THE FACTS ABOUT EDWARD WINTER
What follows is a portion of a longer essay on
Edward Winter's understanding of historical analysis.
I contrast it with the work done by Larry Evans.
Readers will have a chance to judge whether a
typo about a given country (a charge against GM Evans)
or deliberate misreading of historical texts and the
writing of others (the practice of Eddie Winter) is
the more serious lapse.
WHAT IS "HISTORICAL TRUTH"?
Now there's a question for you!
Dates? Ages of historical actors who strut the
stage? Yes, that is part of history. But we are
dealing with the rankest kind of philistinism to
equate these numbers with truth in history. Wrote Mr.
Winter in Kingpin (Spring 2000):
"Plain facts seldom stand a chance. A small example of the Evans
approach to historical truth [my italics] arises from his December
1999 column, which included the following: 'Wilhelm Steinitz was 50
when he defeated Johannes Zukertort (44) in 1892.' In the February
2000 Chess Life we pointed out that this seemed improbable, given
that Zukertort had died in 1888. Mr. Evans responded tartly that the
matter was unimportant because 'obviously 1892 was a typo instead of
1872.' Still not even the right decade."
On the issue of truth - pure and simple, without a preceding adjective
- Mr. Winter lied through his teeth when he deliberately misled an
English audience that GM Evans wrote the sentence Mr. Winter quoted.
A detailed analysis of the substance and syntax of this icy lie will
come in a later article of this series. For the moment, the subject
is what Mr. Winter calls "historical truth."
Mr. Winter, the bean-counter, provides what he says is an
"example" of how GM Evans approaches "historical truth." The example
contains some incorrect dates and ages written by a third party - a
reader of GM Evans' column in Chess Life. There are seventh-graders
who would shrink from a bookkeeper's equation of dates and ages with
an "approach" to "historical truth."
"History, rejecting absolutes," writes Jacques Barzun in Clio
and the Doctors, "gives no comfort to ... minds that crave finality
and certitude."
We know many dates and names with finality and certitude, but
they have less to do with "historical truth" than applying common
sense to raw data. Barzun, of course, is describing the process of
writing history - not necessarily arguing that history is ultimately
elative.
One "does" history by reading - and reading and reading. And
thinking and thinking. And winnowing. Oh, yes, winnowing. Ninety-
nine-plus percent of all
the names, dates and production statistics get dropped. What remains
is history, which is, by Barzun's reckoning, the historian's
understanding of how it really was back then or, in Leopold von
Ranke's phrase, wie es eigentlich gewesen. What remains in this
understanding is not necessarily the meaningless subjectivity of a
single person but the possibility for truthful understanding.
For, as Aleksandr Solzhenitysn wrote in his Nobel Lecture, truth
carries its own conviction. As an example, men understood that in
spite of Nazi propaganda, Theresienstadt was not a model for a noble
Nazi system of labor correction. "Arbeit Macht Frei" never
resonated. And when the first testimonies appeared about the
Holocaust, the Nazi historical enterprise collapsed. Even more
telling is how Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago completely leveled the
mountains of Soviet and Western apologias for Stalin's system. One
book versus thousands of books.
One work of truth versus a library of lies. Yet the single book
prevailed.
Truth in history can only be found through the mind of the
historian, though few historians measure up to writing works that
evoke consensus. Names and dates can be important, though are by no
means always so. But the capacity to understand what the raw facts
mean is always crucial. On this score, GM Evans is Mr. Winter's
distinct superior.
We turn in Part II of this series to Edward Winter's farce of
"Richard the Fifth."
MR. WINTER ATTACKS HIS BETTER - II
By Larry Parr
WINTER'S TALE ABOUT RICHARD THE FIFTH
"If the record in the Spence book is to be believed, there is
no justification for the nickname ["Richard the Fifth" for Richard
Teichmann] ... " - Edward Winter, Chess Notes (No. 929) and Chess
Explorations (p. 122)
"If the record in the Spence book is to be believed, my
judgment is that there is OVERWHELMING justification for the nickname,
Richard the Fifth." - GM Larry Evans in an e-mail message of June
30, 2001
Shakespeare had his tragedy of Richard III. Rowan Atkinson had
his comedy of Richard the Fourth. Edward Winter has his farce of
"Richard the Fifth."
