"Taylor Kingston" wrote in message
ups.com...

On Nov 9, 9:01 pm, "Chess One" wrote:
"Taylor Kingston" wrote in
glegroups.com...

On Nov 9, 4:38 pm, "Chess One" wrote:

"Taylor Kingston" wrote
Sounds odd coming from him. While Alekhine did have strong natural
talent, it was probably not nearly as great as Capablanca's or
Reshevsky's, probably also below that of Lasker, maybe even below that
of Marshall, Janowski, Keres, Fine and a few other of his
contemporaries.

"Probably not nearly as great" but without saying why?

Since natural talent by definition is inborn, it goes without saying
that the "why" lies mainly in the genes.

**What's this now? The other guys had a Chess gene? )

A typically nonsensical Innes comment.

**looks like a direct retort to this new idea you have of chess genes, why
don't you tell us more about your interesting idea?

If you mean which specific
genes were involved, that I cannot say.

**Oh, I get it, this is a joke thread.

Posts by Innes are almost by definition objects of laughter.

**I can't account for what Taylor Kingston finds amusing, since he has
become vague, and replaces any explanation by abuse.

This is to turn usual
appreciations on their head.

No, it is merely to dispense with stating the obvious. But of course
that often leaves our Phil confused.

**? Alekhine is regarded by most people as the most substantial player on
the planet since he left Russian in 1921 until the advent of the second
world war in 1939 - minus a few years off for booze. I am only confused by
Kingston's two opinions, that he was worse than his list above,

The question was the relative level of *_natural talent_*, not the
level of overall success as a player. Two related but distinctly
different things.

**Yes - the question may be of 'natural talent', but I am still struggling
to understand what you mean by that, especially since you insist this is
'distinctly different' than overall success.

**So the question was why you should say that Alekhine had less of this
unidentified and possibly gene-related talent, than those you cited, being
Capablanca's, Reshevsky's, Lasker, Marshall, Janowski, Keres, Fine and 'a
few others.'

**Whether my incredulity is a typical or even atypical nonsense statement
seems to rely very much on two things: (1) what you can have meant by
*_natural talent_* which is so far unexplained, and (2) if you are sourcing
some aspect of geneology you have encountered to which I am unaware in
positing a chess gene.


and why he
has to do his usual ad hominem stuff. But I forgot - the strong the player
the greater the (

The more Innes posts, the more nonsense.

** As above let's see what is nonsense or not by looking at the Idea you
present.

No one else successfully took on the new-age of hyper-modern chess and
evolved their play to anything like the degree that Alekhine did ...
Lasker was a creature of the late C19th, and while being the
epitome of the post-Morphy late Classical tradition, was not the sort of
person to be able to span such a huge development in chess.

Nonsense. Lasker adapted quite well to the hypermodern era. He had a
+3 -1 =4 lifetime score vs. Alekhine, a combined +3 -1 =2 vs.
Nimzovitch and Réti, +4 -1 =2 vs. Bogolyubov, +3 -0 =3 vs. Tartakower,
and 3-0 vs. Euwe, i.e. virtually all the top "hypermodern" players. His
takedown of Réti at New York 1924 is legendary.

I think in 1924 that the force was not yet developed by the hypermoderns,
and citing 25 selected games total including 11 draws is not exactly
compelling.

Jeez, Phil, you can't even count. I cited 30 games, not 25, and at
least a third of them date from after 1924, which you would know if you
actually relied on real data about Lasker's career instead of yoyur
imagination.
And since those 30 games represent the entirety of Lasker's serious
play against the leading hypermoderns, it's hard to see what other
games would be more relevant or more "compelling."
You also demonstrate ignorance of the chronology of hypermodernism,
which was in full stride by 1924.

**Well, we can put Lasker's 2.5 games a year aside for the moment, since
although he did well - and I never disputed it! some players engaged in as
many serious games in a month as Lasker played in a dozen years. But this is
an aside to any point of who tackled the hypermodern game and to what extent
he was already in full stride - the point is the relative one of Alekhine's
performance.

Alekhine and Euwe did not finish ahead of Lasker in a tournament
until 1934, when Lasker was 65. Capablanca didn't manage it until 1936.
Nimzovitch and Réti never did. As late as Moscow 1935 Lasker could
finish ahead of Capablanca and almost all the best of Soviet chessdom,
just a half-point behind Botvinnik and Flohr, without losing a single
game.

**Very good record! And I am not writing to say he was not a great
player! -
But your comment about Alekhine hardly serves as comment on who was world
champion -

The question I addressed was *not* "Who was world champion?", but
"Who had more natural talent?". Again, not the same thing, but our Phil
as usual attempts to shift ground.

