IMLD wrote:
<"...Eventually in 1999 I sold mine for about 50 times what I paid for it."

< I've had it for a week. It's hard to put down.

Fischer vs Robatsch, 1962

Feb-19-09
<Joshka>: Yes, and also in Bobby's notes from 2007.."Tigran and I both gave this move a (?) and Petrosian even published 57. Rh7! as the way to win in the Russian tournament bulletins. And now in 2007, we know for sure that Rh1 draws and Rh7 is still the best chance, but it does not win. There we were, two chess legends, unable to cope with a Rook and Pawn endgame with just two pawns each!" Bobby then goes on to say..." Readers should understand that this endgame is rather difficult. In the decades since, I found one improved 'winning' line for Rh1 that could play out like this: 57. Rh1 c3 58. f5 Rg8? (analysis with Eugene Torre from 1994) 59.Kf4 Rb8 60. Rc1 Rb4+ 61. Kg3 Rb3 62. Kh4 Ke5 63. Re1+ Kf6 64. Re6+ Kf7 and after 65. Rc6 there's no fight left in Black's position."

---

<capatal>: Hats off to the author of,

<'The Goldfish in the bowl syndrome'>

Each Goldie swimming round & round saying,...

"What a beautiful view....What a beautiful view...etc... etc."

http://www.labatechess.com/61_games...

(I have tagged sentences of interest)

"This is the best information I can provide. Early in 2007 I was told that Fischer's remaining circle of friends from the 'RJF Campaign Group' originally created to help young Aron Agustsson [Evans: Fischer attended some sessions of this six-member group, including Helgi Olafsson, which worked on releasing an Icelandic youth imprisoned in Texas for 10 years. They were concerned that Bobby was losing his fight with UBS and approached him about his money problems. They explored various options and suggested that he autograph books. Helgi told me Fischer does not like signing things and was not interested in selling his signature. <He said Fischer expected to win 'billions and billions of dollars' in punitive damages he suffered from 'that Jew-controlled Swiss bank.'>

Helgi framed the new book as a way to 'strike back against the 'Batsford debacle,' whatever that means. [Evans: this refers to the botched algebraic edition printed by Batsford in 1995, edited by GM John Nunn.] He said Fischer was enthusiastic about the scheme but it was hard to motivate him to begin work.

In the first week of December Justine asked me to host the eBay auction which, it turns out, was designed entirely to test the premise of who owns the publishing rights to the book. To circumvent legal issues Fischer added a single game to the original 60, corrected some notes and added a new title.

Justine said I would be 'paid for my time and effort for hosting an auction and shipping boxes of books to a few resellers.' I reluctantly agreed. Just two days later a truck pulled into my driveway and delivered books printed in Copenhagen, Denmark -- shipped before I even agreed to the auction or spoke to Justine! On the phone she admitted telling Helgi I would host the auction before I actually agreed to it. I felt bad for Justine and could tell by the tone of her voice that she was being pressured.

Two boxes contained the first 100 books for the auction. Another 10 boxes were labeled 'Edition 2' with 200 books in each box.

And now for the shocker: ....

....

... My husband then sold 1,000 copies of the 2nd edition to one of the previous buyers.

Then 10 more boxes arrived, this time with shipping prepaid. I had already taken 100 books to the mall and put a sign on them "TAKE ONE, TAKE ALL.� We also put a sealed box with 200 books each time our trash was picked up. A few times I saw someone loading them in his car. We still have two boxes left.

I still don't even know who this Helgi person is. He could be more than one person, and to this day I don't know his last name.

Justine was needed because she could involve me, a nobody. The only reason to do an auction for the first 100 copies was because it was not a legal book that could be sold through normal channels.

If I had to guess, I would say Fischer was behind it at first and then backed out, but his friends made it happen anyway. Either that or Fischer was behind it all along and believes the eBay auction was cancelled due to a rights issue. In his paranoid state he now denies being involved because he thinks the firm that owned the book rights shut down the auction instead of me.

I threatened to blow the whistle ....
...

The voice on the phone (presumably Helgi) claimed Fischer did not believe it was Evans and warned me again not to tell you anything. The voice said "I know you are not speaking with grandmaster Evans..." Suddenly I heard a voice in the background saying, "Evans doesn't write for Chess Lies anymore." He was a native English speaker, unlike the first voice with a Scandanavian inflection. Then the second voice had a coughing spell. Helgi probably had a mobile phone because he walked away from the coughing and said in a hushed tone, "Bobby doesn't believe you. When you get an answer to the question, then he will respond."

Helgi said when the auction was over <I could deduct all the shipping costs and retain 10% of the money, with a maximum of $500 if the first 100 books sold for $5000 or more.> Later he would instruct me on how to send him the money, a risk he was willing to take for being untraceable if things went sour.

There were plenty of surprises during this ordeal. I hope I answred your questions and intend to shut down this email account soon.

Signed, The Pawn - January 10"

===Notes===

* Quotes? Same type of quoting as traced by <Geauxcool>?

* Love of calculations and figures? It doesn't ring true for this supposed woman seller to cough up all these figures to a complete stranger.

