FAST EDDIE'S ATTACKING METHODS

Over the past couple of days, I have been reprising several
essays that I wrote on Edward Winter's tactics when attacking GM Larry
Evans, his superior as a writer and, of course, his superlative as a
player and analyst.

Yesterday I present a portion of an essay dealing with how
Winter fabricated an error that Larry Evans never made. Readers may
recollect that Larry Evans reversed the identity of players in
Borochow-Fine. A CL reader pointed out such, and GM
Evans acknowledged the correction in his Chess Life. Enter Mr.
Winter's frosty, malevolent dishonesty: he quoted from a collection
of GM Evans' chess columns, a book that appeared in 1982. His point
was to make it appear that GM Evans was once again reversing the
players in Borochow-Fine after the correction made in 1978. He did
NOT tell readers that the 1982 volume contained photographic
reproductions of Evans' newspaper articles as they had appeared
during the 1970s. The column in question appeared in 1976 BEFORE the
correction was made in Chess Life.

That is the kind of stuff that NMnot Taylor Kingston regards as
honest polemical conduct. Nor will he tell us that it was deeply
dishonest. His response thus far has been the formulaic one for
Winter's disciples. NMnot Kingston told us he is not obligated to
comment on everything under the sun. The alternative explanation for
his silence is cowardice.

Here is a continuation of an essay presented earlier. We see
here yet another Winter technique of attack that apparently meets the
"standards" of his disciple Taylor Kingston.

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 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 over the course of half a century were mistakes made in good
faith. They were not major misjudgments
motivated by scorn for the understanding and work of others.

On the subject of Mr. Winter's contumely, one of his favorite
devices is to affect obtuseness so as to score debater's points. A
typical snippet of nastiness is his "Horowitz philosophe" in the
"Gaffes" chapter of Chess Explorations. Writes Mr. Winter, "On page
24 of The Chess Beat [by GM Evans] Al Horowitz is quoted:

'Chess is a great game. No matter how good one is, there is always
somebody better. No matter how bad one is, there is always somebody
worse.'" To which
Mr. Winter responds tartly, "What other game can match that?"

Just awful. Even at the level of formal logic, Mr. Winter's
putdown falls flat. For, of course, there is at any given split
second one person who is the very best and one person who is the very
worst. So, in fact, there is not "always" somebody better or
"always" somebody worse. So, contrary to Mr. Winter's obtusely ironic
claim, no other game can match that does not really exist.

But forget the formal logic. Even most of his ratpackers
understand that Al Horowitz committed no gaffe. Horowitz was speaking
jocosely and, in truth, rather deeply. He was claiming that egos
among chess players are such that we have all seen club players
looking for some poor sucker to lord it over - some young kid or old
duffer to whom one can pose as the genius of the age. Horowitz was
speaking with a chuckle about the foibles of chess players and,
perhaps wrongly though interestingly, suggesting that the trait of
seeking out dragons to slay or schlumps
to dominate is stronger among chess players than among players of
other games.

The New York Times obituary of Horowitz included part of the
quotation that Mr. Winter calls a "gaffe" because the obit writers
understood that a point was being made about human nature not about
the mathematics of exceptions.

I am sure that Mr. Winter also understood orowitz's thrust. He
chose to take the man's words at face value so as to tar a great man
of chess with the ironic subhead, "Horowitz philosophe."

(A minor point of connotation: A rather tin-eared Mr. Winter
would have served his malign purpose better by titling the paragraph,
"Horowitz the Philosopher." I am sure that a few readers know that in
English the word "philosophe" [Mr. Winter did not italicize it to
suggest strictly a French connotation.] has a somewhat negative
connotation. "The philosophes" or "the philosophe party" occupy a
niche just above "artistes" with an "e." Kant was a philosopher,
Diderot a philosophe.)

Another example of Mr. Winter dishonestly playing straight man so
as to ignore jocose humility was his absurdly arch reaction in Chess
Notes to GM Evans'
admission of error re the game between Prins and Quesada. Wrote
Evans, "I recalled Prins winning a hopeless adjournment from Quesada,
who died before the
game could be finished. I no longer have the scoretable of Havana
1952 but if Prins says he resigned, far be it from me to quibble. I
stand corrected even though you must admit it makes a good story."

Responded Mr. Winter icily, "The Prins-Quesada episode is not a
'good story' once it is shown to be untrue."

Now, in Chess Explorations, Mr. Winter writes, "'It makes a good
story' was also the reply received from Fred Wilson after we
complained that he had published inaccuracies regarding Staunton's
background."

The point here is that "It makes a good story" s a standard way
to admit error and poke fun at oneself rather than to insist, in spite
of the literal meaning of the words, that what is untrue is a good
story. Most of us understand that the phrase is an idiomatic device
to concede a blunder just as the famous editorial advice, "Never let
the facts stand in the way of a good story," is an example of
journalists laying the lash on themselves rather than advocating
deliberate error.

Did Mr. Winter dishonestly play the part of an obtuse pedant to
administer a cranky putdown? The answer is obviously yes unless we
assume utter ignorance on his part of a well-known piece of ironic
idiom.

