THE DEAFENING SILENCE


That sound you hear is just the deafening silence which results when
a weakness is attacked, and a device known as "diversion" is used to
direct attention to something else -- anything else, but the sore spot.

We might hear frequent rustling of leaves in the form of muffled ad
hominem attacks on Taylor Kingston's 2300 rating. Or we could hear
sounds of moaning and groaning regarding one of Keene's better works,
to which our attention is happily directed. What we will *not* hear is
any sound whatever regarding the book on the Nimzo-Indian defense,
because it could be considered a Herculean task to defend it against
the hordes of criticism.

Heck, so far we have been treated to comments by Keene himself that
his notes to the games have stood up surprisingly well to scrutiny by
those not under time pressure, whereas he was literally forced (under
penalty of death, I suppose) to churn out certain books in two days or
less.
Similarly, we have been treated to comments as to how "objective"
Keene was to extract but a single word as fairly summing up Winter's
own assessment of one of Keene's books, and told we can easily verify
this "objectivity" by looking through our handy back issues of some
British magazine dating back to 1984. Naturally, we all have saved
these magazines from when we lived in Bristol on the strand (before
unwisely moving to America, when we had to make do with inferior stuff
put out by the USCF).


IMO, Taylor Kingston managed to reveal an anti-Keene bias in his
review of one of Keene's better works, but he nevertheless hit the mark
several times in his defense against Keene's attack on same.
When an author points to a specific game as showing that Nimzo did
not originate a certain idea, he gives readers the distinct impression
that the player in that game did -- whether this was his intention or
not. This is why great books are written with great care. In defense
of his book, Keene denies having attempted to root out the origins of
some "hypermodern" openings, at which I can only wonder why not?
Laziness?

It seems to me that both Larry Parr and Ray Keene are ready and
willing to "discuss" the insta-books, but not the one on the
Nimzo-Indian. The reason is obvious: the circumstances and deadline
for the insta-books is a handy "out", whereas in the case of a book on
some opening, there is really no handy excuse for doing a poor or even
mediocre job.
IMO, the all too frequent references to sales and multiple editions
tells the tale he the "standards" by which Keene operates have not
the letter "s" fore and aft, but dollar signs. Make that British
pounds sterling. He's not attempting to create a masterpiece, a
classic or a work of art, but something else -- and this is the sole
"standard" by which he judges his own success, and expects to be judged
by others.


-- help bot

* THE DEAFENING SILENCE. That sound you hear is
just the deafening silence which results when a weakness
is attacked, and a device known as "diversion" is used to
direct attention to something else -- anything else, but the
sore spot. * (Help Bot)

Funny.

The only deafening silence I hear is coming from
Taylor Kingston who promised to defend his putrid review
of the Nimzo book point by point as soon as Keene
answered his questions.

"Me first."

"No, you first."

Well, Keene answered his questions.

Where's Kingston? Checking with his guru who
lives in Geneva, Switzerland, perhaps to dig up
more dirt on a giant who looms far above them?

Jr, who stands on Larry Parr's left shoulder and mindlessly repeats
everything he hears, asks:

"Where's Kingston?"

Apparently, Larry Parr forgot to inform his parrot that Taylor
Kingston has created a new thread in which to respond to Ray Keene's
review of his review. My guess is that TK felt uncomfortable defending
himself here, and preferred instead to counterattack on another wing;
it's an ego thing. Posting under "Keene reviews Kingston" somehow
seems to give Keene the psychological upperhand, the initiative.
Better to go on the offensive rather than try and defend against an
attack conducted by a GM (attacking is what these guys do for a living,
after all).

"Checking with his guru who lives in Geneva, Switzerland, perhaps to
dig up
more dirt on a giant who looms far above them?" -- Jr


While Keene's ratpackers continue to obsess over Edward Winter
because of his incisive criticisms, Taylor Kingston has in fact created
a list of *his own* nitpicks of Keene's work. Fear seems to dominate
the ratpackers' "thinking"; they (rightly) fear Edward Winter, and so
he is constantly on their minds. They even imagine him to somehow be
in mind-control of all others who have criticisms of any of Keene's
books. It probably never even occured to these braindeaders that
churning out books a mile a minute for decades could eventually lead to
criticisms in the realm of quality, even had EW never been born. I
suppose if someone had mentioned John Watson instead of Edward Winter
as having pointed out some flaws in Keene's work, the automatic result
would have been ad hominem attacks on Watson and mindless accusations
that he was somehow in control of all the critics here. This is
apparently the level of the Keene ratpackers' "thinking" abilities.

Where is Kingston? Try looking under "Kingston responds to Keene" or
maybe even "The 1800 Strikes Back".


-- help bot

From my other computer I wrote:

"I wish Keene had worked as hard on Winning with the Nimzo-Indian as
he
did on that review of Kingston."

