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This is follow up to my previous question about live broadcast format.

I was looking at TWICs Live Games, but there is usually only Live redirecting me to some higher level solution like Chess24 or to organiser's web. There is only occassionally PGN link and it often holds games from previous rounds etc.

  1. Can I get access to these low level live PGNs during round easily or is it more about contacting organisers to get such a link?
  2. Is there some provider for such low level data, offering raw PGN content from live broadcast instead of some higher level solution?
hoacin
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Suppose you are running a big/important tournament. You want your games broadcast live on the internet. What do you do?

First, you need the equipment - DGT boards and sets, cables, a laptop with an internet connection plus the associated software which will collect the information from the sets, put into pgn files and send to an IP address or email address at suitable intervals.

Second, you need either your own website set up to accept and display these games on the internet or you need an agreement with somebody like chess24.com that they will host your games on their site so people can follow them.

Once you understand that you also understand the answer to your questions. As you say in your intro TWIC tells you the answer. The pgn data is being sent to the organizer's website and/or an independent host like chess24.com. It is in not broadcast universally.

There are only two ways to get the information.

  1. Contact the organizers to get them to send you the files also (but why should they?)

  2. Write a screenscrape program to extract the data from the hosting site.

Brian Towers
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  • But (I suppose) there is a lot of large independent online providers like Chess24, FollowChess, PlayChess, ChessBomb, etc. I doubt they all contact organisers to get the PGN. How they know where the PGN is? If there is public source of such content, extracting it is no problem, but is there? Otherwise it sounds more like reverse ingeneering :) – hoacin Jun 08 '18 at 16:35
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    A few months ago I was chief arbiter for a tournament for which the tournament organizer wanted the top boards broadcast by chess24. He contacted chess24 and they agreed. If it is Altibox Norway 2018 with Carlsen, Caruana, Nakamura, etc. playing then probably chess24 contact the organizers. If it is a smaller tournament like ours was then the organizer contacts chess24. It is common sense. – Brian Towers Jun 08 '18 at 17:35