I went to a bookstore today and saw that they had copies of a new
edition of _Basic Chess Endings_, revised by Pal Benko and converted
to algebraic notation. I hadn't known it was in the works. Has
anyone looked at it in depth or know of any reviews of it?

Basic Chess Endings was the book I learned by endgames from, many
years ago, and while I own and like the new _Fundamental Chess
Endings_, I still use the old BCE quite a lot; I think it has some
advantages as a reference work. So, is the proofreading of the
conversion to algebraic good? I assume Benko's revisions are fine--I
can't imagine he'd do a bad job.

Thanks in advance for any help.

-ed g.

In article ,
(Ed Gaillard) wrote:

Basic Chess Endings was the book I learned by endgames from, many
years ago, and while I own and like the new _Fundamental Chess
Endings_, I still use the old BCE quite a lot; I think it has some
advantages as a reference work. So, is the proofreading of the
conversion to algebraic good? I assume Benko's revisions are fine--I
can't imagine he'd do a bad job.

I'm curious: has proofreading gotten better with the advent of really
good chess computers? I'd think there'd be a way to run the moves
through a good program to find out if there are errors.

--Harold Buck


"I used to rock and roll all night,
and party every day.
Then it was every other day. . . ."
-Homer J. Simpson

"Harold Buck" escribió en el mensaje
...
In article ,
(Ed Gaillard) wrote:

Basic Chess Endings was the book I learned by endgames from, many
years ago, and while I own and like the new _Fundamental Chess
Endings_, I still use the old BCE quite a lot; I think it has some
advantages as a reference work. So, is the proofreading of the
conversion to algebraic good? I assume Benko's revisions are fine--I
can't imagine he'd do a bad job.

I'm curious: has proofreading gotten better with the advent of really
good chess computers? I'd think there'd be a way to run the moves
through a good program to find out if there are errors.

--Harold Buck

Going a step further I think one can feed the descriptive notation to a
computer to make it translate into algebraic. Ofcourse that implies having
an electronic-format copy of the old book and feeding the starting positions
also. It also annoys me to find so much transcription errors in new versions
of classic good books to algebraic. And that old descriptive notation is
really difficult to read. Even much, much more if the book its not written
in your native tongue. I, for example, am spanish but have no problem
reading a chess book in english if it's in algebraic, but english
descriptive is simply out of my grasp so I avoid those editions.

Regards,
mafergut

hello
I have the 2 volumes, in algebraic notation, "Practical Chess Endgames" (
title if my memory is good; I am not at home!) written by Pal Benko,
majority of pages are compilation of fine articles, and I think it is the
better choice for studying endgames: good theory, top choice for exemples
My supplier was Chess Digest
Regards
Vincent

"mafergut" a écrit dans le message
de news: ...

"Harold Buck" escribió en el mensaje
...
In article ,
(Ed Gaillard) wrote:

Basic Chess Endings was the book I learned by endgames from, many
years ago, and while I own and like the new _Fundamental Chess
Endings_, I still use the old BCE quite a lot; I think it has some
advantages as a reference work. So, is the proofreading of the
conversion to algebraic good? I assume Benko's revisions are fine--I
can't imagine he'd do a bad job.

I'm curious: has proofreading gotten better with the advent of really
good chess computers? I'd think there'd be a way to run the moves
through a good program to find out if there are errors.

--Harold Buck

Going a step further I think one can feed the descriptive notation to a
computer to make it translate into algebraic. Ofcourse that implies having
an electronic-format copy of the old book and feeding the starting
positions
also. It also annoys me to find so much transcription errors in new
versions
of classic good books to algebraic. And that old descriptive notation is
really difficult to read. Even much, much more if the book its not written
in your native tongue. I, for example, am spanish but have no problem
reading a chess book in english if it's in algebraic, but english
descriptive is simply out of my grasp so I avoid those editions.

