| parrthenon@cs.com 2005-04-26, 12:41 am |
| FROM KING TO KNAVE
Edward Winter has not so much been banned by any chess journal as
DROPPED by them. There is a distinction. In short, Winter's boredom
ratio is too high for popular writing. Which is why he gets dropped.
-- Larry Parr
I think his leaving Chess Cafe was Winter's decision, not Chess Cafe's.
-- Neil Brennen in praise of A CHESS OMNIBUS.
Needless to add, this book was published by Russell Enterprises which
manages ChessCafe. Later there was some sort of falling out with
Edward Winter whose columns vanished from that website. No explanation
ever was offered.
Let us now turn to THE OMNISCIENT ONE (1926-2003) by GM Hans Ree in
NEW IN CHESS #6 2003 an obituary of Ken Whyld, arguably the greatest
modern chess historian.
Whyld's greatest achievement is surely THE OXFORD COMPANION TO CHESS,
which he wrote together with David Hooper. When in 1984 the first
edition appeared it met universal praise. To describe the work I can do
no better than to quote Edward Winter, who wrote: "Never have we read a
chess book which brought us so much pleasure or which has taught us to
much...With luck, it will mark a new era of accuracy in chess writing.
Never has the record been set straight so often within the covers of a
single volume."
Alas, in later years relations between these two eminent historians
turned sour to such an extent that when Whyld, in the 1988 interview
with Sarah Hurst, told a story about a lady-friend of his who offered
to hand-deliver a chess package to Mr. Winter in Geneva and was
courteously welcomed there. Winter hit back in the next issue of CHESS,
accusing Whyld of having sent a spy to his house, on the pretext of
delivering a package.
In Winter's latest book A CHESS OMNIBUS Whyld has definitely been
downgraded from King to Knave, being described as having a "propensity
for distortion and untruth." Two champions at odds, quite a common
occurrence in the chess world.
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