Thanks for those heartwarming clips of Niel inducting Sir Paul into the <Rock and Roll Hall of Fame>.

I didn't know they were such good friends, but I remember in your forum last year there was a live song by Niel in England and Sir Paul makes a surprise appearance on stage.

How late in life do the musicians usually get the award?

1999 seems a long time for Sir Paul to wait, but I guess not if that's the normal amount of time.

26 ... ?

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26 ... ♕a5xa2+! 0-1 <<line-opening: a4->a1>

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(VARIATION)
27 ♔b1x♕a2 <decoy into pin>

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27 ... ♖b4-a4+ <coordinate on loose a1-sq>

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28 ♔a2-b1 ♖a4-a1#

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What do you think about Wall?

<SBC> holds him in high esteem as can be seen from her tribute to him: http://www.edochess.ca/batgirl/Wall...

Admittedly, I fail to see wherein his great contribution consists. The lack of references and the absurdity of the "facts" presented there leave a bad impression behind. They are probably taken from the usual suspects and seem to have even been worsened (although that's already an achievement in itself), adding phantasy to his sources.

I don't doubt his good intention, but to see his webpages show up as references for example on wikipedia makes me shiver. After all, just because something is published on the internet, doesn't make it reliable. And one has to be extremely gullible to believe for more than a second, that such detailed accounts of some events could exist (or at least not ask for the sources).

The mystery of <Bill Wall>. I'm not surprised that Sarah Beth likes him. He's a really warm, approachable person. Maybe 6 years ago <chessmoron> held the first "MAN VS MACHINE" computer challenge, and <Bill> played in consultation with our own <brankat> and <FM Dr. Mozart>.

CG.com Masters vs. Machines Invitational (2007)

I watched the games live on youtube, and I asked a few questions during the game. Bill answered every one, and those of others, while they were playing.

As for Bill's webpages, yes they are not reliable because they are unsourced and disorganized. He does list sources at the bottom, but the facts in the list aren't cited, so you really have no idea what source any given statement came from. In addition, some of the information on a given page contradicts other information on the same page- that's mainly what I mean by disorganization.

Bill does correct his pages when somebody bothers to point out an error. I had a photo of "Bobby Fischer" in a video I made, and <TheFocus> kindly pointed out it wasn't Bobby. He had proof the photo wasn't Bobby. I was on chess.com and saw the same photo posted by Bill, and I passed along the message from <TheFocus>. So Bill got rid of the photo.

When <AnnieK> started her pronunciation project, we noticed that there were some errors on Bill's text pronunciation page, and he corrected them.

Bill's material on chess is about equal to the general wikipedia norm, which makes it no surprise to see his pages cited there. He was one of the first to post a large number of biographical sketches on the internet. Mainly what he did, I think, is read through his own library and post whatever he found in his books.

He does have a large chess library, and he has discussed it with us whenever asked, in his forum or on the <ChessBookForum>.

So when people began making Wiki chess biographies, Bill's pages would be among the first to show up.

The thing is- most of the basic info about chess masters in Wikipedia and Bill's pages is true.

That said- there are serious flaws as we know. Lack of reliable cited contemporaneous sources, the propagation of hoary chess myths and legends, and a generally sloppy approach to fact checking.

You already know well my current opinions on chess historiography, and what I'm trying to do.

But there remain serious factual errors in every "documentary" I've posted on youtube. I don't deny the mistakes, when I find them or they are pointed out by others.

But I also haven't taken down the videos or re-edited them.

I also haven't made a new one in almost 2 years.

It would take a lot of time to re-edit them to fix the mistakes, and I don't want to just re-edit a video that has no vocal narration. If I went to all that trouble I'd want to put vocal narration in, like I have on <Polish Chess>, <Rossolimo> and <Nezhmetdinov> biographies. All the videos I posted so far were made with "Windows Movie Maker," a program with a design that makes "inserted corrections" almost impossible to do. I'm going to have to re-do them from scratch, pretty much. The Sony Vegas editor I have now, paid for by <lamont>, is much better for re-editing. I would be able to re-edit and fix "spot corrections" much, much more easily. But the thing is, I have yet to finish a documentary with the Sony Vegas. I do have a good deal of work done on three video timelines- Alekhine, Sultan Khan, and Petrovs, but a finished product is still a long way off. I think I'm nervous about posting more mistakes in new videos.

