On Nov 13, 1:05 pm, Larry Tapper wrote:

It seems to me that Evans' theory of forensic analysis was basically a
non-starter because of his criteria for fishiness ...
I think even Larry Parr must admit that if
"scholars" now resoundingly agree that the games were thrown, as he
claims, it can't possibly be because of Evans' game analysis. The best
we can say about that analysis is that GM opinion remains divided.
As I recall, Exhibit A in Evans' analysis was a rook endgame position
in which Keres unnecessarily placed his rook passively. A player of
Keres' caliber would never make a move like that, the argument went.
OK, but I have recent endgame books by Belyavsky and Dvoretsky that
feature dozens of examples of strong GMs making horrible mistakes in
fairly simple rook endgames. It is hard to say what a given GM would
never do --- remarkably bad things can happen to anyone who is tired
or nervous or short of time.

All very good points, Larry T. In the same vein, one point I'd like
to add here is that "forensic analysis" a la Evans is obviously
worthless without certain assumptions derived from context. Just given
raw game scores, with nothing about who played whom, when, where etc,
no one could possibly say with the least certainty that "34...Rd6
proves coercion." If Keres made a bad move in, say, a British
tournament where he was the only Soviet player, no one would dream of
saying he was throwing a game to let a Brit win. If Joe Smith made the
same move in the same position in a weekend Swiss, the notion of
conspiracy would be laughed at. But put the same move in Hague-Moscow
1948, and people are all too eager to say "You see, the fix is in!"
with no more factual basis than they have in the other contexts.
My point is that it takes far more than mere analysis to prove any
sort of fix. Evidence from sources other than the board is required.