| parrthenon@cs.com 2005-06-15, 12:33 am |
| DID MR. 2300+ ELO LEAVE US?
Has master Taylor Kingston left us for the time being?
So, then, where do we stand?
|The gent informed us without further initial explanation that he
was a 2300+ ELO player and was, therefore, far from "weak." His
statement was straightforward without a hint of humor.
Lo and behold, Sam Sloan checked out the ratings and discovered
that Mr. Kingston was a Class A player over the board Mr. Kingston's
response was that he was once over 20 years ago No. 46 in a postal
rating scale that used Elo-type ratings and was probably over 2300.
The counterattack came against ... Sam Sloan!
In an attempt to divert attention from the bald assertion that he was
2300+ ELO, Mr. Taylor and a few of his cronies began a long discussion
about how one coverts old postal ratings into Elo values. Blah, blah,
blah.
THE REAL ISSUE
The real issue was not the convertibility of postal ratings but what
other players understand when someone claims to be 2300+ ELO. Would
they think: "He is claiming to be a fairly strong chess master." Or
would they ask themselves: "Well, okay, but what ELO scale are we
talking about?
THE FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE
Two of Mr. Kingston's supporters tried out the postcentric vs.
otbcentric defense. When Mr. Kingston, without elaboration, claimed to
be 2300 ELO in a public forum, he was acting as part of a postalcentric
world, imagining possibly incorrectly, that he was speaking to a
postalcentric chess world.
The defense was ludicrously dishonest. And died. Indeed, Mr.
Kingston himself buried it.
THE "HORSEFEATHERS" DEFENSE
Mr. Kingston instead offered us what one reader here called the
"horsefeathers" defense. He admitted claiming to be 2300+ ELO. He
admitted that he expected readers to understand he was claiming to be a
strong, OTB master. Hence the destruction of the
otbcentric-postalcentric defense of his dishonest supporters.
BUT: He justified his ruse by arguing that he was serving the
higher purpose of exposing what a clueless sap Sam Sloan happens to be
and, though he never quite explained how, of tossing egg on this less
impulsive writer's face.
Mr. Kingston told us that he never really lied because he knew
all the time that his initial claim -- without a scintilla of jocosity
-- would be exploded by a simple check of the statistics. Indeed,
after Sam Sloan's broadside, Paul Rubin came to the rescue and said
postal ratings might be construed as justifying the statement.
Further, Mr. Kingston offered the literal-truth defense: his
claim to be 2300+ ELO and No. 46 was literally true, if shorn from the
context of what any group of players understand by this bald claim. He
defended himself by arguing: I misled you, but I did so by using
numbers and claims that were, when shorn of context, literally true.
THE ACTUAL EXPLANATION
If taken as completely true, then Taylor Kingston defends himself by
saying that he lied in a good cause. What cause was that?
Does Mr. Kingston's defense bear the grin test?
I don't think it does. The man wrote a bit of straightly
expressed, unjocose wish-fulfillment under extreme pressure -- despite
his lie to the contrary, he was evidently not enjoying himself -- and
miscalculated where the lie would lead.
Why can't Mr. Kingston write the following? "I was wrong to
claim to be 2300+ ELO. I knew you people would figure I was a strong
OTB master when making the claim, but I typed it out because for a
moment my ego got the better of my self-respect. Somwhere in the back
of my mind, I thought I could justify the claim with a reference to
postal chess, but in the rough and tumble of polemics, I realized that
the whole business was, in truth, a lie on my part. I apologize. This
time around, Sam Sloan hit me hard and hit me justifiably, though
getting some facts wrong in the process."
To my mind, the sad business would then be at an end. Such a
handsome amende honorable by Mr. Kingston would bespeak a conscience.
Instead he still clings to deafening silence.
And so it goes.
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