Mr. Winter's work is true to the pedant's paradox: the deeper
you dig, the shallower it becomes. Take, as an example, his "Richard
the Fifth," which was No. 929 in Chess Notes and which appears on page
122 of Chess Explorations:
Richard the Fifth
It is frequently stated that Teichmann was called 'Richard
the Fifth' on account of the number of times he finished number five
in a tournament. If the
record in the [Jack] Spence book is to be believed, there is no
justification for the nickname; Teichmann is shown as finishing fifth
or equal fifth only nine times out of fifty tournaments. He was first
or equal first in eighteen.
Unmitigated, unhistorical swill. A veritable Reign of Error.
Even the weasel-conditional - "If the record in the Spence book is to
be believed" - doesn't help.
Where to begin?
The above is not chance nonsense from Mr. Winter. Not only did he
consider the
thoughts worthy of Chess Notes, he reprised the effort for a book. We
are dealing, then, with what Mr. Winter himself regards as mulled
cogitation worthy of
being republished.
Where to begin?
A key rule in historical analysis is that not all "likes" are alike.
That's common sense. Not all battle victories in a war are equal (the
final victory frequently being more important than preceding ones);
not all victories in tennis tournaments are equal (winning Wimbledon
counts more than winning the Cannibal Open in Ouagadougou); and not
all chess tournaments are equal (winning or, yes, finishing fifth at
Linares counts more for a great player's reputation than winning the
Kennesaw Monthly Sunday Swiss - reached, in the words of a Chess Life
TLA, "from Wade Green exit 118, west cross RR tracks, through alley to
City Hall").
Where to begin?
A key rule in historical analysis is that there is no mechanistic
formulation for analyzing what is important in a life. That's common
sense. The most important moments may come at the beginning of a life
or at the end or, most often, during the middle years. Bean-counters
may try to average out events in a life. Historians do not.
Reputations are rightly made by how one handles important moments or
challenges in a life. No historian, when writing about Bobby
Fischer's IQ, would average out his score on a Stanford-Binet during
his high school years with his scores on the same test at age one week
and, if Mr. Fischer remains with us,
at age 101.
Mr. Winter's weasel-conditional that there is "no justification"
for calling Richard Teichmann "Richard the Fifth" if the Spence tally
is "to be believed" (meaning, in plain English, largely accurate) is
fulfilled. Searching through Jeremy
Gaige's Chess Tournament Crosstables, I found nine fifth or shared
fifth prizes and 13 first or shared firsts out of 42 tables in which
Teichmann appears. That leaves eight other tables - if Mr. Winter's
count of 50 is "to be believed" - missing from the Gaige work.
Moreover, five of those missing eight are probably among the 18 first
prizes that Mr. Winter mentions in the book by Jack Spence. (My copy
is
packed away in New York.)
First, a disclaimer: I counted 42 Teichmann tables after sifting
through Gaige's pages twice. Could there be 43 or 44? Possibly, but
the overall picture will not change much. Counting the relevant
tables could help to pass the time for Mr. Winter or his ratpackers.
If I have erred, we shall hear about it, for sure. If not, they will
likely keep their traps shut.
The defining tournaments of the old Europe of Barbara Tuchman's
Proud Tower, which is to say essentially the decade and lustrum before
World War I,
were the great casino and resort competitions. Whether Mr. Winter was
aware of this common understanding, he certainly had before him on
Jack Spence's list the names of such places as Monte Carlo, Ostend and
Carlsbad. These tournaments and a few ohers were the key
competitions of early 20th century chess.
Here is a list of Richard Teichmann's results in the Wimbledons and
French Opens of his time:
Monte Carlo 1902
4th (of 20)
Monte Carlo 1903
5th (of 14)
Vienna 1903
5th= (of 10)
Cambridge Springs 1904
10th-11th (of 16)
Ostend 1905
5th= (of 14)
Ostend 1905
4th (of 4)
Ostend 1906
5th= (of 36)
Carlsbad 1907
7th= (of 21)
Ostend 1907
6th (of 29)
Prague 1908
5th (of 20)
Vienna 1908
5th (of 20)
Munich 1909
1st (of 4 -- a small but fairly strong
quad)
St. Petersburg 1909
6th (of 19)
Hamburg 1910
5th= (of 17)
Carlsbad 1911
1st (of 26)
San Sebastian 1911
10th (of 15)
Breslau 1912
3rd (of 18)
Budapest 1912
5th= (of 6)
Pistyan 1912
5th= (of 18)
San Sebastian 1912
8th-9th (of 11)
The above list contains the strongest tournaments in which
Teichmann competed during his prime years, though Breslau 1912 (a
third-place
finish),Ostend 1905 (a fourth-place finish and a quad),and Munich 1909
(a first prize and another quad) may not belong on a list that
contains such massive events as Ostend 1906 and 1907 with 36 and 29
players, respectively. Still, even including these tournaments, one
has enough to judge the adequacy of Winter's judgment that "there is
no justification for the nickname" of Richard the Fifth. Notice the
arrant, errant phrase, "no justification."