Noticed that the Einar e-mail where he sent some photos to Trice, was dated Sept 5, 2007. On the e-mail fragment below, dated Sept 9 2007, Trice allegely says:

Col 1: Source
Col 2: Trice (or other person?) Action and Date
Col 3: What part of the scam the Action was intended to support.

Wouldn't that make fun reading!!!

Problem is, there are at least two wholly different "stories" that seem to have been "in play".

The shipping charges weren't prepaid! I did not have enough money and told the driver I had to call my husband at work. The driver handed me a 'pickup slip,' reloaded his truck and drove away while I was still talking to my angry husband. He came home from work early and refused to pay the shipping charges. Justine was very apologetic and said she was unaware Helgi had done this. She said she would tell Helgi to send money and begged us to make the payment in the meantime.

http://www.skak.blog.is/blog/skak/e...

I have two vacuum packed shrink wrapped containers marked "Special Edition, First Printing" on the exterior boxes. The person to win the auction will be the first person to have these books in their hands.

Mention of the auction on Geauxcool's link was on Dec.16.2007. About Three months or so.

In the e-mail found in Labate's website (Sept 9, 2007) it says:

<I completed up to and including page 145. I am starting to understand his writing better and most of the diagrams are exactly as in his previous book. I hired a consultant to just create all of the diagrams in "My 60" and email them to me. This has been a great time saver.>

Þetta er náttúrulega svo mikið fake að það hálfa væri nóg

Ingvar Þór Jóhannesson, 17.12.2007 kl. 15:40

Dear my ebay name,

With packing material the entire shipment weighs about 22 kg. I will price out all destination charges to the winner. I have no way of computing this for every possible worldwide destination. For more info email me at my61memorablegames@gmail.com and thanks for your interest!

- newfischerbook

"Poor Bobby! I can only imagine how he must feel right now." - Seller to Evans Dec 17, 2007

"Poor Bobby, just never seems to do anything the right way." - Bruce Towell Dec 22, 2007

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hoaxingfool | December 17, 2007 1:34 PM |

I was bidding on this item because curiosity got the best of me. So, I contacted the seller and asked what was up. She said she was getting so many threats of physical harm and other hate mail from an email account JewsAgainstFischer and other 'nasty emails' that she forwarded them to eBay and asked them to protect her privacy and remove her account information.

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Bruce Towell | December 17, 2007 10:52 PM | Reply

Yes <hoaxing fool> this is what happened, the poor gal was tormented with "hate" mail, and was threatened with physical bodily harm, she asked ebay, what could she do, and they took action. So it was NOT a "hoax"....so no need to celebrate with the "I told ya so's".....this is what happens when you put your trust in amatuer's to do a pros, job.

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Bruce Towell | December 21, 2007 4:18 PM | Reply

To CynicalGripe, Well if you're going to get some of these books....like the tune McCartney wrote for Badfinger, "you'd better hurry cause there going fast"...the seller just wrote me back today, and said <30 of the first 100 First Edition books, were sold off>. The rest of the 65, will be sold today. So either the buyer is going to sit on these, or we're gonna see another auction...stay tuned....

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hoaxingfool | December 22, 2007 12:15 AM | Reply

After a few days of email chats I finally talked her into a meeting. Real nice, cute Asian girl of some kind. Soft spoken and very polite. Hardly what I would call a scammer. She showed me the packing slip sent C.O.D. from "Kobenhavn" which is Copenhagen, Denmark. She said she was asked to host the eBay auction only 2 weeks ago.

Anyway, the books are professionally done. I've got over 300 other chess books myself and I have to say the diagrams in this book are the most amazing I have ever seen. They are crisp and clear and larger than the little diagrams in other books. The figurine notation is unique also. The white pieces have white figurines and the black pieces have black figurines. I've never seen that anywhere either. You can almost play the games blindfold when you read such notation. Could this be another Fischer innovation, simple, and yet a vast improvement we have all overlooked for so long?

Anyway, I'm sitting tight just in case the whole thing is a mess of some sort. I was more interested in rescuing the books from the trash heap than anything else.

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Bruce Towell | December 22, 2007 4:42 AM |

To <hoaxingfool>, Thanks for posting your experience, yea tha gal is probably related to the mother of Bobby's child. It's a shame he got her involved, instead of a professional. I got en email from someone who claims they bought some of the books from her. She told me after today's, or really yesterday's sale, the rest are going in the trash, and her neighbor is going to help her. Such a waste. Her darn husband put his metal drill thru 5 of the books!!.....Poor Bobby, just never seems to do anything the right way.....

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hoaxingfool | December 22, 2007 4:27 PM |

Me and my friends <bought 30 from her>. Agree with Arthur she is a cute one! The book is amazing loaded with new remarks and analysis. Love the typeface, love the diagrams. Worth every penny.

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Mig | December 24, 2007 8:36 PM |

Art <hackmate> Hamilton:

<Hello everyone.>

<The popular consensus about the nature of this book seems to be "greatly exaggerated", in the words of the great Mark Twain. I have 2 copies of this book. I was involved in a debate over this in another online place. People asked me to post my picture online showing a copy of "today's newspaper" while holding the book in the other hand. Just because the arguments were so heated, I decided to go through with it.>

http://s542.photobucket.com/albums/...

