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< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 7 OF 7 ·
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Jul-19-09
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| ray keene: AMEN TO THAT! |
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Jul-19-09
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| whiteshark: I object, Mr. Keene!
To me Miles’ review of "Samurai Chess” is one of the best book reviews I’ve read for many a long year. I had a lot of laughter while reading it. Writing only about negligibilities with irony is really brilliant. <… because of his condition at the time> that’s very poor from your side - de mortuis nil nisi bene! Furthermore I don’t believe that Miles would have cancelled a single word, what for? I have read several good books from Gelb and yourself and in my opinion Samurai Chess is the worst what you both have ever written. Two mediocre parts put together into a book. Probably he’d used the “utter crap” phrase already for another book. |
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Jul-20-09
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| ray keene: i agree that miles review of samurai chess is very amusing -sadly its a pack of lies! i was objecting to his veracity not his wit.i also happen to believe that tony was not so cynical that he wd have come to realise in due course that he had scored some amusing but cheap points by lying. <de mortuis nil nisi bonum> is a laudable aspiration, but occasionally one has to put the record straight for posterity. as i said, the faith in this book of two different publishers in the uk and usa plus the sales of samurai chess speak for themselves . the point of the book is to show something i believe in very deeply-the transferability of chess skills to other domains-it may to some look like two disparate items -chess and martial arts-brought together , but a careful reading will show -in my opinion-that we were trying to get a hgihly specific message across to a wide audience-one that might not necessarily take up martial arts but could nevertheless benfit from martial arts wisdom, and use chess as the conduit for opening up new vistas of transferabilty of skills and understanding. i actually think that samurai chess is one of my most important books for the general public. |
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Jul-22-09
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| whiteshark: Thank you for your respond, Mr. Keene.
<a pack of lies> in this book review? I can't make them out. So if it's not too much of a hassle would you quote them. |
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Jul-23-09
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| ray keene: certainly-first of all the entire tone of the review is derogatory and dismissive , suggesting that the claims we make in the book are false. he impugns the number of uk titles i have won, wrongly, he accuses the book of being composed of standard whaffle, when in fact the argument about the transferability of chess skill is a topic we thought about deeply, he claims there is no real information about martial arts,which is untrue, and takes items out of context to make the book look as ridiculous as possible-need i continue? i think the fact that the book sold out with its uk publisher and was then taken up by a usa publisher speaks for itself. many people who have actually invested their time to read the book properly ( a group which i doubt included tony miles) have complimented it and no-one who bought it has ever complained to me-much the reverse! to paraphrase nimzowitsch-ridicule cannot hold up the passage of new ideas, and i think we were ahead of our time in our elaboration of the concept of transferability of skills from chess. it is now scientifically proven that chess, along with dancing, is a powerful remedy against alzheimers disease. meanwhile, prof michael crawford of the london metropolitan university research unit into brain chemistry and human nutrition has accepted our invitation to open this years staunton memorial tournament at simpsons on august 8 , not least because he believes too that chess and the characteristics it encourages, can assist with overall brain fitness. in comparison with this kind of endorsement and suppport i feel tonys gripes are just a minor obstacle on the path towards ches becoming recognised as the optimal gymnasium for the mind! |
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| Aug-03-09 |
| kingfu: Very gracious, GM Keene. Thank you for a much needed clarification. We should always remember the good stuff. In the age of a thousand Rybkas crunching numbers on every chess nuance, I take much pleasure in playing over Tony's games. Especially his games with the "unusual" openings!! For example, game 52 Miles-Pytel Hastings 1973, (Benko beat Fischer in Curacao 1963 with 1 g3 but that opening turned into a kind of King's Indian).For most of the game Tony had 0! pieces beyond the White 3rd rank. Black frantically throws pieces and pawns at the White position. When Tony finally does move a piece beyond the third rank, black runs toward resignation! A thousand Rybkas with a thousand CPUs will NEVER play as cool as Tony. We miss him madly. |
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| Aug-03-09 |
| kingfu: Benko-Fischer in Curacao was 1962 not 1963. |
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Aug-03-09
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| parisattack: <wordfunph: GM Anthony Miles Collection of Quotations: > Referring to a knight move from with g8-h6-f7 or b8-a6-c7 I believe it was Miles who said to the affect, "The knight stands better here than on (f6,c6)...too bad it takes two moves to get there." Can anyone confirm and if so, source? In any event at c7 or f7 early it is sort of a Fischer Random piece and when I've played it (from a Robatsch or De Bruycker) it certainly enlivens the game. |
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Aug-03-09
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| blacksburg: <Unorthodox Chess Openings
by Eric Schiler.