**Excellent - then we should let this pass, and return to your idea at the
top of the post: of Natural Talent and an unidentified chess gene to explain
it. Otherwise there is the danger of dissing Alekhine even more than the
authors of The Soviet School of Chess, the most politicised chess title
since the Nazis had a go with Ralf Woelk's /Shach unterm Hakenkreuz./.

to to relegate that player, Alekhine, as less than these others,
is not something most people are 'confused' about. Please make a note of
it.

Mainly, Phil, I make a note of the fact that along with being a
spewer of semantic nonsense, you are an ignoramus about the meaning of
the term "natural talent," and about chess history, besides much else.

** Those are rather generous aspersions, and are all very well except that
in this entire post you have not expanded on your rather unusual idea of a
chess gene - nor amplified your sense of 'natural talent', and its unclear
to me if in fact you have already written everything you know - therefore
people who are still curious about such 'facts' are perceived as
'ignoramus'.

**Should you be manage to become less vague, you might escape the danger of
seeming to appear to have exhausted your own powers of presenting your very
interesting ideas, and resorted to yelling Mullah-like at those infidels who
have not completely grokked their fullness.

Phil Innes

On Nov 10, 12:56 am, "Louis Blair" wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote (9 Nov 2006 11:28:22 -0800):

7 ... Hartston calls Alekhine's introduction to his book of the
7 1927 New York tournament "one of the greatest character
7 assassinations in chess literature" for its belittlement of
7 what was generally regarded as Capablanca's greatest
7 tournament triumph. ...
_
Is a translation of this introduction available?

It was written in English, I believe. What other languages it may
have published in, I do not know. The book is something of a
collector's item, apparently. Alekhine's book of NY 1924 is still
widely available, but NY 1927 seems quite rare.
The gist of the intro, according to Hartston, was that Capa's
overwhelming victory in 1927 was not as convincing as it looked. Capa
scored 14-6 (+8 =12 -0) and finished clear first, well ahead of
Alekhine (11½-8½), Nimzovitch (10½-9½), Vidmar (10-10), Spielmann
(8-12) and Marshall (6-14). But Alekhine claimed that the whole thing
was stage-managed to make Capa look good. The field was carefully
chosen to include only masters who had never won even a single game
against him (not quite true; Marshall had won twice, though losing 15),
and deliberately excluded Lasker, Bogolyubov, Rubinstein, Tarrasch, and
Réti, all of whom had beaten Capa and/or finished ahead of him in
recent events.
Then Alekhine went on to point out specific flaws in Capablanca's NY
1927 games, and more general shortcomings of his style, finally
concluding "The New York tournament of 1927 will go down in history as
the point of departure leading to that Buenos Aires spectacular which
finally shattered the harmful legend of Capablanca, the human chess
machine."
Of course, all this was written *after* Alekhine had won the world
title from Capa. Had he failed, no doubt the tournament book would have
had a markedly different tone.

Louis Blair wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote (9 Nov 2006 11:28:22 -0800):

7 ... Hartston calls Alekhine's introduction to his book of the
7 1927 New York tournament "one of the greatest character
7 assassinations in chess literature" for its belittlement of
7 what was generally regarded as Capablanca's greatest
7 tournament triumph. ...

_
Is a translation of this introduction available?

In Learn Chess From The World Champions, by David Levy. Copyright 1979
Pergamon Press.

Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Nov 10, 12:56 am, "Louis Blair" wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote (9 Nov 2006 11:28:22 -0800):

7 ... Hartston calls Alekhine's introduction to his book of the
7 1927 New York tournament "one of the greatest character
7 assassinations in chess literature" for its belittlement of
7 what was generally regarded as Capablanca's greatest
7 tournament triumph. ...
_
Is a translation of this introduction available?

It was written in English, I believe. What other languages it may
have published in, I do not know.

According to Levy's book Learn Chess From The World Champions, it was
first published in German. It only appeared in English with publication
of Levy's book, in 1979.

