looks a little funny considering how many GMs and IMs chess com has, doing videos and coverages and all.