Cardoza Publishing 1998, 520 pp., £18.95.
Utter crap.>
hehehe best book review ever. |
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| Aug-09-09 |
| MarkThornton: A problem dedicated to the memory of Tony Miles:
click for larger viewThis position arose after Black's 11th move. What was the game score? The problem was published in The Problemist, in September 2009. For the solution, please follow this link: http://www.softdecc.com/pdb/search.... |
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| Aug-15-09 |
| DoubtingThomas: How many UK titles did Ray Keene win then? A list might be helpful here. |
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Aug-18-09
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| ray keene: <doubting thomas> welcome to www.chessgames.com i see you have been active here for about a week already, with two posts about me. korchnoi was delighted to play in my staunton tournament, so perhaps he has revised his earlier opinion-secondly -as i may have pointed out before-my cv is on this very site so you can check which titles i won and when-i also won quite a few dutch national titles which shd be mentioned there too. re samurai chess-i wd also like to add that chapter 12 deals with nutrition and chess and was way ahead of its time-later i wll quote some words from gm nigel davies about this aspect! |
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Aug-18-09
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| ray keene: this is from gm nigel davies' excellent website and blog-he pinpoints the importance of the nutritional aspect for mental sportsmen and i believe this shows how far ahead we were with samurai chess-gm davies has , in fact told me that samurai chess is one of his favourite books-unlike some others i might mention he clearly took the trouble to actually read it!! over to gm nigel davies:
<Well I lost the last round game against Jan Timman who kept a small advantage for most of the game with this then becoming a win when I misplayed the bishop endgame. But I managed to win 4th prize with my plus one and it was also the best result by a Brit in this section. So not too bad overall.During the closing dinner I got the opportunity to quiz Professor Crawford about his talk and it seems that there is considerable evidence to support his hypothesis about brain function being largely dependent upon nutrition. I took some notes on the back of the envelope containing my prize. I’ll certainly be following this up. I have to say that this was a really superb event, and a style of tournament that is a rarity in this day and age. The organisation and venue (Simpson’s in the Strand) was superb and the atmosphere truly inspirational. I got to meet up with some old friends from the days I lived in Sidcup, on some days the spectators were as strong as many of the participants. This might well be my last serious tournament for a while so I’d like to thank Ray Keene for making it possible.> |
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| Aug-18-09 |
| DoubtingThomas: Hi Ray. Thanks for referring me to your CV, I'd not seen it. Counting up - and it's not so easy the way that CV's written, pretty much all in lower case - I think I can see where your 14 is coming from. I think we have:
1 actual UK individual championship
1 UK junior championship
1 UK lightning championship
2 UK schools championships
2 UK universities championships
1 UK county championship
1 UK junior county championship
5 UK club championships
Do I have the list right?
