THE CHESSCAFE BLACKLIST

But Schiller's books add nothing that cannot be found in a million other places--often simply copied (or paraphrased) not only from others' works (like the MCO or, as in his recent book about Fisher, from earlier books about Fisher), but often from Schiller 's own previous books. So virtually the ONLY thing that is new in a Schiller book is the typos, unreliably analysis, and historical gaffes. Is it any wonder they figure prominently in the criticism of Schiller? -- avital.pil

Eric Schiller is compared with Reuben Fine and
Paul Keres and ... found wanting. Mr. Schiller, we
are told, copies and collates and makes errors. Of
course he does.

Many of Eric's books are explicitly works meant
to provide plenty of information at a low price. He
does not spend years on an ending volume as Fine did
(though Fine made plenty of errors) or produce the
kind of original analysis that Keres might work out
over a number of years and then reproduce in, say, his
fine and fascinating Dreispringspiel bis Koenigsgambit.

Eric Schiller is a popular writer who has made a
lot of information available at a fraction of the prices
that one will pay for German editions of Keres' work.
Does he have a market? Evidently so. He has been
stocked on bookshelves for years by major outlets, and
they do not give up shelf space lightly.

In any event, ChessCafe does not blacklist Eric
Schiller because of the quality of his books. Eric is
blacklisted for the same reason as this writer (my
well received works with Arnold Denker and Lev
Alburt) Ray Keene and Larry Evans: we are loathed by
the proprietor. Such is the man's undoubted right --
to prevent the discussion from yet again commencing
with the dreary, "but it's the proprietor's right ...,"
etc. -- and it is our right to hold the man's
reputation to the flame.

I have seen no study showing that Eric's works
are unusually filled with errors when compared with
the work of other popularizers. What I have read are
long rants about his poor work, accompanied in the
case of Taylor Kingston, with a half dozen tired
examples of mistakes spread over 100 or more books.

In Mr. Avital's case, no examples of errors are
adduced, simply paragraphs of abuse. And on the
subject of typos in a short post, that's Fischer, not "Fisher."

Let us limit the discussion. Do you feel that it is appropriate to not stock the
work of a writer because the writer's output is consistently of poor quality?

Hopefully, that will allow the real disagreement to be clarified, which is
muddied in the discussion. Are we arguing about whether Schiller's work is
substandard, or are we arguing about whether the USCF should be in the business
of assessing quality of work before associating its name with the item?

Of course, I realize that these issues are not black-and-white. One can argue
that a rehashed opening book is bad, but not so bad that we don't want to stock
it; that doesn't mean that we must sell plagiarized works as well. You can argue
that putting our names on bad books is OK, but not putting our name on supposed
performance enhancing additives. Still, I would like to figure out what the core
principles are, in Larry's and Sam's opinion (since these are the people who seem
to have the main grudge with the current policy).

