On Nov 17, 1:29 am, " wrote:

WHO IS LYING: LAURIE OR KINGSTON?


Readers may recollect that we published a letter written by
Richard Laurie to NMnot Kingston in 2002. In that letter, among other
points made, playwright
Laurie stated that our NMnot denied knowledge of a dispute between GM
Larry Evans and Eddie Winter.

Yes, one of several false statements Mr. Laurie made.


NMnot Kingston's response to the letter has been that Mr. Laurie
was lying, befuddled, muddled and evil. He denied the Laurie claim.

And now (surprise!) our Larry adds a falsehood of his own. Please
supply the quote of me calling Laurie "evil." At least this time you
got 3 out of 4 right -- way above your usual average, Larry.

My judgment tells me that Mr. Laurie, a man versed in the
niceties of language,

Sheesh, Larry, I don't mean to brag, but as far as understanding "the
niceties of language," I'll stack my literary credentials up against
Laurie's (or yours) any day. As the editor, co-author and/or
translator of at least 15 books, and the author of hundreds of
articles published in Chess Life, Inside Chess, Kingpin, Chess
Horizons, and ChessCafe.com I won't claim to be any Shakespeare or
Hemingway, but I will own to a reasonable command of English. People
pay me thousands of dollars to turn leaden ineptitude into, if not
gold, at least into grammatically correct, clear, understandable
English prose.
And as anyone who has worked with me will tell you, I like brevity,
directness, and plain speaking. There is no need to seek hidden
meanings. It's all up front.

was not likely to have misunderstood NMnot's
meaning

And yet, as I have demonstrated here repeatedly, he *_did_*
misunderstand, or even deliberately distort.

and that he had no motive at that time to misrepresent NMnot's
meaning.

Except that like our Larry, he is an adoring Evans zealot who will
brook no criticism of his idol.

the discussion is
not about what the Laurie letter proves. In itself, it proves
nothing.

Well now, Larry, I am glad to see you finally admit this! You
finally concede that you have doodley-squat to back your cheap smears.
Like the futile search for non-existent WMDs in Iraq, the much-
ballyhooed Laurie archive has come up empty. This is indeed
refreshing, and a rare, a very rare and precious instance of honesty
on your part.

Thank you for finally admitting the obvious. As your messiah once
wrote, "Case Closed."

Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Nov 17, 8:20 am, "J.D. Walker" wrote:

Given the history of the thread, and the ongoing flame war, I do not
hold out a lot of hope for a civil discussion of the topic you prefer.
Just the same I offer this much in support of the idea.

Rev. Walker, while I have occasionally defended myself here against
Parr's smears, I hope you have noticed that I have been responding to
most of your historical queries with relevant and substantive
information. I much prefer such exchanges to "flame wars," and am
quite happy to engage in such a dialogue with you.

Taylor Kingston

Mr. Kingston,

As I have said before, I believe that all of the published authors in
this discussion know more about the Keres-Botvinnik controversy than I
do. On this topic I am happy to accept my role as a member of the
various author's audiences. So as a 'fan' let me pose a few questions...

1) Do any of you consider the topic played out? Or is there more to be
considered?

2) Are any of you considering or engaged in new work(s) based on or
related to it?

3) How about the counter proposal of Russian GMs about the materialistic
influence of the West on chess? It seems it would require a different
approach. I doubt that the FBI has much on chess players with the
exception of Fischer. How could an author tackle this topic?

warning, tangent with speculation ahead...

I suspect that if an author tried to seriously investigate the impact of
American culture on chess they would walk a precarious path through a
mine field between the Left and the Right. To my mind, from a American
perspective, scholastic chess has made great strides in proving its
worth to the mental development of young minds. I also think that chess
makes an excellent hobby.

Beyond that -- what segments of American chess have proven worth that a
Yankee capitalist would recognize? What is the value of a high quality
grandmaster game on Wall Street? What is the rationale for professional
chess in a capitalist society? What is the value of a USCF bureaucrat?

Well, feel free to tune out the previous two paragraphs if you must, but
I do wonder about these things, and invite comments -- in another thread
if need be.
--

Rev. J.D. Walker, U.C.

GM Golubev, from the Crimea, Ukraine, knows much, as has an archive. I
suggested KenW contact him for Alekhine, eg. Garry can also get you it, but
he is busy. Phil

"Taylor Kingston" wrote in message
...
On Nov 17, 8:20 am, "J.D. Walker" wrote:

This thread has been all over the place. I am interested in the
Keres-Botvinnik controversy. I did note the message earlier by
'social_justice' with interest. He claims that KGB people had
information on the controversy, and that he interviewed them. The
message in not documented. I imagine almost every KGB agent of that era
is dead by now. But just the same it suggests an avenue of research
that could be revealing. Is it possible to access old KGB files and
look for related information?

