On Nov 2, 10:40 am, Taylor Kingston wrote:

Wow, so I really *am* Edward Winter? Amazing. Without Sam's uncanny
powers, I never would have known it. In this case, Sam, can you
investigate a few more more things in this vein:

1) From his writings, it's clear that Winter can speak French
fluently. Why can't I?

Se la vie.


2) Why do I not remember writing any of Edward Winter's books or
online columns?

Very poor recall?


3) Why do none of the e-mails and letters addressed to Edward Winter
ever come to me?

The post office will not deliver overseas for free.


4) On the many occasions that I have I received correspondence from
Edward Winter, who was writing to me?

That's an easy one: Sam Sloan.


5) And most importantly, why haven't my publishers been sending me
any royalty checks for Edward Winter books? This is an obvious case of
financial impropriety, Sam. Just your cup of tea. You get my money for
me, and I'll give you a handsome cut.

This looks like a job for Rob "The Robber" Mitchell.


-- help bot

Sure. He never quite made it. My friend played him too - John was famous for
his Dutch systems, no? I never played him personally.

Phil Innes

John Curdo live and died in the Dutch defense. Similiar to Sicilian
Dragon players. They live and die with that opening and Dutch players
don't seem to be any different.

EZoto

On Nov 2, 1:32 pm, samsloan wrote:

Try to think more clearly; the subject was what?
Playing strength. The relevance of over the board
vs. correspondence? Zero. What was TK's
playing strength? Somewhere above 2200 but
below 2300+. Was that good enough? Yes. Did
he fake not being "weak"? No. That's better.

How can you say that an 1800 player, still a young man in his prime,
was ever a 2200-2300 player? Have you ever heard of a player whose
strength dropped 400 points?

As a matter of fact, I have. There was a local player who developed
a
vision problem (glaucoma) but apparently this did not stop him from
playing rated chess. Perhaps a floor capped his losses at somewhat
less than 400 points, but the subject you mentioned was "strength"
(just as it was the subject being discussed by TK).


So, who is the 1800 player that is young and still in his prime? (I
hope
it's me! I would give anything to be that good, even sacrificing
wisdom
gained from old age, my good looks -- whatever it takes. I would give
up my entire comic book collection, my baseball cards -- you name it.)


IMO, these twin "events" -- the one in which TK erred by 50 points
and the one where PI told a fib -- are quite revealing. One fellow
made
an honest math error, while the other deliberately invented a lie to
"lend heft" to his opinions. It's no mere coincidence that the
second
fellow joined up with the Evans ratpack. Birds of a feather.


-- help bot

WHAT THE DICKENS! --OFF TOPIC

Not very on topic, and tangential, is a previous topic I engaged here with Mr. Parr, on the subject of 'placing' people by borrowing them into groups --- and we discussed how both Marxists did that with Dickens, and if indeed he would profile as a modern liberal. -- Phil Innes

Dear Phil,

I think one can make sense of Dickens'
socio-political views if you think of him in the
American Progressive tradition of southern politics.
Namely, the supposed benefits of social democracy are
for white folk rather than for blacks.That puts the
matter in a single sentence and makes sense of the
contradictions apparent but not inherent.

You will recollect that Marx himself had no
place for Negroes in his system.

The likely view of a Dickens toward Negroes and
toward many colonial peoples is that they annoyed him
by appearing human. You will recollect that such is
the point made by Lawrence of Arabia in "Seven Pillars
of Wisdom." The Negro would not be so objectionable if
he had seven hands and three heads, but instead has
the effrontery to appear in bodily form as we do.

Still worse, he awakens within us the suspicion that
he may be, more or less, about the same as we, though
Lawrence does not not admit that as even a remote
possibility. Hence Lawrence's anger that we have
impostors as human beings who thereby drag down one's
own status as fully human. After all, if the Negro is
mistaken as human by others, those others may imagine
that Lawrence himself partakes of important
similarities with Negroes. He found such impudence to
be intolerable.

Kipling spoke of "lesser breeds without the Law,"
by which I think he meant, if you read Recessional
very carefully, the Mosaic Law. The best you could do
was to build carefully and, having built, as Kipling
writes in the White Man's Burden, "Watch Sloth and
heathen Folly/ Bring all you hope to nought."