Deliberate obtuseness cuts both ways. Take Mr. Winter's
apparently absurd claim on page 95 of Chess Explorations: "As
recorded on page 27 of Dale
Brandreth's edition of the Kemeri-Riga, 1939 tournament book, the Ruy
Lopez was played in that event only once in the 120 games ....It will
be surprising if a reader can quote a comparable case concerning this
most popular of openings."

"This most popular of openings"? Certainly not by the number of
games played! The Sicilian utterly swamps this "most popular" of
openings. What a "gaffe"!

Whoa thar, Nelly! Isn't the phrase, "this most popular of
openings," an old-fashioned, rather constipated rhetorical device used
to indicate wide popularity or even merely limited popularity among
certain circles? Am I not being unfair to take Mr. Winter's words at
face value?

Of course I am being unfair. But no more unfair than Mr. Winter,
who dishonestly feigned obtuseness when taking potshots at Al
Horowitz, Larry Evans and
Fred Wilson.

Or there is Mr. Winter's absurd reference to recorded chess
games coming from the "pre-history" of chess. Ought we to take him
literally, as he does others, or ought we to say that the phrase was a
permissible idiomatic contradiction of what the word "history" - above
all else the study of written records - actually means?

MALICE AFORETHOUGHT

Mr. Winter often permits his canker to overcome cold calculation,
though not because, in my view, he is careless. The man HAD to tell
the lie in Kingpin of
attributing words to GM Evans written by another. He HAD to make a
historically illiterate claim in his "Richard the Fifth," though
knowing full well that his attempt to debunk a piece of conventional
wisdom was bunk itself. He HAD to splatter mud at Al Horowitz and GM
Evans by taking literally some words that were intended jocularly and
ironically. He HAD to do these things because his malign enterprise
of endeavoring to humiliate those who commit honest errors in dates
and spellings is a narrow, inadequate duct for his bile. He needs a
wider latitude than the narrow channel of dates and spellings.

Hence the lies. Hence the historically illiterate contumely.
Hence the feigned obtuseness. Hence the nitpicking.

"I Can't Get No Satisfaction" is the theme song for any career
based on cheap shots derived from the mistakes of others. How
barren. How vile, really.





wrote:
WHY DID KINGSTON TELL LAURIE TO KEEP IT CONFIDENTIAL?

One of NMnot Taylor Kingston's trademarks is to
explain away cowardice (his obvious horror of losing a
match to Sam Sloan) and rank intellectual dishonesty
(writing under false names IN PRAISE OF HIMSELF) with
a series of shifting or absurd explanations and justifications.

What follows is a bit of past history. NMnot Kingston
told us that he marked his correspondence with Richard
Laurie "Confidential" because ... well, here is his reason:

The reason should be obvious to anyone familiar with Mr. Parr's newsgroup
tactics, with which by then I was thoroughly familiar. I knew that if
Laurie told Evans, Evans would tell Parr, and Parr would mount a smear
campaign,
misrepresenting my correspondence with Mr. Laurie. -- Taylor
Kingston, May 23, 2005

NMnot Kingston feared a smear campaign; therefore, the gent
preferred to keep his pristine, totally innocent correspondence
private. Nonsense. He could defend innocence, but what he could not
defend was what playwright Laurie smelled.

Smelled? That was the excuse NMnot Kingston used to avoid
playing Sam Sloan. He jabbered to us that he feared his olfactory
senses would be offended by breathing the same air in the same room
with Sam. The actual reason why our self-proclaimed, 2300+ Elo NMnot
refused to play 1900-or-so rated Sam for four-figure money was obvious
to everyone else.

We continue with yet another NMnot excuse for trying to keep his
e-mails with Richard Laurie from ever seeing the light of day. Like a
good defense lawyer, he tailored his responses as the pressure
mounted.

[But] the first time around Mr. Kingston claimed he marked many of
his letters CONFIDENTIAL and that it had no special significance. --
Larry Parr

That is also true. I was trying to spare your feelings, Larry,
then I realized you have none. If you consider this condemnatory, I'm
sorry. ;-D -- Taylor Kingston

Readers will judge for themselves whether NMnot acted to spare
this writer's feelings. Yet another lie replete with the man's proud
contumely.

NMnot Kingston tells us he has "standards."

WE ASK ONCE AGAIN: Did our NMnot post under false names on this
forum (Xylothist, Paulie Graf) in PRAISE OF HIMSELF, for Pete's
sake? Does he regard self-praise using false monickers as an example
of his "standards."

He won't answer. Never has. Never will.

Finally, we ask that he make ALL of his e-mails with Richard
Laurie public, not just the "relevant" portions that he wants us to
see so we can compare them with the e-mails that Laurie actually
received. Let there be no gaps a la president Richard Nixon.

Yours, Larry Parr




wrote:
LAURIE REBUTS KINGSTON'S VERSION OF EVENTS

[Playwright Richard Laurie just authorized me to post this message.]

"When I refused to retract my letter to Chess Life, Taylor Kingston
told me, in effect, that I was even more evil than Larry Evans. That
was the last I heard from him directly. I will keep looking for his e-
mails to me. It is largely a matter of time. I have them somewhere
and will keep searching." -- Richard Laurie