This avenue has certainly been tried, but as far as I know, whatever
files the NKVD (as it was known circa 1948) and/or KGB may have had on
Paul Keres have never been released to the public. To my knowledge,
the man most involved the effort to unearth them has been Kere's
friend and fellow Estonian Valter Heuer, author of a very important
article on Keres in New In Chess magazine (#4, 1995). In that article
he wrote:

[[T]he Keres dossiers must be made available. This is the demand
made by his honor and dignity as well as Botvinnik's, the honor and
dignity of the chess world."

So as of that writing he had not been successful in getting
anything. Last I heard from him, circa 2002, he had still not.
I recall GM Hans Ree, in one of his Dutch Treat columns at
www.chesscafe.com,
reporting that Viktor Korchnoi had somehow arranged to purchase his
own KGB file some time in the 1990s. Whether it was authentic or not,
I don't know. Supposedly, since the fall of the Communist government,
the forging of such documents has been a popular cottage industry.
If any genuine documents on Keres still exist, their uncovering
still seems unlikely to me, unless the Russian government changes its
habits of many decades (if not centuries). And even with official
cooperation, actually finding them after all these years could be a
Herculean task. But, one may still hope.

I am not interested in the flame wars between the various authors. I
find it deadly boring. I suspect that Mr. Parr can keep on doing what
he is doing forever if need be. And his critics seem determined as
well. Apparently we agree that that is an unappealing future... :^)

Given the history of the thread, and the ongoing flame war, I do not
hold out a lot of hope for a civil discussion of the topic you prefer.
Just the same I offer this much in support of the idea.

Rev. Walker, while I have occasionally defended myself here against
Parr's smears, I hope you have noticed that I have been responding to
most of your historical queries with relevant and substantive
information. I much prefer such exchanges to "flame wars," and am
quite happy to engage in such a dialogue with you.

Taylor Kingston

On Nov 17, 4:25 pm, "J.D. Walker" wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Nov 17, 8:20 am, "J.D. Walker" wrote:

Given the history of the thread, and the ongoing flame war, I do not
hold out a lot of hope for a civil discussion of the topic you prefer.
Just the same I offer this much in support of the idea.

Rev. Walker, while I have occasionally defended myself here against
Parr's smears, I hope you have noticed that I have been responding to
most of your historical queries with relevant and substantive
information. I much prefer such exchanges to "flame wars," and am
quite happy to engage in such a dialogue with you.

Taylor Kingston

Mr. Kingston,

As I have said before, I believe that all of the published authors in
this discussion know more about the Keres-Botvinnik controversy than I
do. On this topic I am happy to accept my role as a member of the
various author's audiences. So as a 'fan' let me pose a few questions...

1) Do any of you consider the topic played out? Or is there more to be
considered?

2) Are any of you considering or engaged in new work(s) based on or
related to it?

3) How about the counter proposal of Russian GMs about the materialistic
influence of the West on chess? It seems it would require a different
approach. I doubt that the FBI has much on chess players with the
exception of Fischer. How could an author tackle this topic?

warning, tangent with speculation ahead...

I suspect that if an author tried to seriously investigate the impact of
American culture on chess they would walk a precarious path through a
mine field between the Left and the Right. To my mind, from a American
perspective, scholastic chess has made great strides in proving its
worth to the mental development of young minds. I also think that chess
makes an excellent hobby.

Beyond that -- what segments of American chess have proven worth that a
Yankee capitalist would recognize? What is the value of a high quality
grandmaster game on Wall Street? What is the rationale for professional
chess in a capitalist society? What is the value of a USCF bureaucrat?

Well, feel free to tune out the previous two paragraphs if you must, but
I do wonder about these things, and invite comments -- in another thread
if need be.

Not a bad batch of questions, Rev. (I hope you don't mind that
informality -- we rgc regulars are on mostly a first-name basis here,
even those antithetical to each other.) I may have a few answers. I
will transfer your query to another thread, a new one, when I've had
time to write them down.

Bill, in light of our interview, and Taimanov's response, what is your
opinion on all this matter?

While reticence serves equally well in such circumstances as we witness in
these threads, can there still be meaningful discussion beyond the spats of
previous contestants?