Dickens was concerned about alleviating suffering
among white Christian folk, whilst objecting to really
ill treatment of Jews and natives not because they
merit his concern on the basis of their intrinsic
value, but because to not be so concerned is to
coarsen one's own spirit.

Yours, Larry Parr




Chess One wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
MR. 2300+ ELO

To add to the point made by Sam Sloan re Taylor Kingston's
subject when stating without irony and quite straightforwardly that he
was 2300+ ELO, every reader can ask himself this question: when
someone tells you unadorned that he is 2300+ ELO, do you understand
his meaning to be a statement about his over-the-board playing
strength or do you, without any aside from the man making the
claim, say to yourself, "Oh yeah, he must be talkin' about his postal
chess."

Yes, he did confound those two a bit. OTOH! Other items in the Kingston
Files reveal he had a decent OTB tournament tpr of about 2050, which is
genuinely above that 1800, and in the 99th percentile of rated players. From
memory I think Curdo was in his group, who was then about 2400 - so, a fair
test.

Both his over-the-board rating and his correspondence rating have
never been above the 1800 level.

Be fair to your opponents and avoid the ratings trap, and other
envy-engines, which can be more to do with you than them. The constant
measure of chess is if you enjoy it, and all else is relative to other
players.

Sam Sloan

WHAT THE DICKENS!

Not very on topic, and tangential, is a previous topic I engaged here with
Mr. Parr, on the subject of 'placing' people by borrowing them into groups -
and we discussed how both Marxists did that with Dickens, and if indeed he
would profile as a modern liberal.

I have found an interesting and direct response from Jane Smiley's writing
[albeit, she cites Ackroyd rather much]

"Additionally, as Dickens grew more readical in his political views (and
more idiosyncratic - we should not interpret him as the sort of left liberal
we know today - he was rascist, imperialist, sometimes anti-Semitic, a
believer in harsh prison conditions, and distrustful of trade unions), he
divided himself more and more from his fellow novelists. How do we make of
sense of this?"

She then discussed the common social mixing of other Victorian writers, and
Dickens's voluntary isolation...

Now - the lesson is - that any description of that type would get an
author's books banned from high schools and libraries these days, nevermind
it was favorite reading of Freud.

People are changeable creatures, no motive springs from other than a
complexity of factors, themselves in dynamic relationship, and while
overselling one thing, another is undersold. And all the time the
commentator observing others needs be aware of their vicarious existence,
and those notions which emerge, ///as if/// it were their own.

Otherwise we have no compass to understand how we ourselves act, and in the
Dostoyevskyan sense, are 'possessed,' but not of any truth! Only lies and
deceptions.

It will be a brave man who writes here about their own self-deceiving
activity - and probably no man at all; it might take a woman writer to do
that.

Phil Innes

On Nov 2, 5:59 pm, "Chess One" wrote:

But the way you wrote Taylor was as if you said it was 2300 OTB. That's all.

Nowhere did TK specify whether the rating was OTB, blitz,
correspondence or even blindfold; that is a faulty assumption.
Don't assume so much, IM Innes.


You sort of didn't tell the truth - and worse, got an alter ego to show up
and boost you.

Are you speaking of Rob "The Robber" Mitchell?
(I thought he was your man, not TK's?)


Just because Sloan brings it up in his sicko way, doesn't mean you didn't
try to creep up 500 points. ROFL.

While you are down there on the floor, try to focus on
precisely what it is you are rolling around in.


-- help bot

OLD FAITHFUL

Coo! Greg Kennedy as help bot is baring his fangs.

He's predictable as Old Faithful and always spews forth his
resentment against this writer and GM Larry Evans when
intellectual heat is applied.

The subject we are discussing -- ultimately the
kind of human baggage that is the person, NMnot Taylor
Kingston -- has to do with the following sauvely
packaged, though stupid lie written by our NMnot:

"Interesting, if not really relevant to
historical issues. Still, on the subject of playing
strength, I have never claimed to be any great player,
but I think with a peak Elo of 2300+, and a top
ranking of, as I recall, #46 in the country, I was a
tad better than 'weak.'"