Now I'm not sure that most people would regard that as "14 separate British championship titles", would they? It's a bit of a misleading way to put it. I mean if your club team won the British club championship, you wouldn't say "Ray Keene won the title", you'd surely say "such-and-such a club won the title". Would you not? If Armenia win the Olympiad, that doesn't make Lev Aronian Olympiad champion. |
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| Aug-18-09 |
| WhiteRook48: did miles know he popularized 1...a6? |
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Aug-19-09
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| ray keene: if i am a member of a team which wins a title-national or otherwise- i regard that as a title won-just as tennis players count doubles and mixed doubles as wimbledon titles-i have been perfectly transparent about this and published all the data here on this site-i was also a member of the dutch team which won the netherlands title on numerous occasions. i dont think this is misleading at all- consider, just as one example, relay races in the olympics-the ioc award a medal to all members of the gold , silver and bronze winning teams and they all regard themselves, and are officially regarded, as medallists. if you prefer to take an opposite view to commonplace international sporting practice -thats up to you. any chance of your revealing your identity by the way-i always prefer to debate with a non anonymous correspondent if possible! |
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Aug-19-09
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| ray keene: <doubting thomas> as i shall have to call you pro tem, until you perhaps admit your identity--a further very good example is steve redgrave-often referred to as the multiple olympic gold medal winner, when for much of the time he was partnered by pinsent-both are regarded as olympic champions in their own right, irrespective of whether they formed a team. i actually think chessplayers are too modest about their results and tend to undervalue their own achievements when they have been part of a county winning team , or a club--these are real achievements and chessplayers should be more proud of what they have done in their mind sport! |
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| Aug-19-09 |
| DoubtingThomas: I'd have thought it was pretty misleading. I think you confuse being a medallist with being a title-holder - hence my Olympiad/Armenia/Aronian example above. Or to take another example - Bobby Moore didn't win the World Cup, England did. Or another - not long ago there was an interview with Andrew Flintoff in the Guardian in which his brother was referred to as having played chess for England. Now in a way, it's true - he played for a representative junior side - but I think in the given context, most readers would assume it meant that he'd played at the same level, in chess, as Andrew Flintoff did in cricket. And they'd be misled. So - to me, it's one of those things that isn't untrue as such, but it stretches the truth and presents it in a way that's contrary to what most people would consider normal practice. This could have been avoided simply by listing the actual titles - and it's an impressive list as it stands, I'd have thought. But Miles was right, I think, it is "twelve more than are commonly known about", because I don't think that (for instance) in the chess world people would know what team had won the UK junior championship in 1966, let alone who was in it. I also think most people would look at the title you won in Blackpool and maybe the junior (Boys?) title if they were feeling generous and count one, or two. You can see it otherwise if you choose, but I don't see any "lie" from Miles here, just a difference in interpretation in which I think he was in the right. |
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| Aug-19-09 |
| KKDEREK: <DoubtingThomas> I agree with that. |
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Aug-19-09
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| ray keene: you are of course entitled to your opinion-but since i have never made any secret of which national titles i have won and indeed published it here, i think i am entitled to mine. btw ,would you prefer to continue under the cloak of anonymity or would you like to be a man ( or woman) and emerge in your own persona? i notice you ducked that question! i dont mind answering questions to anonymous posters but if we are going to enter the realm of polemics i think i have a right to know whom i am dealing with. |
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Aug-19-09
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| ray keene: btw i have also mentioned in earlier posts other lies by miles re samurai chess and to be frank miles had plenty of insight into what titles have been won in british chess and by whom, having competed for many of them himself.this makes the comment in his review concerning this topic particularly disingenuous. |
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| Aug-19-09 |
| DoubtingThomas: Hi Ray. Thanks for your replies. I don't see any requirement to use real names in the registration rules: do put me right if I err on this. As far as I can see there are more pseudonyms than real names on this site, so I'm happy to abide by site convention. No polemics: just asking questions, it being passably hard for Tony Miles to answer your objections himself. I'm inclined to doubt that he agreed with your interpretation of what constituted a title, or indeed that he thought your tally would be "commonly known about" - an opinion he was surely entitled to, just as you are surely entitled to your own. I think from all points of view, a list of them in the book would have been of great assistance in dispelling the resulting confusion. And surely a long list of your achievements could only be to your credit? So while I now understand your position a little better, I'm still lacking anything on Miles' part which I think I could describe as a lie. |
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Aug-19-09
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| ray keene: re lies-how about about tonys false accusation of "standard whaffle" when we were-for example - introducing in samurai chess new ideas about transferability of skills and brain nutrition which are only now being accepted-it was no accident that professor michael crawford of the london metropolitan university institute of brain chemistry and human nutrition was delighted to open and close this years staunton memorial. as for anonymity -you are absolutely right-there is nothing on this site to insist that you joust openly under your own name-equally there is nothing on this site which stops me from informing you that our revels now are ended and that if you wish to continue your debate with me you will have to find another identity to hide behind-au revoir and thanks for all the fish-as douglas adams might have said! |
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Aug-19-09
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| whiteshark: <Please, do people really believe what they read in Kingpin? I am amazed! It’s like taking a satirical show and mistaking it for the news.> - Raymond Keene, OBE Chess Café
Probably a misquote, but I've found it here: http://www.chesscenter.com/kingpin/... |
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| Oct-18-09 |
| DoubtingThomas: "when we were-for example - introducing in samurai chess new ideas about transferability of skills and brain nutrition which are only now being accepted" Could you be more specific? Whether standard or otherwise, that looks awfully like waffle to me. |
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