On Mar 26, 8:30 am, wrote:
On Mar 24, 10:41 pm, help bot wrote:

The key term "here" clearly specified that
what was being discussed was the exact
paragraph posted here in rgc at the top of
this thread -- not the book. LOL!

So then you condemn a whole book because of one paragraph!


Actually, my "condemnation" was based on
the knowledge that this book is hopelessly
out-of-date (i.e. see my comment regarding
descriptive notation), along with the fact that
"Albert" could not understand why Dr. Fine's
comments made no apparent sense. You
see, a /good writer/ would not just gloss over
such things as *why* Black must end up with
a pawn at d6, for instance. In a sense, GM
Fine was writing as though his readers were
on a much higher level than in reality; he
simply assumed automatic understanding of
such things as this, along with his rather
dogmatic use of terms like "normal" and
"natural" with regard to classical piece
development; one gets the feeling that
hypermodern piece development must
therefore be "abnormal", "unnatural"-- like
zombies, necrophilia, or killer space aliens.


My view is that modern writers, like Yasser
Seirawan for instance, discuss the same ideas
in a superior way; that is, in algebraic notation
and without any hopelessly outdated notions
regarding "normality", nor overestimating the
readers by a wide margin. I also like the fact
that thus far, not one author has deemed it
necessary or profitable to compile an entire
book based on corrections to GM Seirawan's
multitudinous errors; not so with GM Fine!
(That was of course Basic Chess Endings,
not Ideas Behind the Chess Openings,
which gets rave reviews by nostalgic old
fogies.)


I would suggest that if there are other parts
of the book that TK wishes to discuss, he
should quote a few lines here, like "Albert"
did.

As for entire books, I can say this: I
didn't particularly like Jose Capablanca's,
Emanuel Lasker's, or Dr. Fine's, even though
I have no trouble reading descriptive notation;
to me, these guys are simply too arrogant or
too far above everyone else to really be good
instructors for beginners/intermediates-- their
target audience. I hate to admit it, but Bruce
Pandolfini's The ABCs of Chess was *far*
superior in that respect. My theory is that
something happens to people when they get
/really good/ at chess; they morph into
arrogant, self-worshiping nutters. Thank
goodness that could never happen to me; I
can't even recall my own pet lines at the
chess board, with the clock ticking... .


-- help bot