I figure than many readers understand that such
a statement coming from a Class "A" player may be
reckoned as an outright lie.

Notice, for example, the faux self-effacement
that NMnot Kingston "never claimed to be any great
player," which he then juxtaposes with the bald
statement that he "think[s]" he had "a peak Elo of
2300+." Why would our NMnot tell us he never made
a claim of being "any great player," yet then count
himself among the upper one-half of one percent?

NMnot understood the effect of his claim. He
knew that nearly every player would assume that
a claim of having "a peak Elo of 2300+ Elo" pertains
to over-the-board play and that he was claiming to
be plenty good.

Once again, the scene is your club. Someone
whom you know little or not at all walks in and then
announces, "[O]n the subject of playing strength, I
have never claimed to be any great player,
but I think with a peak Elo of 2300+ I am a tad
better than weak."

Will those in the club, who are listening, say to
themselves, "This guy is a master at 2300+ Elo."
or will they say, "Oh, yah, he's talkin' about postal
chess because when a guy mentions his ratings,
chances are he is talking about postal chess."

I submit that the first reaction of listeners
-- the one certainly sought by NMnot when writing his
lie -- is to assume that OTB rating is being claimed.

Readers will notice that Greg Kennedy offers a
defense of NMnot Kingston's lie that the latter
himself eschews. Why? Because our NMnot figures
that most forum readers will not consider this writer an
idiot for maintaining that bald mention of a rating
will be assumed by the vast majority of listeners as a
reference to tournament chess playing performance.

NMnot Kingston could end this discussion and
thereby dispense with the embarrassing, unsought and
certainly unwanted defense of Greg Kennedy by making
the amende honorable. Even now, after the passage of
years, redemption is possible. Indeed, genuine
repentance is automatic redemption in His eyes.

I would ask our NMnot: Why not admit you
employed false identities to PRAISE YOURSELF and lied
about your chess rating? You have certainly twigged
by now that your chief defender -- Greg Kennedy -- has
absolutely no doubt that you lied. He is, in effect,
trying to claim you for himself by defending you.
Don't let him do that.

For now, our NMnot remains the man who told us
that he has "standards," even though he posted
messages under false names in which he PRAISED
HIMSELF, for Pete's sake. He remains the man who lied
about his rating. He remains the man who evinces
authentic character weakness when placed under
intellectual pressure.

NMnot Kingston will never forgive Greg Kennedy
for repeatedly forcing him to address the lie he told
about his rating. If Greg had just kept his big bazoo
zipped, NM Kingston would have quietly borne
references to his past on these forums. But when Greg
spoke up, a debate began, and our NMnot had to enter
the fray once again.

I confess that after my second posting on the
Kingston lie, I knew that NMnot would not reply and
worried that Greg would also keep quiet. But Greg
came through by issuing another response.

By the way, NMnot inflated his rating by 500
points -- not just 50.

Yours, Larry Parr





help bot wrote:
On Nov 2, 9:27 am, samsloan wrote:

To add to the point made by Sam Sloan re Taylor Kingston's
subject when stating without irony and quite straightforwardly that he
was 2300+ ELO, every reader can ask himself this question: when
someone tells you unadorned that he is 2300+ ELO, do you understand
his meaning to be a statement about his over-the-board playing
strength

...which was never even mentioned...


or do you, without any aside from the man making the
claim, say to yourself, "Oh yeah, he must be talkin' about his postal
chess."

..which was also not mentioned...


It seems that Mr. Parr is a very irrational creature. Unless and
until any particular type of play is specified, there is no basis
whatever for simply assuming any such things -- except of
course, sheer desperation! LOL



Yes, he did confound those two a bit. OTOH! Other items in the Kingston
Files reveal he had a decent OTB tournament tpr of about 2050, which is
genuinely above that 1800, and in the 99th percentile of rated players. From
memory I think Curdo was in his group, who was then about 2400 - so, a fair
test.

Not true. Kingson's all time highest rating was 1853. Since 1991 his
rating has ranged from 1762 to 1853. His correspondence rating is
2027. He has never been anywhere close to 2300 either over-the-board
or in correspondence play:

http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlMain.php?12360630


Nice, um, research Mr. Sloan. But as so often happens,
you have missed the forest for the trees. This entire issue
was beaten to death a very long time ago, and it was made
clear that the rating to which TK was referring needed to be
converted to its modern USCF equivalent in order to
comprehend what he was saying.

