jr wrote:
* An instant book appeared soon after the match ended. Did it occur to
you, GM Keene, that this is PRECISELY THE PROBLEM? * (Skeptic)

Did it ever occur to you, Mr. Pipel, that it is almost impossible
to earn a living from chess and that instant books are a cash cow
that pay the rent for chess pros?

Like your hero Edward Winter, you guys make mountains out of
tpos and wrong dates which are not fundamental errors (as Keene
pointed out). Often these are not even the fault of the authors who
don't always see the final proofs before articles go to press.

Many instant books appeared after Fischer-Spassky in 1972
(Gligoric, Reshevsky, etc.) which outsold more serious works
that hit the market later by Byrne, Evans, etc.

* But the whole point of good writing, or good analysis, is to take
thetrouble to make sure the analysis is not 80% or 90% correct,
but 100%correct, or at least as close to that as possible. Kramnik
took careand effort to do so. You couldn't be bothered.* (Skeptic)

Kramnik's notes came out much later in New In Chess which
pays a fraction of what instant books bring in. If you want 100%
perfection, leave the real world and try living on another planet.

"There is hardly a product of our culture that someone cannot make a
little worse and sell for a little less, and the one who puts price
above all other considerations is the natural prey of this man." -
John Ruskin

* "There is hardly a product of our culture that someone cannot make
a
little worse and sell for a little less, and the one who puts price
above all other considerations is the natural prey of this man." -
John Ruskin * (Kingston)

Instead of dishing out more homilies, how about fulfilling your
pledge to answer Keene's point by point critique of your putrid
review of his book about Nimzo?

jr wrote:
Instead of dishing out more homilies, how about fulfilling your
pledge to answer Keene's point by point critique of your putrid
review of his book about Nimzo?

Instead of always evading the question, why don't you explain to us
why you lied about Richard Laurie? Or at least, be a man and admit that
you did lie?

Did it ever occur to you, Mr. Pipel, that it is almost impossible
to earn a living from chess and that instant books are a cash cow
that pay the rent for chess pros?

Are you saying one should buy Keene's worthless books as a charity, to
make sure he can pay the rent and afford to play chess?

Sorry, this one doesn't fly. Keene is one of the richest people in
chess. He is just about the LAST chess player who needs, let alone
deserves, financial help.

And, in any case, if he wants charity, he should ask for it--not expect
us to understand we are morally obliged to buy his crappy books as part
of our duty to support chess.

Like your hero Edward Winter, you guys make mountains out of
tpos and wrong dates which are not fundamental errors (as Keene
pointed out). Often these are not even the fault of the authors who
don't always see the final proofs before articles go to press.

Yet somehow, other writers manage to avoid these pitfalls to a far
greater degree than Keene. Why is that? Oh wait--they take some care
over their work, and don't churn our instant books for a quick buck, at
least not as habitually and shamelessly as Keene does.

Kramnik's notes came out much later in New In Chess which
pays a fraction of what instant books bring in. If you want 100%
perfection, leave the real world and try living on another planet.

Or, just possibly, I could instead buy books by Richard Forster, John
Hilbert, Edward Winter, Botvinnik, Alehkine, Keres, Shirov,
Boleslavsky, Prudy, Capablanca, Bronstein, Seirawan (sp?) or many, many
other chess players and historians who--despite living in the real
world just as much as Keene--manage to actually write books that
present original material and analysis with care and without nearly as
many errors as Keene's books.

Perhaps there is no such thing as a perfect chess book (though, in my
view, Richard Forster's book about Amos Burn comes quite close), but
we're not asking for perfection. We're asking for some minimum degree
of care. Keene doesn't have it.

Taylor Kingston wrote (1 May 2006 09:35:57 -0700):

Instead of always evading the question, why don't you
explain to us why you lied about Richard Laurie? Or at
least, be a man and admit that you did lie?

_
It would also be interesting to see jr explain how it came
about that he posted a note "In-Reply-To":
_
.com
(a note posted by me)
_
although, for months, he has been claiming to have
"plonked" me.