If Boris G gives me permission, it will set a stir, but outside the
phenomenology of current contestants, and revelations, what I understood
from Taimanov, [a bit under the radar of what was reported, and in much
writing] is a statement by an artist, not just a chess one but a great
musical one too - on this, what to call it?, interface [?] between the
creative art, philosophy, spirit of endeavor [?] and its management.

And it did seem to me that he replies not so much as a Russian on Soviet
schema, but as a man of the world, on the inevitable tensions present
between those who do it, and those who would manage it.

For someone of his experience and age, I gained the sense that he wished us
to understand the inevitability of such tensions [unresolved or imperfectly
appreciated ones in our societies, for sure] but that these things should
not be so shocking, and are to be expected.

He seemed rather nonplussed - but perhaps as he said elsewhere, while chess
provided the intellectual component to his life, music did for the spiritual
aspect of it - and so, as a mature man who was dumped in the dungeon on his
nation's afections, he, nolens volens [a latinism he likes!] he asks us to
consider the cusp of creativity, and its real limits, when re-presented
within any hierarchy.

He refers his own hierarchy, or government, but suggested 'all'.

Cordially, Phil Innes


"William Hyde" wrote in message
...
On Nov 16, 12:03 am, " wrote:
LAURIE'S '''CONFUSED MIND"
I agree with Mr.
Laurie that the implication can be found in what NM
Kingston wrote,

There you have it, one and all, in black and white, Larry
Parr claims that Kingston is an NM!

By the standards of evidence usual in these groups, that is as rock
solid as proof gets. No evidence to the contrary will ever, ever,
ever, be allowed to contradict this. He admitted it, after all!

Congratulations, NM Kingston!

And congratulations, Larry. It takes a big man to do that.

Now, if we can just get Neil Brennan to assert that Phil was rated
2400+, we can dump this absurd credentialism forever.

Or more likely, not.

William Hyde

On Nov 17, 4:56 pm, "Chess One" wrote:
GM Golubev, from the Crimea, Ukraine, knows much, as has an archive. I
suggested KenW contact him for Alekhine, eg. Garry can also get you it,

Phil, I'll believe that when it is delivered to me.

but he is busy. Phil

Understandably. I was not going to hold my breath, in any event.

On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 12:40:06 GMT, "Chess One"
wrote:


Mike Murray's idea of control was to eliminate 25 objections to both his own
and rule-of-law activities he conducted here. As in another current case
floundering around these newsgroups, there were not weighted, but rubbished
and entirely dismissed.

You confuse satire with control. The former attempts to convince, the
latter to coerce. Would you carp about a caricature because it makes
the chin too big and the forehead bulge too much? (Yeah, I guess you
might.)


Without irony he neverthless accuses me of wanting
to control everything.

I pointed out a number of your weak points and failings, Phil, but I
can't recall accusing you of "wanting to control everything". Can you
refresh my memory with a cite?

Larry Parr wrote (Fri, 16 Nov 2007 22:29:51 -0800 (PST)):

7 ...
7 Readers may recollect that we published a letter written by
7 Richard Laurie to NMnot Kingston in 2002. In that letter,
7 among other points made, playwright Laurie stated that our
7 NMnot denied knowledge of a dispute between GM Larry
7 Evans and Eddie Winter.
7 ...
7 [Those versed in weighing evidence -- both lawyers and
7 historians] would want to know whether Mr. Laurie, as
7 discussed above, could convey his thoughts with precision.
7 They would examine the circumstances of the letter -- the
7 fact that it was written by someone uninvolved in chess
7 political spats, the fact that it was written by someone with
7 little knowledge of the personalities involved,
_
_
"...
... [Gm Larry Evans] did [respond to my offer of a script
for his opinion]. ...
...
[GM Evans and Larry Parr] are big boys and can take care
of [writing in their defense] themselves. ...
...
... you have called GM Evans dishonest. ... It is too bad
you have not had as happy an acquaintance as I have
had with him, ...
..." - Richard Laurie to Taylor Kingston (March 2, 2002)
as presented by Larry Parr (Thu, 15 Nov 2007
08:05:37 -0800 (PST))
_
_
Larry Parr wrote (Fri, 16 Nov 2007 22:29:51 -0800 (PST)):

7 the fact that it was written as a private communication
7 without any definite expectation that it would ever see
7 the light of day in a partisan dispute,
_
_
"...
... I can see no reason not to notify people of the
fact and substance of our discussions. As you
can see a copy of this is going on to Evans.
..." - Richard Laurie (March 2, 2002) as presented by
Larry Parr (Thu, 15 Nov 2007 08:05:37 -0800 (PST))
_
_
Larry Parr wrote (Fri, 16 Nov 2007 22:29:51 -0800 (PST)):

