Jan-03-05
 | | Benzol: David Vincent Hooper
Born 31st August 1915 in Reigate
He was British Correspondence champion in 1944 and London champion in 1948. |
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| Jan-03-05 | | WMD: Not to be mistaken with David V Goliath. |
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Jan-04-05
 | | offramp: His books on endings are really good. I learnt a vast amount from them. With Max Euwe he wrote 'A Guide to Chess Endings, and on his own he wrote 'A Pocket Guide to Chess Endings'.
They both suffer from being in descriptive. You keep reading those wierd constructions like 'if black can get his R-pawn to his R5 then he can draw' - where algebraic would be so much clearer. |
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| Jan-04-05 | | euripides: He also wrote a book in the Routledge Chess Handbook series called 'Practical chess endings' which is a really excellent short guide to what the club player needs to know, with a very well-judged balance between the necessary theoretical positions and the broader strategic issues. I owned the Pocket Handbook for many years without really using it much, but the little Routledge book is the best short introduction I've come across and transformed my understanding when I read it as a child. It seems to be totally out of print, but there are some second-hand copies knocking around one of the London chess shops. |
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Jan-04-05
| | offramp: I lived in a tent in France for three months and the Euwe/Hooper book was the only chess book I had! Can you imagine??
Every game I played after that was like... Let's get this thing to an ending! |
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| Jan-13-05 | | WMD: There's an obit of Hooper in EG129:
http://www.gadycosteff.com/eg/ |
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Aug-15-06
 | | Phony Benoni: It's interesting that he wrote books about the endgame, but his only three wins in the database are in 31 moves or less. Did his opponents resign early, accepting the inevitable? |
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| Aug-15-08 | | CapablancaFan: My favorite David Hooper book. http://www.amazon.com/Capablanca-Do... |
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| Aug-15-08 | | gauer: He & Kenneth Whyld also did a great job on the classic reference, the Oxford Companion to Chess. |
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| Aug-15-11 | | Infohunter: <offramp: His books on endings are really good. I learnt a vast amount from them. With Max Euwe he wrote 'A Guide to Chess Endings, and on his own he wrote 'A Pocket Guide to Chess Endings'. They both suffer from being in descriptive. You keep reading those wierd constructions like 'if black can get his R-pawn to his R5 then he can draw' - where algebraic would be so much clearer.> I much prefer descriptive notation, thank you. "Suffers" indeed! |
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| Aug-15-11 | | whiteshark: <Aug-15> What's behind all this cryptic? |
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| Aug-15-11 | | jackpawn: I'm old enough to prefer descriptive, but am fine with either. No 'suffering' for me . . . |
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| Aug-15-11 | | Infohunter: To clarify: I can read algebraic just fine--it presents me with no problem. Perusing chess literature in other languages familiarized me with algebraic notation at an early age. Also I realize that in this digital age it is very much easier to program a computer to read algebraic than it would be to program it to read descriptive. But for what concerns English-based chess literature I "grew up" (if you will) on descriptive. I did not appreciate it when FIDE decided to shove the other system down our throats in 1981. Again, not that there is anything wrong with algebraic; it's when others impose their will on me that I get annoyed. As a practical matter, I have several hundred books in my personal chess library, the majority of which are written in English descriptive notation. Younger players who do not learn descriptive notation are effectively rendered illiterate in these older works. That's a pity. |
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| Aug-15-11 | | waustad: I learned with descriptive, but find it really irritating now days. If you make a slight error, there is no way to fix it. pXp is rather unforgiving. Also, if you try some variant, with a board, it often means going back to the beginning to get the position. It does, however sometimes make it easier to describe some endgames, since it may not matter which rook's pawn you mean. |
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Dec-22-16
 | | Jonathan Sarfati: I've always been an algebraic user for scoring my own games, but descriptive is probably better for endgame positions because of its symmetry. E.g. "In endgames of Q against a lone P, the Q wins unless it's a Rook's P or Bishop's P on the seventh rank." |
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Dec-22-16
 | | Dionysius1: In the same way, shouldn't we refer to "kingside" as "e-h side" for the sake of algebraic consistency? |
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Jun-03-18
 | | MissScarlett: <He first attracted international attention by winning, with a round to spare, the tournament at Blackpool 1944.> A dubious assertion. |
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| Jun-03-18 | | Gejewe: Hooper also did two very nice endgame tutorials for Basman's "Audio Chess Cassettes" series in the 1970ties.
When you have worked through his "Rook and pawn endings" title, you know the ins and outs. And his other title "Rook and Bishop versus Rook and Knight endings" was a great introduction to endgame strategy. Carefully picked examples (most by Lasker) to show the strengths and weaknesses of these two minorpieces in this type of endgame.
Very well done, both of these ! |
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| Jun-03-18 | | Sally Simpson: Hi Gejewe:
I have heard these tapes are good. One lad says at the end of side one on the tape David says: "...and now please turn over the record!"
My own David Hooper anecdote:
In 1979/80 (I cannot recall the exact time) I spent a wonderful 3 days
with David Hooper at what they now call New Register House
looking for the birth certificate of Cecil Valentine De Vere David wanted to prove or disprove that de Vere was born in Scotland I called in sick for work but as David and I walked past where I worked by a stroke off bad luck I met my boss! I introduced David as my father who I had not seen for 15 years.
David played his part rather well and I did not get sacked. He was a mine of information, very pleasant company. My lasting regret is I never took a photograph of me...and my dad. |
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| May-09-21 | | Sally Simpson: Wonderful piece on David Hooper here:
https://britishchessnews.com/2020/0... Some of it could pasted into his bio or the link to it placed next to his wiki entry. |
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May-16-21
 | | fredthebear: Yes, an insightful article <Sally>! There are links at the bottom to other renowned players as well. What's an Old Whitgiftians? |
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| May-18-21 | | Sally Simpson: Whitgiftians are people who were educated at Whitgift School. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_... David is not listed, Leonard Barden is. |
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Kibitzing