ALL QUIET ON THE KINGSTON FRONT

Instead of dishing out more homilies, how about fulfilling your
pledge to answer Keene's point by point critique of your putrid
review of his book about Nimzo? -- jr

NM Kingston's response to Ray Keene's review of
his review simply ignored the re-review. That's all.

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

Chess One wrote:
"Taylor Kingston" wrote in message
oups.com...

FAIR CHALLENGE?

I strongly suggest that Russel should be contacted - in fact if Taylor
Kingston doesn't I will.

I already have, Phil, but feel free to contact him yourself if you
like. However, I suggest you spell his name correctly.

What we would like to know about where Kingston wrote his
article -Chesscafe - and about the CJA Code of Ethics, that Kingston
cites
as authority

I did not cite the CJA.

To whom? I thought that was the basis of Brennan's objection? Let me look it
up - why! here it is:-

Technically, it's Larry Parr that violated your copyright, Taylor,
since Mr. Keene didn't reprint the review. In addition to any legal
line Mr. Parr crossed, he seems to have violated the Code of Ethics of
the Chess Journalists of America. Mr. Parr is a CJA member.

I realize, like many, that Philth Innes is insane, but surely he
realizes Taylor Kingston and I are two different persons?

I therefore wonder what you wrote to him? I myself wrote tot he CJA
president this morning in response to a dialogue he initiated with me.

Yeah, sure. Hanken 'initiated' the exchange by asking you to stop
spamming him, most probably.

, is if Hanon Russel, who controls both,

You are saying that Hanon Russell controls the CJA??

No, he controls what may be said about it.

Brattleboro is going to be renamed Peyote Place.

thinks Keene's
copyright was abridged by Kinston's review.

Hitting the peyote again, Phil?

Is that a Californian term?

I'll tell you what - I'll write to CJA on this matter directly and ask what
guidelines they have for protection of copyright,

Please tell us what the response was, Philth.

citing this instance of
your review of Keene. I will mention that your comment seems to be a
drug-culture one, and this was the entire sunstantive reply you made.

Oh, please tell us the response, Philth.

The issue is whether Keene/Parr's
posting of a large part of *my* copyrighted review, without receiving
or asking permission, is a copyright violation.

What could be fairer than that? )

Probably any number of things, but to be sure it would first be
necessary for your position to be comprehensible.

Which is why you snipped it? ROFL

Snip remainder of Innes post.

WINTER'S RATPACKERS

By GM Raymond Keene

This is the third part of my recent extended involvement in the
deliberations of this august forum. First of all, I would like to make
a number of general points before I go through everything that has
been introduced -- some might say rehashed without supporting evidence
-- since my last contribution.

I am enjoying this debate immensely and find the mental exercise
exhilarating. It provides useful copy for my forthcoming book WINTER OF
DISCONTENT, RAY KEENE AND THE RATPACKERS on which I am currently
working (to be published by HARDINGE SIMPOLE). I am truly grateful to
those who have pointed out typos -- it's a wonderful free proofreading
service. In fact some ratpackers have shown that chess proofreading
might have been their true calling in life.

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

Next someone called Skeptic (a certain Mr. Pipel) has complained that
I am inaccurate compared with Alekhine, Purdy, Botvinnik, etc., etc.,
etc. Sadly this gent instantly undermines his own case by spelling
Purdy as Prudy and Alekhine as Alehkine. However, I won't make a
ratpackerish fuss about his typos.

A number of ratpackers have ganged up to prove that I am inaccurate,
careless, sloppy, and a hack just writing for the money. Some even
claim I am one of the wealthiest chessplayers around. I find this
amazing. How on earth do they know my motives for writing or details of
my bank account? Beats me. This is frankly idle speculation or smears.
I fear that chess defeats all of us in the end. It's a quasi infinite
activity that leaves the human brain struggling. If we know anything
about chess, it is next to nothing.

Just look at the computer-checked notes in Kasparovs Great
Predecessors series. Hallowed masterpieces and comments considered
sacrosanct for decades have now been exposed as fallible by Fritz.
Anyone who claims that perfection is possible when tackling the
immensity that is chess is either a fool or a knave. We humans do our
best, but it's seldom good enough.