7 the fact that it was a friendly letter in overall tone, the fact
7 that concerns were expressed with civility rather than any
7 partisan rancor, and the like.
7
7 NMnot Kingston's response to the letter has been that Mr.
7 Laurie was lying, befuddled, muddled and evil. He denied
7 the Laurie claim.
_
_
Was Taylor Kingston responding just to the one letter or
was he responding to the letter and a number of other
communications?
_
_
Larry Parr wrote (Fri, 16 Nov 2007 22:29:51 -0800 (PST)):

7 ... We still have no proof that NMnot lied to Mr. Laurie
7 (that may be forthcoming). We only have evidence on
7 paper and indications of NMnot's character.
7
7 That's all we have. Judgment, for we will all make a
7 judgment, even if not to judge at all, comes down to
7 probability. ...
_
_
It strikes me as noteworthy that something is not mentioned
in Larry Parr's discussion of "all we have":
_
"Kingston to Laurie, 21 February 2002:
'... I am not aware of any personal attacks by Mr.
Winter, though admittedly I do not have the full
voluminous record of words that have passed
between [Winter and Evans] ...'" - Taylor Kingston
(Tue, 13 Nov 2007 07:38:53 -0800)
_
We do not see Larry Parr proclaiming that Taylor Kingston
has confessed. It appears that LP does not see the "personal
attacks" quote as confirming Richard Laurie's allegation.
_
Is Larry Parr willing to confirm that the Feb. 21, 2002 quote
does not amount to a denial that Taylor Kingston was "aware
of the battle between Evans and Winter"? Is Larry Parr
willing to affirm that Richard Laurie wrote inappropriately
if the "personal attacks" quote is the basis for RL's assertion
that Taylor Kingston wrote such a denial?
_
_
Larry Parr wrote (Fri, 16 Nov 2007 22:29:51 -0800 (PST)):

7 My judgment tells me that Mr. Laurie, a man versed in the
7 niceties of language, was not likely to have misunderstood
7 NMnot's meaning and that he had no motive at that time to
7 misrepresent NMnot's meaning. ...
_
_
What does Larry Parr think about this Richard Laurie
perception?
_
"OPEN LETTER FROM RICHARD LAURIE (April 2 2006):
_
'...
... All anyone has to do is read Kingston's article in Chess
Life (about Keres throwing games to Botvinnik in the 1948
World Championship] to see that he denigrated Evans'
ability to analyze by saying Nunn was the better player.
...'" - Larry Parr (Tue, 06 Nov 2007 19:24:27 -0800)
_
"Nunn is 'generally considered a stronger player than
Evans'" - Larry Parr presentation (Thu, 15 Nov 2007
08:05:37 -0800 (PST)) of a Richard Laurie description
(March 2, 2002) of what Taylor Kingston wrote (1998)
_
_
Larry Parr wrote (Fri, 16 Nov 2007 22:29:51 -0800 (PST)):

7 ... NMnot, whom we know to possess an ego so vast and
7 fragile as to require him to post under false names on this
7 forum IN PRAISE OF HIMSELF, for Pete's sake.
7 ...
_
_
What about those "others" who supposedly agreed with
Larry Parr on the "highlighted" and "singled out" controversy?
_
"... Duras-Teichman (Ostend, 1906) is a famous
game, and NM Kingston highlighted the best-known
position in this famous game. Whereupon, he
failed to tell the reader the most interesting thing
about the best-known position in the famous game.
_
Someone with a normal ego would write as follows:
'... For purely illustrative purposes, I obviously ought
to have chosen another position if I were not up to
the mark of pointing out the most important point in
the position I singled out.'" - Larry Parr (26 Apr 2006
19:05:22 -0700)
_
_
"In reality, Taylor Kingston did not even mention the
position [in his review of a book by Soltis]. He simply
selected a sentence from the [Soltis] introduction to
the game as an example of the failure of GM Soltis
to provide such information as the round in which the
game was played" - Louis Blair (2 Jun 2006
01:03:30 -0700)
_
_
"This writer and others have argued that if one
references Duras-Teichmann, as NM Kingston did
in his review of the Soltis volume, then one is
perforce highlighting ..." - Larry Parr (5 Jun 2006
20:29:53 -0700)
_
_
"Who are these others?" - Louis Blair (5 Jun 2006
22:44:43 -0700)

On Nov 17, 10:10 pm, Louis Blair wrote:

7 That's all we have. Judgment, for we will all make a
7 judgment, even if not to judge at all, comes down to
7 probability. ...
_
_
It strikes me as noteworthy that something is not mentioned
in Larry Parr's discussion of "all we have":


Anyone who wants to get to the truth of this matter
(not the Richard Laurie red herring) can easily locate
the article in which Taylor Kingston used reason and
logic to skewer the hearsay-based speculations of
Larry Evans and others.