Mr. Winter's judgment is slop - the mental math of a
bookkeeping antiquarian rather than the reasoned reflection of a
historian. He utterly fractures the first rule that not all likes are
alike -- or, in the context of this discussion, not all chess
tournaments are equal.
Here is what Larry Evans, a grandmaster and scintillating writer
has to say on the same subject: "Teichmann's monicker, 'Richard the
Fifth,' came from his performances in the great tournaments of his
prime years. These were massive events held in spas and casinos, and
they defined tournament chess at the
beginning of the 20th century. Teichmann's results in these
tournaments informed his career. That's historical common sense. Just
read Lasker, for crying out loud."
The reference is to Edward, not Emanuel, Lasker and his lovely
memoir, Chess Secrets I Learned from the Masters, where Teichmann's
propensity for
finishing fifth is mentioned. "It was said of him," wrote Lasker the
Lesser, "that he had a season ticket for fifth place."
Now, then, GM Evans is a historically literate chess writer -
not a chess historian. He is a jack of all chess trades and master of
a few. He entertains
with lively writing which at its best, as Mr. Winter once noted, "is
very good." His rehearsal of why Teichmann was called Richard the
Fifth is not that of a Clio-accountant; it is a logical appraisal of
the major moments in Teichmann's career by someone whom Mr. Winter
once described as "normally one of the sanest and acutest of
commentators."
Now, back to those numbers. Of the 20 tournaments listed (we
will soon be discussing what is not listed) Teichmann finished fifth
or equal fifth nne times, fourth twice, sixth twice, and 7th= once. In
14 of 20 tournaments, he was either fifth or hovering very nearby. No
one, except a party-line Winterian ratpacker, would defend Mr.
Winter's idiot-savant, number-crunching judgment that there is
"no justification" for the monicker of Richard the Fifth.
Indeed, GM Evans is clearly correct to say that there is
"OVERWHELMING justification" for Teichmann's nickname.
I asked one statistician over here in Malaysia about the odds
against so many fourth, fifth and sixth places in tournaments with
large numbers of competitors. His response was NOT what I wished to
hear: the odds could be many guh-zillions to one IF Teichmann were
not fifth-place rating material or they could be considerably lower if
he were. I asked him to work out the odds, and he wanted dollars in
return.
Perhaps some statistician could venture a ballpark figure for the odds
against so many fifth places in tournaments with, respectively, 14,
10, 14, 36, 20, 20, 17, 6 and 18 players. One ought also to mention
that several of Teichmann's non-fifth finishes were very close to the
target. His 7th= at Carlsbad 1907 was a point shy of fifth; his 6th
at Ostend 1907 was a half-point short; his 6th at St. Petersburg 1909
was a half-point below; his 10th at San Sebastian 1911 was one-point
below fifth; and his 3rd at Breslau was a half-point above fifth-
equal.
Another issue to consider is how Teichmann achieved these fifth-
ish results. Was he creating a dynamic stir with wins wildly
alternating with losses, forcibly suggesting other possible
nicknames? Or was he often playing somnolent, though powerful chess,
drawing against the strong and preying a la Darwin on the weak,
thereby ensconcing himself comfortably in the upper half of most
tournament tables? Did his game results suggest a strong also-ran or
a win-loss
mad dog?
I think the game results suggest a strong also-ran, especially
during his maturity, though there are exceptions such as Vienna 1903,
a gambit tournament. At Prague 1908 he was +1 =8 against the top
half; at Vienna 1908 he was =8 against the top eight and +4 against
the bottom four. At St. Petersburg 1909, he did NOT draw a lot
against the top half because he lost a lot. But at San Sebastian
1911, a 10th-place finish, he was +1 -2 =4 against the top half but
failed to assassinate the lower half that time around.
