On Nov 14, 1:28 pm, Larry Tapper wrote:
Richard Laurie:
"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.
help bot:
hb Like I said, a dolt. GM Nunn *was* in fact the better
player, since LE was an old man and well past his prime
in chess when he penned that article.
hb Saying this denigrates LE is like observing that a
bird can fly faster than a fish can swim, and this is an
insult to the fish.
This issue was also raised by Louis Blair.
It's tricky to compare across eras, but it seems to me that Nunn in
his prime was maybe a tad better than Evans in his. So help bot's
allusion to Evans' being long in the tooth wasn't really necessary.
More to the point, Evans' favorite example was a rook and pawn
endgame, and Nunn has unquestioned expertise in that area in addition
to being a strong GM.
Also, another critic of Evans' original analysis was Seirawan, who I'd
say was definitely a stronger player than Evans.
LT
It does not matter who was better, Nunn or Evans, because you do not
have to be a 2500 player or even a 1900 player to see that Keres made
a series of unbelievably weak moves, so weak that no strong player
would have ever played them.
The position is on my website at
http://www.ishipress.com/keres-bo.htm
Also, you need to know that during World War II Estonia was allied
with Nazi Germany and Keres, an Estonian, lived in Nazi Germany during
World War II and played in tournaments there. When Stalin took over
Estonia after the end of World War II, many Estonians were killed or
disappeared never to be seen again. Keres was foolish to return to
Estonia after the conclusion of the war. Somehow, he survived. Even
without subtle hints from the KGB the pressure on him to lose to
Botvinnik must have been enormous.
I never met Keres but those who met him have told me that his
appearance was the epitome of the ideal of the Master Race, blond
hair, blue eyes, fair complexion, just exactly what superior beings
were supposed to look like according to the Nazis.
Sam Sloan