The weakness in the claim is that TK said he forfeited
many games through not finishing them, and this has yet
to be verified as far as I know. But that relates to what
happened to his rating *after* he peaked, and as we know
his reference did not pertain to that aspect. Indeed, it was
crystal clear that he was talking about a /peak/ rating of
some kind.

There was a lot of discussion over how to properly convert
TK's correspondence rating to its modern USCF equivalent,
and in the end a supposed expert appeared who corrected
his math to the tune of around 50 points to the downside.
That put him at say 2250+, instead of his claimed 2300+.
I may be mistaken, but I think TK erred the other way in
giving his ranking, shorting himself a tad. Perhaps one of
the ratpacker desperadoes here could check on that for us.


If it's a lie you desire, then check out the Shakespeare
newsgroups for postings by nearly-an-IM Innes. You'll find
that he tried to pass himself off as "nearly an IM", and even
went so far as to invent a 2450 rating out of thin air. (Ever
since, the poor boy has been trying to wiggle the number
downward to 2400 or less, but to no avail.)

In the case of IM Innes, there was no confusion over the
proper conversion of old ratings to new; nobody even
asked him to guesstimate or inform regarding his strength;
no, he volunteered the misinformation on his own, under
no pressure and for some reason felt compelled to relate
"facts" of his own creation. I think that tells the tale. As
far as I know, even Larry Parr has never done that sort of
thing, never invented titles or ratings for himself, so you
can imagine how disappointing this was.

Heck, I don't believe Larry Parr has ever stooped to just
inventing ratings or titles, even for his idol GM Evans, so
this is really stooping low; getting down even lower than
LP, who generally sets the bar on such things. :(


-- help bot

On Nov 3, 1:38 am, " wrote:

Once again, the scene is your club. Someone
whom you know little or not at all walks in and then
announces, "[O]n the subject of playing strength, I
have never claimed to be any great player,
but I think with a peak Elo of 2300+ I am a tad
better than weak."

Good gawd -- not another one of /those/ people!

It reminds me of the threads here in rgc in which the
subject of IQ is discussed. Without fail, a half dozen
or more posters immediately announce that they are
among the top 2% of all the people in the world, in
spite of the obvious fact that they are wasting their
valuable time by reading and posting here at rgc.


Will those in the club, who are listening, say to
themselves, "This guy is a master at 2300+ Elo."

A subtle point often missed by weak players -- and
here by Mr. Parr -- is that 2300 is the *bottom* of the
FIDE master class. So when someone says their
"peak" FIDE rating was 2300, it means they may very
well be in a lower class now (a "former" FM, if there is
such a thing).

Now, in USCF terms, 2300 is smack dab in the
middle of the NM class, so if one's peak really was
2300+, it is unknown what class they might be in now.
Many such players are sitting on a rating floor, which
would typically be 2200.


or will they say, "Oh, yah, he's talkin' about postal
chess because when a guy mentions his ratings,
chances are he is talking about postal chess."

Most people at the local club would probably make
no assumption one way or another, and instead ask:
"Really? What's your rating now? And did you ever
play Emory Tate? How did you do in the State
Championship? That sort of thing.


I submit that the first reaction of listeners
-- the one certainly sought by NMnot when writing his
lie -- is to assume that OTB rating is being claimed.

Freaky. In many people's estimation, a correspondence
rating is superior to an OTB rating in the sense that OTB
entails such skills as time-management, blitz, and being
able to think in spite of annoyances like inconsiderate
players talking, doors slamming, etc., etc.

Correspondence play -- cheating aside -- is a far better
measure of depth of understanding, added to research
and position judgment. In the case in question, the
rating and ranking were earned pre-computer, so that
leaves only the possibility that say, IM Innes was
consulted during play. I dismiss that possibility on the
rationale that most cheaters don't like to involve others
for obvious reasons, and this particular case would've
required the involvement of a very skilled player -- likely
someone much better than IM Innes.