In a nutshell, somebody got the idea /secondhand/
and wrote an article, then that was picked up by a
host of other hack writers whose agendas included
attacking FIDE, so this item fit the bill. Each of
these hacks has in turn "enhanced" the story to
their own liking, and referenced previous articles by
other hacks as their supposed "evidence".

All this was laid out neatly in the article by Taylor
Kingston. However, after the first third or perhaps
half, he then delved into the "what so-and-so-said"
as if himself having been corrupted to a certain
extent by all these hacks. In any case, although
probably relying far to much on what somebody
*said* happened (as opposed to focusing on a
determination of what really did happen), Mr.
Kingston nonetheless did not fall into a pit of
irrational thinking, the way most of his predecessors
have done.

------

Personally, I don't put any trust in what the many
talking heads /say/ happened, on account of very
annoying facts like:

a) After accusing players they don't like of cheating,
admitting somewhere else their own misdeeds in the
very same vein; this is titanic hypocrisy.

b) Many of these chronic complainers share a similar
background, as haters of the status-quo who moved
abroad; we never hear the other side of the story from
the FIDE-bashing hack writers, because they don't
/want/ it heard.

c) Every Mickey Mouse conspiracy theory I have yet
seen fails miserably to account for the strength of
GM Botvinnik's moves! Even if all of his opponents
were throwing every game, this still requires a logical
explanation, since there was not yet any Fritz.

d) Western players, supposedly immune to threats
from the evil KGB, also had poor results against GM
Botvinnik, while doing considerably better against the
other Soviet players. (Again, conspiracy theorists
have nothing but embarrassed silence.)

e) GM Botvinnik drew Bobby Fischer. Once again,
the room falls silent (and angry). Blind luck?

f) Every story is based on what somebody thinks or
on what somebody says they were told; obviously,
no self-respecting hack writer would resort to that if
he could dredge up substantive evidence; it is only
when the hacks are incapable of finding anything
substantive that they report "sightings" of Kong,
interview people who /say/ they saw footprints, etc.,
instead of capturing the creature and bringing him
back to New York alive, so we can go and see him
in person (an excellent idea, if I do say so myself).


-- help bot

CASE CLOSED?

Thank you for finally admitting the obvious. As your messiah once
wrote, "Case Closed." -- Taylor Kingston

First, to the Rev. Walker. NMnot Taylor Kingston
is crawling to you. He and I have had our historical
discussions before, especially regarding the Oxford
Companion to Chess. He bailed out. It has been his
practice in discussions to invent pseudonyms and then
post PRAISE OF HIMSELF under these false names.

Specifically, I wanted to walk him through the
entries of the first edition of the Oxford Companion
to Chess on subjects Soviet -- one by one -- to
discover whether the claims I made in a review were
accurate. We would then compare my claims with the
stuff Edward Winter published re my review in Chess
Life about 20 years ago. He flittered off after that.

Secondly, to the forum: I claimed from the
beginning that the Laurie letter was probative, if not
determinative, evidence. It is now NMnot Taylor
Kingston's ploy to claim that I cited it as proof.

Once again, we have this situation: a published
playwright named Richard Laurie, whom we may assume
can express accurately what he means to say, stated in
a generally friendly, certainly civil, private letter to NMnot
that the latter had denied knowledge of the Evans-Winter
quarrel. The letter was written over five years ago when
there could have been no knowledge on Laurie's part that
it would ever figure in the current discussion. He had no
motive to misrepresent what he took to be the facts. It
was a letter that he likely believed would never see the
light of public day.

We also have NMnot's denial of Richard Laurie's
claim. He has gone on about the latter's befuddlement,
muddled, lying or simply evil nature.

The Laurie letter counts more as evidence, if not
proof, than NMnot Kingston's denial. Still, it is not
sufficient to convict. Readers will have to judge for
themselves the truth of the matter.

Readers will accord the letter probative value,
and they will accord NMnot's denial its appropriate
value. That is where we stand at the moment.
We hope to move forward as more surfaces from
e-mails by NMnot Kingston marked CONFIDENTIAL
so we can compare what he said privately to Laurie
to what he is saying now.
..
Yours, Larry Parr