And as you saw a while ago, I was telling the sad story of me "guessing" about two significant "facts" on the Nezh project and having his son email me the corrections.

Bill can correct his web pages more easily, although I'm not sure they are all posted on "recent" servers- I'm not sure he has access to edit them all without redoing them and reposting them on a new server. Anyways, as I've said, in the two cases I had personal involvement in, Bill promptly re-edited the pages in question.

At any rate I shouldn't be so dismissive of pointing my finger at "bad chess history writers" as I have been, until I can clean my own house. Cleaning my own house would entail re-doing my videos and helping do a good job on the WCC Editing Project.

Finally, the thing about Bill is, if you email him with any kind of substantive question he will email you right back.

lol straight up <Koltanowski's> "Chessnicdotes" should be treated as fiction. I have it, and I'd say not one single "chessnicdote" in it has any basis in reality.

I'll tell you something else you reminded me of.

<Kotov> published a screenplay about <Alekhine's> life that was made into a truly terrible film, currently posted on youtube, in Russian. You don't need to understand Russian to see that it's fictional though. But- it *is* fiction, it was written as a screenplay.

But, and this is my point- <Kotov's> actual published "biography" of Alekhine is no more factual than his literary efforts.

I have a "google translated" copy in English, and as a source on anything to do with Alekhine's life, it's basically useless.

Incredibly shoddy scholarship. Or rather no attempt at actual scholarship.

More fiction, let's see... I'd say at least half of what <Hans Kmoch> "remembers" is demonstrably false.

Who else. Well you probably know as well as I do. <Edward Winter> has dismantled many of the older "chess history books" I have.

Hannak's biography of <Lasker> is unreliable. The <Linders> are unreliable.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Wall!

I have no doubts about him being a nice person and his intentions being good. That's why I would not lump him together with people like <Mozart> or other people whose <style of debate> has been revealed if mistakes were pointed out to them.

At least I have never seen Wall engaging in such disputes and your stories reaffirm my believe in him. And this despite the fact that he hasn't supporters like Kolti got with <Mozart> (though at the beginning, Kolti was the actual Mozart but he would certainly be proud of his successor).

It's certainly hard to redo all of that, but your videos are no doubt much harder to correct than a webpage.

But the approach you are taking before you start is also most important. A very good example is the WCC history page approach we are following now. Even if there may be mistakes in it, there are certainly less and they would not be too grave.

So while his intentions were good, his approach was flawed from the beginning. Uncritically, everything was lumped together and put online. Certainly a lot of work, but it has done more harm than good, I fear.

Let's take an example - the death of www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=13640

Kolti: <There he met 18-year-old Klaus Junge of Leipzig, who was acclaimed as a future world champion by the German press, and who was stabbed to death in a chess club fight in 1942!> (page 89 of the Feb 1976 'Chess Life & Review')

Wall: <Klaus Junge was an officer in the 12 SS-battalion defending Hamburg. When he was asked to surrender, he stood up, shouted "Sieg Heil!" and was shot.> http://www.webcitation.org/query?ur...

Paul Schmidt: <‘Klaus Junge, one of my best friends, was not “stabbed to death in a political brawl in a chess club in 1942” as stated by George Koltanowski in the February issue. He died in combat, as a German officer, on the last day but one [sic] of World War II, i.e. in 1945.> (pages 212-213 of the April 1976 'Chess Life & Review')

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

If Kmoch was at the scene and wrote the report containg the facts, we can certainly cite him. But his later accounts not so. Kmoch is not alone in that, but rather prolific.

Hannak is also not reliable. It's interesting, that his articles in the 'Neue Wiener Schachzeitung' are mostly him stating his opinion (e. g. on Bogoljubov, in his match against Alekhine.), whereas Kmoch reports what was going on and gives details about organization.