Self, what you should know is that Keene was under a killing deadline
when he threw together that book. Had he not gone to press just two
days after concieving the idea of a book on the Nimzo-Indian, Eric
Schiller would have pre-empted his effort with another data dump book!
Fortunately, Keene was cleverly able to sidetrack ES by offering to
give him free chess lessons over the internet, while at the same time
dictating the book in question to his wife to type up! Under the
circumstances, do we really think it is fair to hold Keene accountable
for the quality of this potboiler? We think not. It's plain as day
that everything can be blamed on either Schiller or Keene's publisher,
not to mention his wife. An open and shut case.

-- help bot


PS: any diagram errors are either the fault of Keene's editor or else
the result of eating Chinese take-out which may have splattered a bit
onto the original, hand-typed manuscripts as they were being assembled.

PSS: when is Larry Parr going to pay us our winnings?

Jr wrote:

""Casting pearls before swine" is the expression that comes to
mind."


Funny. When I consider what has been going on here I think of
monkeys examining a watch. The monkeys, Keene and his ratpackers, are
simply incapable of comprehension of reasonable criticism. They
"demand" chapter and verse, but when given exactly that, they still
cannot understand. When blatant hypocrisy and double-standards are
shown, they remain quite unaffected. The watch is nothing more than a
worthless object to monkeys, a distraction from their search for
bananas, insects, or whatnot. The watch's precision, its accuracy and
reliability are lost on such creatures, because in order to appreciate
these things requires thought. Too bad watches aren't edible....


-- help bot

Larry Parr wrote:

"Gawd, how it must have seered. Like a hot awl up
a wolverine's southern exposure."

Seared, not seered. And note that the wolverine must be facing North
in order for your sadistic conception to work. And knowing what
wolverines can be like when upset, one had better not miss.

Interesting how LP compares TK to a wolverine. Sam Sloan might be...
a rabbit, and I, of course, am a fish (or so I've been told).


-- help bot

"Self, what you should know is that Keene was under a killing
deadline
when he threw together that book. Had he not gone to press just two
days after *concieving*..."


Of course, my copy boy or my editor is responsible for this howler,
as I was on vacation in the antarctic, retracing the route taken by
Robert Scott. After eating all my sled dogs, I proceeded on foot to
the pole, completely forgetting that I needed also to get back! Blind
luck rescued me, as another fool soon reached the pole; I killed and
ate him, then used his sled dogs to reach the coast. While waiting for
my ship to return I rattled off a half-dozen chess books: Winning with
the Dunst/Fred/Hanheim/1 ...h6!/1 h3!/1.Na3! Only upon my return to
civilization did I discover that my spelling of "conceiving" had been
butchered by an overzealous/moronic editor! Now watch the Keene
ratpackers pile on.

-- hell bot

wrote:
WINTER'S RATPACKERS

By GM Raymond Keene

Next I must remind everyone, as others already pointed out, that we are
still waiting for TAYLOR KINGSTONS promised response to my critique of
his review of my book on Nimzowitsch.

Perhaps now we have the reason Keene's books have so many mistakes --
he doesn't read! If GM Keene will be so kind as to look at the thread
with the mysterious title "Kingston replies to Keene," he will see that
it answers him point by point, and was posted on 1 May, 5:22 PM eastern
daylight time, i.e. over 5 hours BEFORE Keene posted the above claim to
be "still waiting."

KINGSTON UP TO HIS OLD TRICKS

Perhaps now we have the reason Keene's books have so many mistakes --
he doesn't read! If GM Keene will be so kind as to look at the thread
with the mysterious title "Kingston replies to Keene," he will see that
it answers him point by point, and was posted on 1 May, 5:22 PM eastern
daylight time, i.e. over 5 hours BEFORE Keene posted the above claim to
be "still waiting." -- Taylor Kingston

Instead of responding in the thread "Keene reviews Kingston" which
appears
on both rgcp and rgcm we missed his response because it appears ONLY at
rgcm and not in both places.

The thread "Kingston replies to Keene" was not posted to rgcp where
it belongs.
Why Mr. Kingston did not post it to BOTH forums is a mystery indeed.

wrote:
KINGSTON UP TO HIS OLD TRICKS

Perhaps now we have the reason Keene's books have so many mistakes --
he doesn't read! If GM Keene will be so kind as to look at the thread
with the mysterious title "Kingston replies to Keene," he will see that
it answers him point by point, and was posted on 1 May, 5:22 PM eastern
daylight time, i.e. over 5 hours BEFORE Keene posted the above claim to
be "still waiting." -- Taylor Kingston

Instead of responding in the thread "Keene reviews Kingston" which
appears
on both rgcp and rgcm we missed his response because it appears ONLY at
rgcm and not in both places.

The thread "Kingston replies to Keene" was not posted to rgcp where
it belongs.
Why Mr. Kingston did not post it to BOTH forums is a mystery indeed.

No mystery at all, Larry -- the post has nothing to do with chess
politics. It has to do with chess history and literature. Therefore it
does not belong on rgcp. As for your allegation of "old tricks," my
hypocrisy-meter just went off the scale.