KINGPIN, for example, is a magazine that has been very hostile to
me, taking the Winter stance/ It's a small circulation magazine whose
current issue indicates it may now appear perhaps three times a year.

Today I saw issue 38 for spring/summer 2006, the first one since issue
37 for 2003/2004. So it took around two years to produce 64 pages,
much less than any of my books. A swift 90 second glance reveals the
following mistakes -- who knows how many more had I spent another 30
seconds on this task.

No fewer than eight diagrams have the black queen missing

Page 43 suffers from the curious blunder of having most of the 3s
missing in a game that goes through moves 30 -39 WITH NOTES. Highly
disconcerting.

Page 25 performs a similar trick with the letter S.

Both diagrams on page 16 have great white chunks imposed on them, thus
rendering them unintelligible

How the ratpackers would howl if I committed such errors in so small
a space!

Let me bring more blunders to your attention. Mr. Skeptic quoted
Alekhine (sorry "alehkine") as a paragon. Don't get me wrong. I adore
him and prefer him to Capablanca because I see a huge element of human
striving as opposed to Capa's God given talent. To me Capa is the
mozart of chess and Alekhine the Beethoven.

Anyway, with profuse apologies to the immortal Alekhine, I must point
out that on pages 26 and 27 of the tournament book of London 1932
(Koltanowski vs. Sultan Khan) one of his notes just hangs a piece.
Larry Evans points out other errors by the great man in WHAT CAN WE WE
TRUST? at WCN on 4/3/06.

http://wcn.tentonhammer.com/modules....s&file=article
&sid=664

Jennifer Shahade's new book CHESS BITCH can't even spell
Gaprindashvili, the
former women's world champion correctly, as Sarah Hurst pointed out.
Andy Soltis' book on Frank Marshall hangs a knight to a simple queen
check on page 268. These two items that passed over my desk today!.

BUT NO. According to the ratpackers Ray Keene is the quintesssential
demon who commits numerous errors, writes much too quickly, and is a
hack. Does this also imply that KINGPIN is a hack magazine or that
Alekhine, Soltis and Shahade also show contempt for the public?

Of course not.

And when errors are pointed out I am sure that the editor of
KINGPIN
will be mortified and upset that these typos escaped him.

As far as contempt for the public goes, yesterday I received a quite
unsolicited email from the Icelandic Chess Federation thanking me for
my work in general. Last week W. Smith, England's largest book
retailer, ordered thousands of copies of one of my recent books. And my
mailbag from appreciative readers of my columns grows each week!

LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING HONESTLY. When I put together the 2000 world
chess championship, raised the money, organised the match, met my daily
deadline with Times reports, wrote the book, did theTV webcast with GM
Danny King and then still had energy to enjoy a fine dinner with an all
time great like GM Evans, I felt a tremendous sense of fulfillment. A
burst of energy. I doubt I could have written better notes for my book
than if I took 10 years. When I saw Kramnik's improvement for Kasparov
in game ten at move 15 published a few months later, I realised that
this was something beyond my powers. That's why Kramnik became world
champion and I am only a grandmaster.

I should add that Kramnik did not cover the whole match in his
article, just extracts. But what extracts! Anyone expecting Kasparov to
go into detail about this contest where he lost the title may have to
wait a very long time.

Now let's turn to other concrete points

1. I mentioned the frequency of Taylor Kingston's reviews of my books.
I found two on the ChessCafe archive, both reviewed by him. This looks
like 100% to me.

2. Copyright violation. I pointed out that much of his Nimzo review
was a quote from my material. Ditto for my 2000 book on the world
championship.

3. The vital importance of context is demonstrated by the next charge,
that I personally described the 1983 Kasparov vs. Korchnoi match as a
world championship. Well a TK cohort helpfully pointed out the origin
of this is the foto and subheading on the front cover of my match book.
Indeed, that was the official title of the match agreed by Campomanes
at the time as part of the sponsorship deal, ,justified by the fact
that the contest was an official part of the world championship cycle.
If you dont like it, please complain to campo and not to me.

4. Typos. Thanks, guys, it's a really useful free service for the new
editions of my books. Perhaps you should also volunteer your services
to the editor of KINGPIN. He needs it -- and how!