The book is something of a
collector's item, apparently. Alekhine's book of NY 1924 is still
widely available, but NY 1927 seems quite rare.
The gist of the intro, according to Hartston, was that Capa's
overwhelming victory in 1927 was not as convincing as it looked. Capa
scored 14-6 (+8 =12 -0) and finished clear first, well ahead of
Alekhine (11½-8½), Nimzovitch (10½-9½), Vidmar (10-10), Spielmann
(8-12) and Marshall (6-14). But Alekhine claimed that the whole thing
was stage-managed to make Capa look good. The field was carefully
chosen to include only masters who had never won even a single game
against him (not quite true; Marshall had won twice, though losing 15),
and deliberately excluded Lasker, Bogolyubov, Rubinstein, Tarrasch, and
Réti, all of whom had beaten Capa and/or finished ahead of him in
recent events.
Then Alekhine went on to point out specific flaws in Capablanca's NY
1927 games, and more general shortcomings of his style, finally
concluding "The New York tournament of 1927 will go down in history as
the point of departure leading to that Buenos Aires spectacular which
finally shattered the harmful legend of Capablanca, the human chess
machine."
Of course, all this was written *after* Alekhine had won the world
title from Capa. Had he failed, no doubt the tournament book would have
had a markedly different tone.

On Nov 10, 9:05 am, "The Historian" wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Nov 10, 12:56 am, "Louis Blair" wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote (9 Nov 2006 11:28:22 -0800):

7 ... Hartston calls Alekhine's introduction to his book of the
7 1927 New York tournament "one of the greatest character
7 assassinations in chess literature" for its belittlement of
7 what was generally regarded as Capablanca's greatest
7 tournament triumph. ...
_
Is a translation of this introduction available?

It was written in English, I believe. What other languages it may
have published in, I do not know.

According to Levy's book Learn Chess From The World Champions, it was
first published in German. It only appeared in English with publication
of Levy's book, in 1979.

In that case, I stand corrected. I had thought it was first published
in English, like Alekhine's book of the 1924 tournament.

The book is something of a
collector's item, apparently. Alekhine's book of NY 1924 is still
widely available, but NY 1927 seems quite rare.
The gist of the intro, according to Hartston, was that Capa's
overwhelming victory in 1927 was not as convincing as it looked. Capa
scored 14-6 (+8 =12 -0) and finished clear first, well ahead of
Alekhine (11½-8½), Nimzovitch (10½-9½), Vidmar (10-10), Spielmann
(8-12) and Marshall (6-14). But Alekhine claimed that the whole thing
was stage-managed to make Capa look good. The field was carefully
chosen to include only masters who had never won even a single game
against him (not quite true; Marshall had won twice, though losing 15),
and deliberately excluded Lasker, Bogolyubov, Rubinstein, Tarrasch, and
Réti, all of whom had beaten Capa and/or finished ahead of him in
recent events.
Then Alekhine went on to point out specific flaws in Capablanca's NY
1927 games, and more general shortcomings of his style, finally
concluding "The New York tournament of 1927 will go down in history as
the point of departure leading to that Buenos Aires spectacular which
finally shattered the harmful legend of Capablanca, the human chess
machine."
Of course, all this was written *after* Alekhine had won the world
title from Capa. Had he failed, no doubt the tournament book would have
had a markedly different tone.- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Nov 10, 9:05 am, "The Historian" wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Nov 10, 12:56 am, "Louis Blair" wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote (9 Nov 2006 11:28:22 -0800):

7 ... Hartston calls Alekhine's introduction to his book of the
7 1927 New York tournament "one of the greatest character
7 assassinations in chess literature" for its belittlement of
7 what was generally regarded as Capablanca's greatest
7 tournament triumph. ...
_
Is a translation of this introduction available?

It was written in English, I believe. What other languages it may
have published in, I do not know.

According to Levy's book Learn Chess From The World Champions, it was
first published in German. It only appeared in English with publication
of Levy's book, in 1979.

In that case, I stand corrected. I had thought it was first published
in English, like Alekhine's book of the 1924 tournament.

Or so says Levy in his book.

The book is something of a
collector's item, apparently. Alekhine's book of NY 1924 is still
widely available, but NY 1927 seems quite rare.
The gist of the intro, according to Hartston, was that Capa's
overwhelming victory in 1927 was not as convincing as it looked. Capa
scored 14-6 (+8 =12 -0) and finished clear first, well ahead of
Alekhine (11½-8½), Nimzovitch (10½-9½), Vidmar (10-10), Spielmann
(8-12) and Marshall (6-14). But Alekhine claimed that the whole thing
was stage-managed to make Capa look good. The field was carefully
chosen to include only masters who had never won even a single game
against him (not quite true; Marshall had won twice, though losing 15),
and deliberately excluded Lasker, Bogolyubov, Rubinstein, Tarrasch, and
Réti, all of whom had beaten Capa and/or finished ahead of him in
recent events.

The suggestion that Tarrasch was deliberately excluded because he had
beaten Capa seems like a stretch on Alekhine's part. Was Tarrasch
considered a top-level master in 1927?