<Harsh words have been spoken about this book in other posts here. I agree with some, don't with some others. I wanted to add that I too thought this book was a fake, but I responded to one of the Craig's List ads that just so happened to be in my own neighborhood.>

<I was also asked to send money in the mail and I said "No way!" The person finally agreed to meet me in some diner out of the way. Once I saw the book in person, my jaw was wide open.>

<I liked the book, flipped through it for a few minutes, then shelled out the money. I can tell you now, this book was written by Fischer. It sounds like him all the way. The stories about what really happened behind the scenes are very interesting, some of them even funny! There are pictures in just about every chapter of the 61 games, some have more than one photo per chapter. I thought I saw every photo ever published by Fischer. In this book there are some I've seen nowhere else.>

<Before you attack me, think about what you write. I'll answer any questions that are reasonable.>

Bruce Towell: <Guess my opinion on this book does not count? I validated Art's post, I have the book it is real, almost as large as a Bible!.many many hundreds of new annotations from Fischer, new unpublished pics, easy to follow figurine algebraic notation......new anecdotes from Bobby, corrections to the typos, ect. This is the real deal!!IMHO>

apparently Mrs Alekhine is the one on the right.....

----

Anonymous said...

I have good reason to believe this is real, not a hoax. And here is a link to the Ebay.CA item:

Fischer's new 61 book

GeneM
Friday, December 14, 2007 11:08:00 PM CST
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Anonymous said...

I can't tell you how I know.....but ...it's real. Saturday, December 15, 2007 5:41:00 PM CST

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From: Gene_M 12/14/2007 10:41 pm
To: ALL (1 of 18)
4709.1

BOBBY FISCHER'S NEW CHESS BOOK!

Public auction on Ebay.CA for Bobby Fischer's brand new chess book, "My 61 Memorable Games", published in 2007, all new!

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...

Gene Milener
http://www.CastleLong.com/

Edited 12/15/2007 12:10 am by Gene_M

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From: TIBETIANTICK 12/15/2007 11:28 pm
To: Gene_M (7 of 18)
4709.7 in reply to 4709.5

Well, someone doesn't agree; the bid is up to US $3,050.00.

Looks like someone is willing to play along with the hoax.

But Gene, do tell, why do you think it's legit?

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From: Gene_M 12/16/2007 8:18 pm
To: TIBETIANTICK (10 of 18)
4709.10 in reply to 4709.7

I believe this "61 Memorable" book is for real because I have known it was coming for some time now. I know some of the twists and turns this project has thus far survived. I have no role in it at all, so it is not my story to tell. The people involved have encouraged discretion and I am honoring that.

On blogs and forums I read posts by doubters, by people who say it must be a hoax. They point out this or that seemingly illogical aspect of the project and conclude it is phony. For example, why no press hyping the book for big sales? Why use Ebay.CA as a distribution mechanism? I understand the puzzlement and logic of the doubtful posters, but I also understand why their reasonings and conclusions are ultimately incorrect. I know a tiny bit about Bobby's eccentric concerns and reasons per this project, and given those reasons his handling of the project has been ruthlessly logical, even clever.

What I do not know is how much the substance of the original "60 Memorable" annotations has changed in ways that matter (as opposed to minor rewordings). I do not have a copy of the original, nor yet of the new. I expect a flood of comparative book reviews in 2008. David Surratt should write one.

I do know that as a side event Bobby recently was given a signed copy of my chess960 book, and that he had not previously known of its existence. I think Bobby replied something like "I will definitely take a look at it". Unfortunately for Bobby, my signature plus $4 will get you a latte at Starbucks ;-)

Gene Milener

http://www.CastleLong.com/

----
From Castlelong.com

Books:

Let us know if you have any thoughts about our books, on their strengths or weaknesses.

What other types of chess books would you like to see published?

Chess Authors:

Have you considered authoring a chess book?

At Castle Long Publications we judge each chess book by its content, not by the Elo rating of its author.

".

Context Dependency -- in a chess notation (or any other notation) is a bad thing, if all else is equal. The old Descriptive notation (N-B3) relied on context even more than does today's common SAN or FAN notations. But there is still a lot of major information missing in SAN for moves like Nxd6:

[AA] What type of piece did the knight take?
[BB] From what square did the knight begin its move?
[CC] Which color knight made the move, White or Black?

With so much fundamental info missing, it is no surprise at all that most people make notation errors during a rated OTBoard chess game. SAN seems designed to minimize the amount of writing we do as we notate during our games. But that should not have led to the convention that books should use a notation so sparse as SAN.

In his brand new book "My 61 Memorable Games" (search Ebay.CA within the next couple of days), Bobby Fischer chose to use a colorized form of FAN notation, to solve CC.

Fischer uses white figurines for White moves, and black figurines for Black moves. This will help readers avoid human errors during replay. BTWay, Chess Alpha 2 is one publicly available font that makes this mixed color figurine style possible, tho Fischer's font is not that one. by Gene_M on Sat Dec 15, 2007 12:59 am #83689 "