Heh nice catch on the "Dr. Hannak" did it with the "rope" in the "Dining Room" on that Warsaw/Vilnius confusion.

I don't have time to draft a proper reply to the many points you raise, as I've been going on around 2 hours sleep a night and my brain might be shorting out soon. I'm very nervous because next Friday I have to move to a new apartment and start a new job.

<crawfb5> also defended <Kmoch> to me in the past.

Believe me, I want to believe him, because he was present as an "embedded reporter" for so much of chess history. I may be exaggerating on 50% disbelief.

It's just that this Munninghoff biography of <Euwe> is so frustrating. There is a long passage that implies (but doesn't cite) Kmoch is the source for the passage. This passage related the spectacular story that <Alekhine> had mailed a letter to <Euwe> suggesting they play a Match on a luxury cruise ship, for the World Championship "if need be."

I have never seen such an incident even hinted at anywhere else.

But it's not made clear in the passage which recollections are meant to be Euwe's and which Kmoch's.

There's even a direct quotation from Euwe- unsourced. Boo Mr. Munninghoff.

I have to say <Kmoch> comes off as the chess history hero in the infamous "Sultan Khan anecdote correction" in Chessnote 3960 http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

lol <Kmoch> reminds me of <Edward Winter> in his rebuttal of the <William Winter> anecodote- dismantled, bit by bit, till at the end you can see that William Winter got everything wrong. Not a shred of truth, not one shred in the anecdote is true:

<Kmoch himself rebutted the anecdote in a letter published on page 245 of CHESS, 25 May 1963:

‘Not that it matters, nor that I would cast any blame on the late Winter, whom I knew as a <<<perfect gentleman.>>> It is only for the sake of curiosity that I ask permission to comment on Winter’s story concerning my game against Sultan Khan.

I never asked Winter or anybody else what language Sultan Khan spoke. Nor did I shout (I never do). Sultan Khan and I had met before. What little conversation there was between us was done in English, of which we both had a command sufficient for the purpose.

Winter, being not asked, had no opportunity to reply “Chess” or anything else.

I did not offer a draw three times, nor did Sultan Khan, who never smiled, meet my offers with a smile. Nor again did I resign a few moves later. And I was not the Austrian champion (contests have not been held at all in my active time).

Sultan Khan had White; we played a Giuoco Piano. After a small number of moves, probably 18 or so, a position was reached which I considered as fully satisfactory for Black.

I offered a draw so as to gain time for my work as a reporter. (I used to be very strict in never offering a draw to anybody unless my position, to the best of my understanding, was fully satisfactory.)

Sultan Khan accepted my offer outright. The game’s ending in a draw is a provable fact.’>

Sometimes I wonder "how can they get every single detail wrong." And yet sometimes they do.

<HeMateMe> appears to be aspiring to this goal, and I admire how many howling errors he can cram into such a concise post as this:

Alekhine vs Bogoljubov, 1914

<Apr-11-11
<<<HeMateMe>>>: Bogo, at his peak at age 24, beats AAA. He was 40-45 in his two title matches with Alekhine, past his peak.>

The rebuttal is nowhere near as concise, or artful:

<Nov-25-12
<<<Mrs. Alekhine:>>> <HeMateMe>- Your post is so incorrect it's literally meaningless.

Bogo did not peak at age 24, for one. At age 35 he won the USSR Championship. At age 36 he won both the USSR Championship and the Moscow International Tournament (ahead of Capablanca and Lasker).

Chess metrics has Bogo at no.1 in the world in 1927, age 38.

A year later at <Bad Kissingen> Bogo finished top of the table, again ahead of Capablanca.

When Bogo lost to Alekhine in 1929, he was a whopping 3 (three) years older than Alekhine.

Curiously, when he lost again to Alekhine in 1934, he was *still* just three years older.

Obviously-

1. At age 24 Bogo was not in his prime.

2. Age had little or nothing to do with the comparative playing strengths of Bogo and Alekhine, since they were only 3 years apart.>

What irritates me about this guy is that he literally litters the website with hundreds of such off the cuff remarks, proceeding from a chess history knowledge base of close to zero.

