*nods*
I totally agree, PGNs shouldn't start in the middle of nowhere :)
The FEN is better than nothing.. I've experienced a similar issue on another site, and in that case, the PGNs are actually corrupt; they can't even be pasted into a chess app. Still, the opening codes are important to me, so I've got to edit them to get the games properly categorized.
From an implementation stand-point, I guess whatever you do for thematic tournaments would also apply to the dozens and dozens of non-standard starting positions under new game setup options, so programming in the preliminary moves based on the chosen opening might be a lot of work... Just guessing..
Entirely agree, I would participate in many more tournaments if I could put the pgns in a database.
so how would you indicate that it was a thematic game and started from a particular opening position?
so how would you indicate that it was a thematic game and started from a particular opening position?
I wouldn't, apart from the title in the "Event" field of the PGN. If it was an Alekhine's event, I'd just include "1. e4 Nf6" in the move notation, just as if the moves had actually been played.
For thematic tournaments that start several moves into a book opening, would it be a lot of trouble to include the 'pre-played' moves in the PGN download? As it stands, I have to manually edit the PGN text, or else the my database can't identify the opening.