Then Alekhine went on to point out specific flaws in Capablanca's NY
1927 games, and more general shortcomings of his style, finally
concluding "The New York tournament of 1927 will go down in history as
the point of departure leading to that Buenos Aires spectacular which
finally shattered the harmful legend of Capablanca, the human chess
machine."

This is a different translation than the excerpt in Levy's book,
although the meaning is the same.

Of course, all this was written *after* Alekhine had won the world
title from Capa. Had he failed, no doubt the tournament book would have
had a markedly different tone.-

Speaking of "markedly different tone", I'm pleased that chess finally
broke into a thread dominated by Robtroll and Innes. Thank you, Taylor.

The Historian wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Nov 10, 9:05 am, "The Historian" wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Nov 10, 12:56 am, "Louis Blair" wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote (9 Nov 2006 11:28:22 -0800):

7 ... Hartston calls Alekhine's introduction to his book of the
7 1927 New York tournament "one of the greatest character
7 assassinations in chess literature" for its belittlement of
7 what was generally regarded as Capablanca's greatest
7 tournament triumph. ...
_
Is a translation of this introduction available?

It was written in English, I believe. What other languages it may
have published in, I do not know.

According to Levy's book Learn Chess From The World Champions, it was
first published in German. It only appeared in English with publication
of Levy's book, in 1979.

In that case, I stand corrected. I had thought it was first published
in English, like Alekhine's book of the 1924 tournament.

Or so says Levy in his book.

The book is something of a
collector's item, apparently. Alekhine's book of NY 1924 is still
widely available, but NY 1927 seems quite rare.
The gist of the intro, according to Hartston, was that Capa's
overwhelming victory in 1927 was not as convincing as it looked. Capa
scored 14-6 (+8 =12 -0) and finished clear first, well ahead of
Alekhine (11½-8½), Nimzovitch (10½-9½), Vidmar (10-10), Spielmann
(8-12) and Marshall (6-14). But Alekhine claimed that the whole thing
was stage-managed to make Capa look good. The field was carefully
chosen to include only masters who had never won even a single game
against him (not quite true; Marshall had won twice, though losing 15),
and deliberately excluded Lasker, Bogolyubov, Rubinstein, Tarrasch, and
Réti, all of whom had beaten Capa and/or finished ahead of him in
recent events.

The suggestion that Tarrasch was deliberately excluded because he had
beaten Capa seems like a stretch on Alekhine's part. Was Tarrasch
considered a top-level master in 1927?

Then Alekhine went on to point out specific flaws in Capablanca's NY
1927 games, and more general shortcomings of his style, finally
concluding "The New York tournament of 1927 will go down in history as
the point of departure leading to that Buenos Aires spectacular which
finally shattered the harmful legend of Capablanca, the human chess
machine."

This is a different translation than the excerpt in Levy's book,
although the meaning is the same.

Of course, all this was written *after* Alekhine had won the world
title from Capa. Had he failed, no doubt the tournament book would have
had a markedly different tone.-



Speaking of "markedly different tone", I'm pleased that chess finally
broke into a thread dominated by Robtroll and Innes. Thank you, Taylor.

Actually,
I began the discussion on Alekhine. Histrollian would not notice that
though. He cannot go more and three posts on any subject without
attacking me. But that IS what a TROLL does.
But I am enjoying the honest discussion about Alekhine very much.
Rob

"The Historian" wrote in message
ps.com...

Of course, all this was written *after* Alekhine had won the world
title from Capa. Had he failed, no doubt the tournament book would
have
had a markedly different tone.-

Speaking of "markedly different tone", I'm pleased that chess finally
broke into a thread dominated by Robtroll and Innes. Thank you, Taylor.

---

Having got it all wrong, but no doubt still holding to his virulently
abusive conclusions, Taylor is reassured by 'Historian' Brennan on the
chessic worth of his contributions, compared with the derisory efforts of
Mitchell and Innes.

While Brennan makes a *nothing* out of Kingston's ventures into even braver
opinions, as Kingston himself wrote of his own *nothings* in much the same
spirit about more modern players recorded in the Kingston Files, lets pay
Lasker, Alekhine, and the Spirit of the Times their due respect, and not be
content with this hobbdehoy history racket by writers who have studied much
or not so much, but understood so very little!