Jerry Spinrad




In article .com, " writes:
| THE CHESSCAFE BLACKLIST
|
| But Schiller's books add nothing that cannot be found in a million other places--often simply copied (or paraphrased) not only from others' works (like the MCO or, as in his recent book about Fisher, from earlier books about Fisher), but often from Schil| ler 's own previous books. So virtually the ONLY thing that is new in a Schiller book is the typos, unreliably analysis, and historical gaffes. Is it any wonder they figure prominently in the criticism of Schiller? -- avital.pil
|
| Eric Schiller is compared with Reuben Fine and
| Paul Keres and ... found wanting. Mr. Schiller, we
| are told, copies and collates and makes errors. Of
| course he does.
|
| Many of Eric's books are explicitly works meant
| to provide plenty of information at a low price. He
| does not spend years on an ending volume as Fine did
| (though Fine made plenty of errors) or produce the
| kind of original analysis that Keres might work out
| over a number of years and then reproduce in, say, his
| fine and fascinating Dreispringspiel bis Koenigsgambit.
|
| Eric Schiller is a popular writer who has made a
| lot of information available at a fraction of the prices
| that one will pay for German editions of Keres' work.
| Does he have a market? Evidently so. He has been
| stocked on bookshelves for years by major outlets, and
| they do not give up shelf space lightly.
|
| In any event, ChessCafe does not blacklist Eric
| Schiller because of the quality of his books. Eric is
| blacklisted for the same reason as this writer (my
| well received works with Arnold Denker and Lev
| Alburt) Ray Keene and Larry Evans: we are loathed by
| the proprietor. Such is the man's undoubted right --
| to prevent the discussion from yet again commencing
| with the dreary, "but it's the proprietor's right ...,"
| etc. -- and it is our right to hold the man's
| reputation to the flame.
|
| I have seen no study showing that Eric's works
| are unusually filled with errors when compared with
| the work of other popularizers. What I have read are
| long rants about his poor work, accompanied in the
| case of Taylor Kingston, with a half dozen tired
| examples of mistakes spread over 100 or more books.
|
| In Mr. Avital's case, no examples of errors are
| adduced, simply paragraphs of abuse. And on the
| subject of typos in a short post, that's Fischer, not "Fisher."
|

wrote:
In any event, ChessCafe does not blacklist Eric
Schiller because of the quality of his books.

Quite true, since ChessCafe has never "blacklisted" Schiller. On the
rare occasion that he has written something worthwhile, it has been on
the catalog. However, such occasions are rare indeed.
As for "blacklisting" Schiller's bad books, you might as well say
that classical music radio stations blacklist the Monkees.

I have seen no study showing that Eric's works
are unusually filled with errors when compared with
the work of other popularizers.

Neither have you seen any study showing that Paris Hilton can't act,
Ja Rule can't sing, Ed Wood made terrible movies, and that the Red
Sox's pitching wasn't as good this year compared to last. Some things
are rather obvious, at least to those who are not blind or
disingenuous.

What I have read are
long rants about his poor work, accompanied in the
case of Taylor Kingston, with a half dozen tired
examples of mistakes spread over 100 or more books.

Then like an ostrich with its head in the sand, you are refusing to
look at the facts. And apparently you think that rgcp/rgcm readers
suffer from Alzheimer's disease, and expect they've forgotten the many
examples shown here by myself and others over the past few weeks. While
on many other subjects you frequently boast of your broad and deep
erudition, and insult those whose knowledge or research you deem
inadequate, here you display gross ignorance on a matter that is
basically common knowledge. As I said before, Larry, you're either
amazingly uninformed or amazingly dishonest.

wrote in message
oups.com...
SNIP

Ah, yes. The "quantity, not quality" defense. Larry employs that all the
time when defending many of Sloan's ludicrous claims on these forums.
Surely, no one is surprised.

Larry Parr wrote (16 Oct 2005 20:05:20 -0700):

The memoir that Arnold Denker and I wrote, though
in print and though winning the ACF and Cramer book
of the year award in 1996, is also banned.

_
"Agreed, it's a good book. The $39.95 price (for a
paperback on Amazon, yet) might be a stumbling
block. Why so high? The copy I bought new about
8-10 years ago was only $19.95, full retail." - Taylor
Kingston (10 Oct 2005 13:38:30 -0700)

Larry Parr wrote (18 Oct 2005 08:53:39 -0700):

He has been stocked on bookshelves for years
by major outlets, and they do not give up shelf
space lightly.

_
"We are told on the front and back covers [of 'World
Champion Openings' by Eric Schiller] that the author
is '...the world's leading authority on chess openings!'
We are told this THREE times, no doubt so that we
do not forget! Of course, what this preposterous claim
is based on is never revealed. Experienced players
will howl if they read that claim, but unfortunately
inexperienced players or beginners may in fact be
misled but such nonsense."
_
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/wco.txt

"Yes, I agree that Pandolfini is only marginally better than Schiller.
They are both awful hacks." avitar

But the difference is ChessCafe blacklists Schiller and stocks
Pandolfini whose latest effort THE Q&A WAY IN CHESS (2005) is merely a
reprint of his column since 1999 in the Cafe.