Regards,
mafergut

In article , mafergut wrote:

Going a step further I think one can feed the descriptive notation to a
computer to make it translate into algebraic. Ofcourse that implies having
an electronic-format copy of the old book and feeding the starting positions
also. It also annoys me to find so much transcription errors in new versions
of classic good books to algebraic. And that old descriptive notation is
really difficult to read. Even much, much more if the book its not written
in your native tongue. I, for example, am spanish but have no problem
reading a chess book in english if it's in algebraic, but english
descriptive is simply out of my grasp so I avoid those editions.

Regards,
mafergut



I used to say the same about Spanish descriptive notation back in the '70's
(!)

Though I grew up with English descriptive, I must admit that I find that
playing through games and analysis in descriptive nowadays to be at best
annoying. So much so that, when looking up particular games, I not
infrequently turn to foreign-language editions of standard American or
English classics (like for example the New York 1924 or Nottingham 1936
tournaments, or even things like Reshevsky's or Marshall's game collections)
just because the notation and frequently the modern page layout are more
rational.


I still, however, will refer to an English descriptive edition of a classic
work in preference to an English algebraic edition that has been "Nunnized".
This doesn't apply to a text-book or reference work like BCE, of course,
which has needed a revision for 40 years or more.



Cheers,

--Kevin

Kevin Croxen wrote:
I still, however, will refer to an English descriptive edition of a
classic work in preference to an English algebraic edition that has been
"Nunnized".

Lots of people seem to complain about Nunn here -- what does he do that's
so objectionable?


Dave.

--
David Richerby Expensive Widget (TM): it's like a
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ thingy but it'll break the bank!

On 04 Dec 2003 15:40:05 +0000 (GMT), David Richerby
wrote:

Kevin Croxen wrote:
I still, however, will refer to an English descriptive edition of a
classic work in preference to an English algebraic edition that has been
"Nunnized".

Lots of people seem to complain about Nunn here -- what does he do that's
so objectionable?


Dave.

--
David Richerby Expensive Widget (TM): it's like a
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ thingy but it'll break the bank!

I must have missed these complaints. I don't read every single
message in this newsgroup completely, but this is the first complain I
have seen about Nunn updating classic books.

I have replaced several books with Nunn's updated versions - "The Art
of Attack" by Vukovic and "Capablanca's Best Games" by Golmbek. The
original reson for replacing them was that I prefer algebraic
notation; however, the books have a major plus in that Nunn corrected
the orginal analysis (especially with the Vukovic book.) The only
real downside to Nunn's books are that because they are new they often
are several times the cost of the original book from a used book
store.

Mike Ogush

In article , Mike Ogush wrote:
On 04 Dec 2003 15:40:05 +0000 (GMT), David Richerby
wrote:

Kevin Croxen wrote:
I still, however, will refer to an English descriptive edition of a
classic work in preference to an English algebraic edition that has been
"Nunnized".

Lots of people seem to complain about Nunn here -- what does he do that's
so objectionable?


Dave.

--
David Richerby Expensive Widget (TM): it's like a
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ thingy but it'll break the bank!

I must have missed these complaints. I don't read every single
message in this newsgroup completely, but this is the first complain I
have seen about Nunn updating classic books.

I have replaced several books with Nunn's updated versions - "The Art
of Attack" by Vukovic and "Capablanca's Best Games" by Golmbek. The
original reson for replacing them was that I prefer algebraic
notation; however, the books have a major plus in that Nunn corrected
the orginal analysis (especially with the Vukovic book.) The only
real downside to Nunn's books are that because they are new they often
are several times the cost of the original book from a used book
store.

Mike Ogush



I like most of Nunn's original writing, and his opening works in
particular have helped me net points I otherwise certainly would not have.

The Ur-complaint about Nunn's treatment of classic books was what happened to
the Batsford edition of Fischer's "My 60 Memorable Games", which has been
analyzed ad nauseum by Winter, Silman, and others. Since then, it's true,
Nunn's touch has been much defter, and many of his editions are praised as
improvements over their classic originals.