The reader will notice that I consider fourth-place and sixth-
place finishes to have some bearing on calling Teichmann "Richard the
Fifth." There were four such instances (two fourths, two sixths), and
one can readily understand how these
placings, when interspersed among nine fifths or equal fifths, would
contribute to the picture of Teichmann as Richard the Fifth because
that is where or NEAR
where he always seemed to be finishing. That is common sense, though
it is evidently not Winter sense.
Notice how this collector of trivia and bean-counter mechanically
refers only to fifth or equal fifth finishes and first or equal first
finishes. Notice how he fails to differentiate between great
tournaments and lesser vehicles.
Another rule of thumb in historical analysis, as mentioned
earlier, is that the ultimate judgment on a given individual seldom
involves averaging out the person's life. What he does as a child
(pace Mill and Mozart) or as an octogenarian (pace Colonel Sanders and
George Burns) is seldom as significant as what he does in middle age.
Mr. Winter, of course, made no attempt to differentiate not only among
results in major versus minor tournaments, but he also lumped together
first prizes obtained in minor tournaments in Teichmann's early and
late years.
Here is Teichmann's early record in tournaments through 1900:
Berlin 1890-91
1st (of 11 -- only players of some note, Caro and Walbrodt)
Berlin 1891-92
10th (of 11 -- Caro, Walbrodt, Bardeleben, B. Lasker - not a landmark
event)
Leipzig 1894
3rd (of 18 -- an important but not a great tournament of the
1890s)
Hastings 1895
7th-8th (of 22 --THE famous Hastings event)
London 1896
1st (of 12)
Nuremberg 1896
19th (of 19 --one of the great events of the 1890s)
Berlin 1897
16th (of 20 -- one of the nearly great events of the 1890s)
London 1899
15th (of 15 -- one of the great events of the 1890s)
London 1900
1st (of 13 -- a club event
London 1900
1st (of 5 -- at Simpson's Divan vs. Lee, Muller, van Vliet, Mortimer
- kinda
speaks for itself)
The historian would not look at this period of Teichmann's career
as defining. His awful results at Nuremberg 1896, Berlin 1897 and
London 1899 more than
offset the respectable finish at Hastings 1895. The four first prizes
in weak or relatively weak tournaments rightly created little notice.
During Teichmann's defining years, I did not include the
following tournaments in the initial list given above:
London 1904
2st (of 17 -- Napier, Blackburne, Gunsberg, Leonhardt and a
nearly dead Mason - once again, not a tournament to list along those
included)
London 1904
1st (of 9 -- a Rice Gambit tournament with Leonhardt, Napier,
Gunsberg and
Mortimer, Dickinson, MacBean - kinda speaks for
itself)
Berlin 1907
1st (of 12 -- the only other undisputed GM was Spielmann; maybe
Leonhardt)
Berlin 1909
1st= (of 4 -- a six-round cafe event with Cohn, Spielmann,
Bardeleben)
Berlin 1909
1st= (of 10 -- an undistinguished BLITZ tournament)
Berlin 1910
1st (of 5 -- an eight-round cafe tournament with no other
grandmaster)
Some of the ratpackers will probably stoop low enough to suggest
that the above six tournaments should be listed alongside the great
events of Teichmann's prime. Even if they were, the picture would not
change much. Nine fifths, two fourths and two sixths, would still
stand out in any reckoning of 26 (instead of 20) tournaments.
After 1914, I found mention of five tournaments in Gaige, the
two most important being Teplitz-Schoenau 1922 (7th of 14) and
Carlsbad 1923 (9th of 18), though Berlin 1924 (3rd of 4), a double-
round quad with Paul Johner, Rubinstein and Mieses, was a worthy
little event. Berlin 1924 and Leipzig 1925, two 1st= finishes, were
much lesser vehicles.
An historian looking at the above data would conclude that
Richard Teichmann WAS Richard the Fifth, especially given the helpful
coincidence of the first names. His fifth places and his near-fifths
occurred in the greatest tournaments of his era. His famous first -
the great exception that proves the rule - at 25-round Carlsbad 1911
was matched by no other comparable result. His first at Munich
1909? This
double-round quad included Alapin, Spielmann and Przepiorka. Six-
rounds. The "Historian" may do some ratpacking duty, but few others
will.
Conclusion: Edward Winter wrote slop, though it was evidently
his considered and republished judgment, when he claimed that there is
"no justification" for the nickname Richard the Fifth.