Needless to add, Hanon Russell is mentioned rather graciously in the
introduction to this tripe.

According to Kingston, of course, there is no bias in the reviews and
no banning of authors -- though he fails to mention the omission of
fine books cited by Parr that were not written by Schiller.

SPINRAD'S QUESTION.

Let us limit the discussion. Do you feel that it is appropriate to not stock the work of a writer because the writer's output is consistently of poor quality? -- Jeremy Spinrod

I have no philosophy of what should and should not be stocked.

The proprietor has the right, to my mind, to ban any author he
wishes. We authors have the right to raise holy heck about it.

If I were running the book and equipment business, I would look
first at the category of books that sell: opening volumes and
instructional works.
Stock those! Next comes biographical games collections and memoirs, if
memory serves. Next comes tournament books, which usually sell poorly.
Finally, you get down to the problems and chess variant books, which
generally sell poorly.

You use commonsense: order more books on
Morphy than on Milko Bobotsov, though I personally
would like to see a collection of his best games.

As for banning books by an author notorious for
this or that, I know of no such person, including
Reshevsky who wrote a hideous potboiler on Great
Chess Upsets. My recollection is that the same game
was repeated in the book.

You don't ban Alekhine because in the very same book he offered
conflict evaluations of the same position -- let alone, as charged
against Schiller, of offering different views in different books.

What is a plagiarized chess book? One that reprints games from
the Informant with similar notes, say, on a given opening? Is it
plagiarism, for
example, to write a work on the Smith-Morra Gambit by culling a lot of
games from databases and adding notes from other sources? If so, then
the contents of
nearly every work in chess are highly plagiarized. It is said that
someone put out a work on combinations that was nearly a reprint of
Fred Reinfeld's 1001 Chess Combinations or 1001 Checkmates -- or
whatever the title was. But what about Reinfeld, he got the positions
from the games of others. He went net fishing and put them without
comment in a book, giving the solutions at the end.

Or what about Reinfeld's all-time bestseller,
Chess in a Nutshell. All he did was copy down some
rules and add a few rudimentary explanations. At one
level, it is a NOTHING book; and nearly anything
written by Eric is far meatier. Should Chess in a
Nutshell be banned by ChessCafe?

I don't know.

In lieu of being unable to answer such questions,
my view is that if an chess author is selling well or
has done something of interest, he should not be
banned or blacklisted. One may chose NOT to stock,
say, Jimmy Liew's selection of Malaysian games, but
that would strictly be for sales reasons.

REPRINTING MATERIAL

But the difference is ChessCafe blacklists Schiller
and stocks Pandolfini whose latest effort THE Q&A WAY IN CHESS (2005)
is merely a reprint of his column since 1999 in the Cafe. -- jr

My point would be a bit different.

I see nothing wrong with Bruce Pandolfini putting out
a collection of his Q&A articles in ChessCafe.
Larry Evans did this kind of thing with his Chess
Catechism, and Al Horowitz put out instructional books
containing his old chess movies from the pages of
Chess Review. Some readers want this kind of thing
for a record or a remembrance of what they read in
magazines or newspapers.

Still, yes, IF one is going to attack Eric
Schiller for compiling data in books or repeating some
of his previous work (one of the charges retailed by
the Winter-Cafe lads) then one could attack a
Pandolfini or an Evans for offering readers material
they already published elsewhere in a highly
visible forum.

wrote in message
ups.com...
REPRINTING MATERIAL

But the difference is ChessCafe blacklists Schiller
and stocks Pandolfini whose latest effort THE Q&A WAY IN CHESS (2005)
is merely a reprint of his column since 1999 in the Cafe. -- jr

My point would be a bit different.

Wait....wasn't that *your* point?