She is also neither self-effacing nor humble in tone.

Conclusion? I should think it much more pleasant to run into <Hans Kmoch> at a cocktail party than it would <Mrs. Alekhine>.

Certainly, Kmoch come across as a nice person. I didn't mean to defend all of his work, but where he was present and what he recorded and published back then, appears trustworthy. Those reminiscences are not always to be trusted (but also not to be dismissed out of hand), though we needn't always assume ill-will. We should be aware of how our own memory works.

Regarding ad hominems*, it is also important never to forget that attacking someone's work can be done in a non-offending manner and doesn't constitute as an attack on the person itself. That's also how I see my criticism of Wall's work - i. e. Wall's work not he himself.

A nice incident you cited there. This very habit of the user in question also did not elude my attention and his gaps in education are not restricted to chess history. All I have to add is, that he chose a very fitting avatar.

* I once saw a further differentiation, between ad hominem and ad personam:

<ad hominem>: Not addressing the issue directly, but via the opponent and his stance towards it (e. g. mentioning that he once held the opposite opinion, or that his current standpoint conflicts with a position held by the party / sect / institution / faith or whatever he is associated with or he represents)

<Maladetta: Such a sick game.>

I have never seen a game like this before.

27 ... ?

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Q. The single most important thing in a chess position is the safety of the <KING POSITION>. In this position, notice how the White b1-king has His <MOBILITY RESTRICTED> to the b1- and c2-squares. Hence the White b1-king is <TRAPPED IN A CORRIDOR>, the b1-h7 diagonal. His Majesty has only <ONE DEGREE OF MOBILITY (ODOM)>.

Wouldn't Black like to land a big <CHECK> on the e4-sq; it could be <MATE>. The White e1-rook is the only <DEFENDER> preventing this idea. What to do.

Hint: As FM Neimann writes in his tactic book, <CRUCIAL DEFENDER. OVERLOADED DEFENDER>.

27 ... ♖d8-d1+! <overloaded: d1-sq & e4-sq>

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(VARIATION)
28 ♖e1x♖d1 <deflection: e4-sq>

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28 ... ♕e7xe4+ <mating>

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15 ... ♕e7-e6?? <stalemated piece>

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Q. Black has just blundered by playing 15 ... ♕e7-e6??. <YOU CANNOT GO FORWARD IF YOU CANNOT GO BACK!>. That is a recipe for getting <TRAPPED>. If ony Morphy playing White could play ♘f3-g5, he would win the <TRAPPED> Black e6-queen. Only the Black h6-pawn <DEFENDER> prevents this, by <PROTECTING> the g5-sq. How did Morphy deal with this <DEFENDER>.

Hint: <THE UNDERRATED REMOVAL OF THE GUARD -- NM DAN HEISMAN>

16 ♗c1xh6! <remove guard: g5-sq>

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(VARIATION)
16 ... ♖h8x♗h6 <illusory protection>

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17 ♘f3-g5 <trapped queen>

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A simply incredible symphony of <REMOVAL OF THE GUARD> by Grischuk!!!

21 ... ♕e8-a4! attacks the White c2-queen <DEFENDER> of the White e4-knight.

23 ... ♖a8-a3! attacks the White d3-queen <DEFENDER> of the White e4-knight as well as the White b1-rook and b1-skewering/checking square.

25 ... ♗f5x♘e4! destroys the White e4-knight <DEFENDER> of the f2-entry square.

26 ... ♗g7-h6! attacks the White e3-bishop <DEFENDER> of the f2-entry square.

28 ... e5-e4! attacks the White d3-bishop <DEFENDER> of the e2-mating square.

----

21 ... ♕e8-a4! ATTACK THE DEFENDER REMOVE THE GUARD!

23 ... ♖a8-a3! ATTACK THE DEFENDER REMOVE THE GUARD!

25 ... ♗f5x♘e4! ATTACK THE DEFENDER REMOVE THE GUARD!

26 ... ♗g7-h6! ATTACK THE DEFENDER REMOVE THE GUARD!