None of the above is meant to cast aspersions on Teichmann's
strength. Capablanca once ranked him among the first five in the
world, listing "Lasker, Rubinstein, Schlechter, Teichmann and the
present writer." The order in this list could be taken as
alphabetical or, given that Capa coyly lists himself last, in order of
strength.
Who, then, would have been fifth strongest in the world? You
got it. Good old "Richard the Fifth" himself!
MR. WINTER'S CONTUMELY
Was Mr. Winter really unaware that Teichmann was a human 1/5-fraction
at the great events of his prime years? I don't think so. He knows
his dates and
name-spellings well enough. But he could not restrain his disdain for
conventional wisdom, even when that wisdom is evidently sound. He HAD
to heap scorn on
what others have long thought. Such is Mr. Winter's contumely.
How does Mr. Winter's contumacious misrepresentation of
Teichmann's career compare with Larry Evans permitting or not having
the chance to proof the typo "Austalia" in his column or with having
the name "Book" appear in his column without umlauts because of a CL
style convention or with writing "of" instead of "to" in the title of
a book or with misremembering when one Quesada died or with
misdentifying the winner of a game between Fine and Borochow, etc.?
The few errors that appear in the millions of words written by GM
Evans were mistakes made in good faith. They were not major
misjudgments motivated by scorn for the understanding and work of
others.
wrote:
EVERYONE IS LYING EXCEPT KINGSTON
Taylor Kingston regurgitated a ChessCafe piece in which Edward Winter
attacked Larry Evans' writing. No, Larry, I posted a link to
it.....With friends like you, Evans hardly needs enemies....Ah, yes,
like when he "corrected" the date of the Steinitz-Zukertort WCh match,
and still didn't even get the right decade. -- Taylor Kingston
Where to begin? Since this farceur imagines it was anything but a typo
(by GM Evans or the editor?) here is what GM Evans wrote in his
classic NEW IDEAS IN CHESS (1958): "A noted critic once wrote that
Steinitz's two match victories over Zukertort were attributable to the
fact that 'Zukertort was not yet Zukertort' in 1872 '(the date of
their first championship match), 'and was no longer Zukertort in
1886' (the date of their second match)."
NMnot Taylor Kingston -- the man who raised his rating by 500
points through the device of lying about his length of his number --
now avera that he did not
praise Edward Winter's attack on GM Larry Evans. He merely provided a
link.
Nonsense. NMnot has been a partisan of that attack from the
beginning, and his act of reproducing a link to it once again tells us
what he imagines to be its
merits. The man remains a mincing, tap-dancing liar.
Larry Evans wrote a scintillating article in Chess Life on the
Keres-Botvinnik games in the 1948 world title tournament. He reviewed
the history of the debate, and he offered a GM's look at the games
themselves to find clues as to whether they were thrown to Botvinnik.
As Larry Tapper points out, its main value
was an an experiment in forensic game analysis. It was because of
this article that the case has been re-examined extensively.
Evans concluded that to the extent the games could be relied
upon, they indicated the fix was in. However, He qualified this
conclusion, noting that there could not be certainty.
Indeed, even today, after a great deal more evidence has
appeared (including Botvinnik's admission that orders had been
received from Stalin and relevelations from Taimanov and Bronstein
that these kinds of orders were part of Soviet praxis) we still do not
have cosmic certainty.
Evans' offered a bit of semi-pioneering work on the subject that
NMnot Taylor Kingston -- the man who won't answer whether he used
false names here IN ORDER TO PRAISE HIS OWN ARGUMENTS initally priased
to the high heavens.
Later on, our NMnot reversed himself, though finally and sheepishly
adopting Evans' initial conclusions. Our NMnot says that Evans proved
correct for the wrong reasons. The truth is that NMnot Kingston dare
not cross Edward
Winter by praising Evans' early insights.
Now, then, many of you have read my evisceration of Edward
Winter's attack on GM Larry Evans in which I found an incidence of
error -- shoddy reproduction of
quotations from GM Evans, in the main part -- HIGHER than that claimed
by Eddie Winter for GM Evans. Winter's mistakes were surprising
because he was not
writing under a necessary deadline as GM Evans does.
Readers have noted the Winter technique. The game between
Borochow and Fine was a fine example. Evans made a single error that
Winter tried to
compound into several errors. His technique was to quote from an
article in Chess Beat -- a collection of earlier Evans newspaper
pieces -- as though the article had been written much later than it
was.