NMnot Kingston could end this discussion and
thereby dispense with the embarrassing

I expect he enjoys the embarrassment. As one
poster recently put it, there is a certain degree of
entertainment value in watching the antics of the
ratpack. Even those who recommend kill filing say,
IM Innes, are obviously not following their own
advice, but reading this stuff.


I would ask our NMnot: Why not admit you
employed false identities to PRAISE YOURSELF

He could start with Sanny. Nobody believes that
guy is for real. He must be an invention, and why is
it that he always says TK is better than help bot when
help bot much higher-rated at 1350+? I smell a rat.


But these are mere annoyances. The real issue is
IM Innes and his lying problem. I challenge IM Innes
to admit that he told a fib, that he made all that stuff
up because he mistakenly thought he could get away
with it, and now he is ready to reform. I just want the
nearly-a-man to own his own words; to stand up off
the floor (laughing or not); to crawl out of the muck.
Don't do it for me; do it for the Gipper. Or do it for
Rob "The Robber" Mitchell, but just do it.


-- help bot

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

On Nov 2, 6:59 pm, "Chess One" wrote:

But the way you wrote Taylor was as if you said it was 2300 OTB. That's
all.


No, Phil. I never said that, in any way, express or implied.

I am glad that the issue is now resolved, but as for implied, well... !

That
was Sloan's leapt-to conclusion, which was exactly my point at the
time, to demonstrate the extreme shallowness of his investigative
technique.

I do not obsess about these things - some people do nothing else ((

- but you chose a poor example to illustrate Sloan's shallowness.

And in using the term shallow, I am being charitable.
In any event, you are hardly in a position to comment, with your
claim to being "nearly an IM rated 2450." This is rather like
Mussolini calling someone a fascist.

To you it is, but your frequently nearest comparisons are usually to
Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin... so I take no intellectual offence.

You sort of didn't tell the truth - and worse, got an alter ego to show
up
and boost you.

You are hallucinating again, Phil. Once again the "alternate
universes" hypothesis comes to mind: one for you, one for everyone
else.

My writing about my rating was sloppy, so was yours. Mine was because I was
writing to non-chess players, who don't even know which way the ELO scale
goes, up or down.

I don't know your excuse. But 'hallucinations' - I don't think so! We both
could have written better - that's all.

Phil Innes

"David Richerby" wrote in message
...
samsloan wrote:
ELO is a FIDE rating, not a USCF rating and especially not a
correspondence chess rating.

False. Elo is a system of rating, developed by Arpad Elo, for the
USCF. It is also used by FIDE and numerous other organizations, not
even restricted to chess.

That's true historically Don Schultz got Dr. Elo to evolve the system
//Chess Don.

Sloan's point is that it then became [almost] universally adopted, so that
the /same pool/ of players are referenced by Fide - whereas USCF ratings
[like British ones] deviated from the world pool of players.

Phil Innes


Dave.

--
David Richerby Pickled Poetic Laser (TM): it's
like
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ an intense beam of light but
it's in
verse and preserved in vinegar!

On Nov 2, 7:27 pm, Taylor Kingston wrote:

But the way you wrote Taylor was as if you said it was 2300 OTB. That's all.

No, Phil. I never said that, in any way, express or implied. That
was Sloan's leapt-to conclusion, which was exactly my point at the
time, to demonstrate the extreme shallowness of his investigative
technique. And in using the term shallow, I am being charitable.

I don't credit Mr. Sloan with conducting a shallow investigation.

I think he, like another mindless drone here, is toeing the line
drawn by Larry Parr. I think these drones are either unable or
else unwilling to *think for themselves*, so they get drawn into
the LP cesspool. Of course, since they cannot think for
themselves, they cannot be held accountable for following
orders like all good drones.


In any event, you are hardly in a position to comment, with your
claim to being "nearly an IM rated 2450." This is rather like
Mussolini calling someone a fascist.

Poor analogy. IMO, one is a case of flawed math, while
the other was obviously a case of *deliberate deception*.

So we need to make an analogy where one guy accidently
shoots someone by mistake, while the other guy (the one
corresponding to IM Innes) can be axe-murderer Lizzy Borden.


-- help bot