5. I continue to maintain that TK should have spotted the blunder in
Duras vs. Teichmann. Lots of squirming and wiggle room is indeed
possible but a class reviewer, having had that game swim into his ken,
would have spotted it and pointed it out. The debates have gone beyond
thatnow, but I wager that TK with hindsight is sorry he omitted
reference to the flawed combination. Yes, Soltis should have spotted it
too.

I could go on and on. But where do we stand now?

TK has promised a response to my critique of his Nimzo review. So
far nobody has pointed out a single substantial mistake. Instead--

Keene is very rich
Keene needs the money
Keene writes too fast
Keene does too much
Keene is careless
The quality must suffer

An amazing litany of smears and unproved assertions! Hot air and
whaffle.

I am winning this debate hands down, if I must say so myself. Not
with bluster, but by dealing with each issue as it arises. I have one
advantage over the ratpackers. They desperately must prove their
infallibility, a trait inherited from their guru Edward Winter, who
finds it hard to admit he ever makes a mistake. His insulting letter to
IM Anthony Saidy. who pointed one out, is a case in point.

When I am wrong, I say so. Typos have been found. I prefer to know
and correct them in the next edition, if possible.

Finally, best wishes and thanks to all those who criticised me or
wrote positively on my behalf.

-- GM Ray Keene

Jr -- one of the dunderheads referred to below -- posted this:


* This is really odd. Keene & the dunderheads have
anaged to trick the so-called ratpackers into discussing
one of Keene's better works...* (Help Bot)

--

One can hardly expect a dunderhead like Jr to think or reason
correctly, but it should not be beyond his abilities to cut-and-paste
with reasonable competence.
Here is what I actually wrote:

"This is really odd. Keene & the dunderheads have managed to trick
the so-called ratpackers into discussing one of Keene's better works,
instead of focusing on the prior subject -- Keene's recent slop.
Slippery as an eel."

--

On second thought, cutting and pasting both require holding down the
control key with one (human) finger, while hitting "v" or "c" with
another -- and as one might expect, this is exceedingly difficult for a
parrot to accomplish. Sometimes my standards are simply too high. My
apologies, feathered one. You're doing quite well, considering....


Jr pecked out:

"This phony will never respond to Keene's devastating
critique of his putrid review because Keene is right."


In fact, while Keene ratpackers may seem to feel it is unfair to hold
their master to any standards of accountability while at the same time
demanding others answer their own "questions", most observers will find
that this sort of double-standard reveals a very deep-seated hypocrisy.

IMO, Keene was "right" in the sense that TK's frequent nastiness
revealed a bias which affected his assessment of one of Keene's better
books. It was the same sort of nastiness one can find in comments by
Edward Winter regarding anything Keene-related
The point of a book review ought to be to actually review the book in
question -- not to throw darts at the author for crimes committed in
his other works. Such comments could well be seperated and presented
(if necessary) in an editorial, in which the failings of many chess
authors are discussed in general. In such an editorial, Keene might be
lumped together with, say, Schiller, Soltis, Pandolfini, or even Al
Franken, and taken to task for all too often getting his dates and
spelling wrong. There simply isn't space in a decent book review for
this sort of thing.
A book review ought to focus on whether or not a given book is worthy
of purchase. Beyond this, it would be useful to compare the specific
work with its direct competition.
Is Keene's book better than others on Nimzowitch? What are the other
main choices here, and how do they compare overall to Keene's book?

-- help bot

ANOTHER LULU

One of the little lulus pointed out by GM Ray
Keene has to be the ratpackerian claim that he
described the Kasparov-Korchnoi candidates' match as
one for the world championship.

The truth is that there was a FIDE backdrop in
which the match is thus described, and the players
stood for a photo. FIDE, which then had sole control
over the title or, at least, its title, could and did
describe any match as it wished. And if FIDE said
that such a match was being played for a title, then
so it was -- at least at that moment.

We are still waiting to find out if a quotation
attributed to Keene has been yanked out of context --
namely, whether he wrote accurately that Kasparov
became the player to come from behind in a title match
to win or keep the title in three-quarters of a
century. Context is all here. NM Kingston, who made
the charge, is under obligation to provide the context.