ON ALEKHINE

How embarrassing for Kingston to be contradicated by a world champion! If
Max Euwe was not a capable judge of Alekhine, who would we prefer? While of
course only ignoramuses like myself and Euwe do not understand
Kingston's -natural talent- comment, which he is pleased to be vaguely
promote as connection to the chess-gene, the W. Ch. Prof. Euwe did say of
Alekhine:-

"He is a poet, who creates a work of art out of something
which would hardly inspire another man to send home
a picture postcard."

Presumably Euwe has in mind while writing those words these other
men -natural talents- even those stuffed choc-a-block with *chess genes*
when he wrote this comparative comment - he certainly didn't laud anyone
else to that degree, and he certainly did know 'em all. Is what Euwe
describes -natural talent- or even superior natural talent to Alekhine's
contemporaries? And even describes chess genius without the ex cathedra
means of a chess gene?

ON LASKER

I do not mean to say anything /against/ another great player as much as
frame the time of his main influence which was pre-WW1. Lasker, who was
known for his superb defensive play, [in case that too is challenged, the
comment is from Bardeleben, who says this influence is directly from
Steinitz and hence the mainline romantic-classicism era in chess, and
pre-scientific' hypermodernism], but Lasker was also known for his
unscientific and risky attacks, and while he first defeated Capa this way
Capa handed him his head for trying the same stuff in 1921. He cannot really
be held that against more resolute defences of the hyper-moderns he would
have improved his attacking technique, and in fact did not vary sufficiently
to surmount Capa, nor can Lasker be said to have been as big a set back to
the hypermodernists in the early '20's as was Alekhine in the late '20s and
30s.

Lasker was virtually retired from chess by 1925, and seriously took up
Bridge and Go instead.

LASKER'S PUBLICATIONS in ENGLAND

Anyone seeking rare Lasker titles* might research W. H. Watts [publ.] circa
1932/34 in England where Lasker had removed himself from the 3rd Reich. By
1936 Lasker only placed 8th at Nottingham which certainly drew the curtain
on his carear.

He left England for USA in 1937 where he lectured [on philosophy, he wrote
three titles in Germany], and continued to write though not much on chess,
and in ill health declined and died, 11 Jan 1941.

Phil Innes

*Lasker's manual of Chess, London 1932
*Lasker's Chess Primer, London 1934

and interestingly:-

*The Return Match, Alekhine v Boguljubov, London 1934

Source: Sunnucks, Encycl. Chess
And with thanks to D. Hooper //1969// for these Lit. Refs. /ibidem

On Nov 10, 9:40 am, "The Historian" wrote:
The suggestion that Tarrasch was deliberately excluded because he had
beaten Capa seems like a stretch on Alekhine's part. Was Tarrasch
considered a top-level master in 1927?

No, Tarrasch peaked around 1900-1910 and had faded badly by 1927, but
at the time he actually had an even lifetime score vs. Capablanca: +1
-1 =2. It was not until their last tournament encounter, at Berlin
1928, that Capa beat him again. On the other hand, Tarrasch's last win
vs. Capa was in 1914, so I would agree that Alekhine was stretching to
make a point.
In fact with the exception of Réti, none of the players Alekhine
named had beaten Capablanca since then: Lasker last did it in 1914,
Rubinstein in 1911, and Bogo never did, though both he and Lasker had
finished ahead of Capa in tournaments (L at NY 1924, B at Moscow 1925).
Bogo was 0-5 vs. Capa until 1929, when he finally managed a draw at
Carlsbad.
I do not really know if there was any conscious policy on the 1927
organizers' part to stack the deck in Capa's favor. I know that
Bogolyubov was invited, but declined rather rudely, saying that instead
of a "mediocre" tournament they should arrange a title match between
him and Capa. Whether any of Alekhine's other suggested participants
were invited, I do not know.

Then Alekhine went on to point out specific flaws in Capablanca's NY
1927 games, and more general shortcomings of his style, finally
concluding "The New York tournament of 1927 will go down in history as
the point of departure leading to that Buenos Aires spectacular which
finally shattered the harmful legend of Capablanca, the human chess
machine."

This is a different translation than the excerpt in Levy's book,
although the meaning is the same.

I shall see if I can acquire Levy's book.

Of course, all this was written *after* Alekhine had won the world
title from Capa. Had he failed, no doubt the tournament book would have
had a markedly different tone.-

Speaking of "markedly different tone", I'm pleased that chess finally
broke into a thread dominated by Robtroll and Innes. Thank you, Taylor.

Taylor Kingston wrote:

I suggest getting better grounded in chess history before making
blanket generalizations that underestimate some very great players.

I shudder to think what Robtroll and Innes have cooked up - perhaps
that should be "kooked up" - for their Chess Vignits web****e.