THE TRUTH HURTS

I still find Evans comment about endgame composers being relatively
weak
players a sign of snobbery -- who cares if they even played the game
at all? Isn't the chess what is important? And what is a "weak
player?" Sigh..... SBD

Dr. Dowd continues his cheap shots. What shobbery? So far Evans has
devoted two columns in Chess Life this year to great problems (in May
to Pauli Perkonoja of Finland who is virtually unknown to most fans,
and in September to Smyslov who is not known as an endgame composer}
so clearly he has celebrated their achievements.

What is a weak player? A good test is someone whose tournament results
are poor. Sam Loyd, perhaps the most famous American composer ever,
quit playing after his disastrous result at Paris in 1867.

Alain C. White in SAM LOYD AND HIS CHESS PROBLEMS writes on page 47:
"What induced Loyd to enter the International Masters' Tournament at
Paris in 1867 has always been a mystery to me. Browning has a poem
about how Dante wished to excel for once as an artist and Raphael
aspired to distinction in poetry; so it may be that Loyd, who had the
very highest fame as a problemist, desired to be known rather as a
great player. Be that as it may, he entered the Congress as
representative of America against Kolisch, Winawer, Steinitz and some
ten other masters....and his final score was only 6 won, 17 lost, and
1 drawn...Certainly Loyd cared more for brilliancy far more than for
soundness, but whether his ideal is that of good chess is another
question"


SBD wrote:
The Value of Chess Problems

As I read what bot wrote, and his emphasis on "realistic" chess
problems, I realized what the issue was - or at least I think so.

Chess is a game with a certain level of abstraction. In fact, this
abstraction is often associated with the positive attribute of
"abstract thought."

Chess problems provide a higher level of abstraction than the game
itself. You can interpret that negatively or positively. But I suppose
if the idea that "learning chess teaches you certain abstractions that
will make you better at x, y, and z," then problem chess would be seen
as on an even higher level than the game.

But just as playing chess won't make you a better general, per se, I
understand the contention that chess problem solving or composing
won't make you a better player. Composing a song doesn't make you a
better musician, no matter how good the song.

But I certainly have learned the full power of some of the pieces,
like queen and bishop, by composing helpmates, something very far from
the game of chess - a form where black and white must precisely
cooperate to mate black.

Some have compared chess composition and play as similar to
choreographed martial arts on the stage or screen to the bar brawl.
Like all human comparisons, you can argue back and forth on the merits
of each.

In the end, though, it seems to me that certain players - who already
have ELO envy of seemingly everyone around them - are dismissive of
problems without ever having tried the experience, or try to see why a
series of Umnov maneuvers provide beauty and interest to a problem. I
still find Evans comment about endgame composers being relatively weak
players a sign of snobbery - who cares if they even played the game at
all? Isn't the chess what is important? And what is a "weak player?"
Sigh.....