NMnot Kingston, as a somewhat frightened acolyte, will not
acknoweldge the Winterian method. What else does our NMnot fails to
acknowledge?
For Pete's sake, this Winter gelding is a beaut', as they say in
Australian racing circles.
Larry -- please supply to the rec.games.chess readers the quote
which supposedly shows me professing ignorance of the existence of a
dispute between Evans and Winter, or between Evans and myself. You
must do this, Larry, or die a chicken. -- Taylor Kingston's new challenge
RICHARD LAURIE AUTHORIZED ME TO RELEASE HIS LETTER TO TAYLOR KINGSTON
OVER A YEAR AGO
Playwright Richard Laurie is a chess fans with no axe to grind. ONCE
AGAIN here his exact words. Mr. Laurie doesn't want to be involved in
this debate ("Don't these people have lives?" he asked incredulously)
but will confirm his words if anyone asks me for his email.
************************************************** ************************************************
"Mr. Kingston's memory is extremely faulty. He contacted me on the
Net,
then wanted to send me materials to try and win me over to his side
of
the argument -- that Evans was wrong. After that he said HE WOULD
LIKE
TO KEEP OUR CORRESPONDENCE QUIET [emphasis mine] just between us. It
sounded a little shaky, but so far I saw nothing wrong.
"Then he said he contacted the editor and asked if it would be okay
for him to say I had changed my mind.. That's when I jumped on him in
my last letter, that I had not changed my mind and agreed to look at
his materials only to see what he had to offer.. I found nothing
substantial there and I told him that as far as secrecy went, he
already violated that by jumping the gun and contacting the editor.
"Mr. Kingston e-mailed me about half a dozen times. While I never
showed Evans any of his material, I told him I did feel perfectly free
to show Evans my own responses. All anyone has to do is read
Kingston's article in Chess Life to see that he denigrated Evans'
ability to analyze by saying Nunn was the better player.
"Kingston wanted me to retract my printed view of the situation as it
appeared in Evans On Chess. He wanted me to say that I was wrong and.
therefore, Evans was wrong ..I even wrote the editor saying I had not
changed my mind, and that ended the matter.
"Finally, I am troubled by your bald assertion that you are not aware
of the battle between Evans and Winter. I am troubled because I have
known for months that Larry Evans contacted you in preparing his
rebuttal to Mr.Winter's remarks as printed in Chess Life, October
2001.
"Further, it is my understanding and has been for months, that you
told Evans you sided with Winter on the whole. Please clear up this
seeming contradiction." -- Richard Laurie
************************************************** **************************
REPENT NOW!
"It said false things about me and Winter. It put Mr. Laurie in a bad
light. I did indeed have hopes of getting him to retract his
falsehoods, but unfortunately, he turned out to have the same aversion
to facts as you do, Larry....
"As I have pointed out in an earlier post in another thread, this and
Mr. Laurie's other allegations, by which you set such great store, are
false. It is interesting to see one liar believe another. Larry, if
you fabricate something people can use: food, clothing, housing, etc.,
you perform a service. If you fabricate quotations, you
may damn your own soul. Repent now." -- Taylor Kingston
CAPTAIN QUEEG STRIKES AGAIN
In "The Caine Mutiny" the good captain also claims that his crew is
disloyal and spread falsehoods about him as he rubs ball bearings
while on the witness stand. Yes, yes, everyone is lying except Taylor
Kingston. Even someone who has absolutely no axe to grind with him.
Yes, yes, everyone else is lying.
Yours, Larry Parr
Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Nov 12, 6:43 pm, " wrote:
THE KINGSTON GAMBIT
Not only does this farceur ignore his lie to Richard Laurie that he
wasn't aware of the dispute between Evans and Kingston, [SIC]
Now that would *indeed* be farcical, for me to be unaware of a
dispute involving myself. Is our Larry in his cups? One supposes he
meant "between Evans and Winter." However, as I have already noted in
this thread, I never made any such statement to Richard Laurie, nor to
anyone else. This is sheer fabrication, something Parr does quite
frequently.
Larry -- please supply to the rec.games.chess readers the quote
which supposedly shows me professing ignorance of the existence of a
dispute between Evans and Winter, or between Evans and myself. You
must do this, Larry, or die a chicken.