Nevertheless... if I read an autobiographical collection, I want to read it
as close as I can to the way the author left it. Not necessarily edited up
with idiosyncracies in the prose smoothed out, nor with analysis changed by a
later editor, nor "brought up to date" to the time of the autobiographer's
death, beyond where the author himself abandoned the work. The
autobiographical author should, as nearly as is humanly possible, be read
unmediated. Anything else should go into an end-note, or perhaps an editor's
forward, or perhaps an appendix.

If something so disturbs an editor that he feels compelled to stick his
fingers in the late author's mouth, rather than dithering with the
autobiography at all, I believe the reader is better served by this editor
instead writing his own biographical collection _ab ovo_ on the topic of the
earlier author and his games. I feel that autobiographical collections are as
much about the "auto-" as about the "biographical" or the "collection".
Whatever their comparative strengths and weaknesses, Golombek and Reinfeld
composed their own biographical collections of Capablanca's work. They didn't
take "My Chess Career", scour it and correct it for errors of fact or
analysis, smooth the prose, take it up to the period of the Cuban's death and
claim to be issuing a "corrected" or "enhanced" edition of "My Chess Career".
Such a thing would likely never have occurred to them. Do Tal or Fischer or
Keres deserve less than Capablanca? (Leaving aside the different and slightly
weird issue of a "Nunnized" Golombek on Capablanca...) Does an "enhanced" or
"corrected" English algebraic edition someday await even shudder
Botvinnik's "One Hundred Selected Games"? Just wondering.

Now don't get me wrong: I'm very glad that OP descriptive autobiographical
works can be algebraicized and reissued to an audience that might otherwise
never encounter them. But I feel that _all_ that should be done for these
works is that the notation should be converted. Anything else is intrusion.

Now none of this extends to text-books or reference works. So if "The Art of
Attack", or "The Development of Chess Style" or BCE are thoroughly re-edited
with modern examples and analysis, I think this is perfectly OK. Necessary,
in fact. But not so much in the case of, say, Hays' edition of "My System", a
text which is as much autobiographical collection as it is treatise. In that
case, just let the author speak for himself in as close to his own voice as
may be achieved through accurate translation. Bad jokes and all.

I'm not sure where I stand yet regarding tournament books; but I'm not aware
to what extent this sort of practice exists in tournament books.

Anyway, just wanted to communicate my own $.02 about the whole practice. I
suspect few others are as puritanical about the issue as I am.

Cheers,

--Kevin

On 4 Dec 2003 19:54:52 GMT, Kevin Croxen
wrote:

Whatever their comparative strengths and weaknesses, Golombek and Reinfeld
composed their own biographical collections of Capablanca's work. They didn't
take "My Chess Career", scour it and correct it for errors of fact or
analysis, smooth the prose, take it up to the period of the Cuban's death and
claim to be issuing a "corrected" or "enhanced" edition of "My Chess Career".
Such a thing would likely never have occurred to them.

While not quite the same thing, Reinfeld (with Horowitz, I believe),
extensively revised Coles' "Epic Battles of the Chessboard", and also
one of Edward Lasker's books. One can argue that these books should
have been brought up to date, but it's kind of like turning the
Regence into a Starbuck's, IMO.

Kevin Croxen wrote:
I like most of Nunn's original writing, and his opening works in
particular have helped me net points I otherwise certainly would not
have.

The Ur-complaint about Nunn's treatment of classic books was what
happened to the Batsford edition of Fischer's "My 60 Memorable Games"

[etc]

OK -- I see your point. Thanks for explaining.


The autobiographical author should, as nearly as is humanly possible, be
read unmediated. Anything else should go into an end-note, or perhaps an
editor's forward, or perhaps an appendix.

Footnotes would be far better than ay of those. I find it's important to
have the explanations / corrections on the same page as the text they
apply to or the book becomes unreadable. The problem with endnotes is
that it takes far too long to find them so you get sick of the boring ones
(`Source: Some Guy, _My Book_, 1847') and miss the interesting (`This
analysis is rather shot down by 48... Qxg3#.')


Dave.

--
David Richerby Hilarious Happy Chainsaw (TM): it's
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ like a lethal weapon that makes your
troubles melt away but it's a bundle
of laughs!