ANOTHER PREDICTION CAME TRUE

When editor Dan Lucas cancelled Evans On Chess he said the reason was
Chess Life no longer needed a question and answer column. Here is a
posting that I placed online last June. Lo and behold, the December
2006 issue of Chess Life has a Q&A column conducted by GM Joel
Benjamin. As I predicted.

From: - view profile
Date: Sun, Jun 11 2006 5:19 pm
Email: "
Groups: rec.games.chess.politics, rec.games.chess.misc


WHY GM EVANS HAD TO GO

I, for one, miss the question and answer format
of Larry's column. If Larry won't be doing it anymore,
hopefully the column itself won't die... someone else
can simply fill his shoes. -- Ed Collins

Ed Collins need have no fear. Joel Benjamin will
be conducting a Q&A column in the pages of Chess Life
after a decent interval. Editor Lucas stated that the
format was tired which was why, he said, the Evans
column would not fit into the new magazine. The editor
owed GM Evans something better than this verbal dreck.

In reality, Q&A is never tired in hobbyist publications.

From the first moment I heard the news that one of CL's
two most popular writers was being fired, I predicted that
GM Benjamin would be assuming the column in the pages
of the magazine after a certain interval.

Watch. He will.

The eternal themes are still with us. The Winter
ratpackers, Greg Kennedy as help bot and his ilk
hate the fact that GM Evans has scored so well in
so many reader surveys. Hence they pound the
drumbeat that reader surveys are out of date and
don't mean much anymore.

More dreck.

They literally hate Larry Evans for his long-term success,
and they will deny the evidence that exists for his popularity.

Dropping either Soltis or Evans made no editorial
sense. Soltis survived because his column does not
deal with controversial material. Such is not his purpose.

Larry Evans had to go because his was the last
independent voice left in the magazine. You will NOT
be reading in the new Chess Life about how FIDE
delegates were paid thousands in bribes, being
required to click handphone cameras to show the
bribe givers how they marked their ballot.

Moreover, USCF loyalists will defend the news
blackout as a good thing. What USCF members do
not know will not hurt the political class.