| Taylor Kingston 2005-06-15, 8:32 pm |
| parrthenon@cs.com wrote:
quote:
>
> Has master Taylor Kingston left us for the time being?
Larry, I realize your life is empty without me, but we really must
stop meeting like this. My wife is getting jealous. Besides, I also
have two daughters, a career, a garden, three dogs and a cat, and they
need me more than you. In reply to your post, you will have to be
content with a repeat of my June 8 post "Falling Into Holes with Parr
and Sloan", in which I already dealt with the lies you keep repeating.
"Now, then, if Taylor Kingston explained to his audience that he was
referencing postal play over 20 years ago when claiming to be a 2300
ELO, there is no quarrel. If he did not, then the conclusion is pretty
obvious: IN A MOMENT OF HUMAN WEAKNESS, HE LET HIS EGO AGAIN GET THE
BETTER OF HIS SELF RESPECT." - Larry Parr, 8 June 2005, 6:50 AM
You done now, Larry? Had your fun? Good - now be quiet while I tell
the people what really happened. This will take a little while, so have
the courtesy to stay quiet until I'm done.
A few days ago, June 5th, both you and Sam Sloan referred to me as
a "weak player." That indicated to me that neither of you knew the
facts, so I decided to have some fun.
One of the simplest kinds of trap, one hunters have been using for
millennia, is made by digging a hole, covering it with leafy branches,
and suspending some bait above the hole. The quarry sees the bait, goes
to get it, and falls in the hole. Keep this in mind as you read
further.
The bait, in this case, was my posting on 5 June, 8:23 PM: "I think
with a peak Elo of 2300+, and a top ranking of, as I recall, #46 in the
country, I was a tad better than 'weak.'"
There was no deception in this. I was well aware that anyone can
check any USCF OTB rating in seconds at www.uschess.org. And I know
that most readers of this group know it too. I also know that postal
ratings are not shown there.
Now, I hope this is not perceived as bragging, but I would humbly
submit that based on both my newsgroup posts, and the hundreds of
published articles I have written, that the chess community, except for
some such as Parr and Sloan, see me as a person who insists on factual
truth, and who has at least average intelligence.
Now, imagine that such a person says "My body temperature is 37
degrees." To an American reader, used to the Fahrenheit scale, this
will at first seem absurd; 37 degrees is only 5 degrees above freezing.
But, if the reader is fair-minded and prudent, will he immediately
shout "He's lying! This proves he's a liar!"? No, he will stop and
think: "Wait, maybe he doesn't mean Fahrenheit." And he will quickly
realize that 37 Celsius = 98.6 Fahrenheit, i.e. perfectly normal.
But Sam Sloan is far from prudent, and neither he nor Larry Parr is
fair-minded. So, now, back to chess rankings and the trap.
I wanted to see how far you and Sloan would go with my #46/2300
claim. My expectation was that Sloan would fall right in the hole. He
did, the same day, with all guns blazing. "Eureka! Taylor Kingston is
lying! Now we have proof!!" etc. etc. Sam even went so far as to fall
in a *second hole* I had not even dug, by claiming that USCF ratings
are not Elo ratings!
You, Larry, also performed as expected. You are not as impulsive as
Sam, so I did not expect you to fall immediately in the hole. But I
knew you would try your usual spin-doctoring to remove the egg on your
face, splattered there by your "weak player" claim. You've tried two
angles:
1) Changing your tune, that what you "really meant" was just that I
was weak compared to GM Evans. Sorry, Larry, that won't work. Your
first post on this, and Sloan's, made no comparison - you just said
"Mr. Kingston, a weak player, simply was incapable of doing this kind
of analysis." (5 June, 1:31 PM). Nothing in there about "weak compared
to" anyone.
2) That my rating/ranking claim was a case of "human weakness" where
my "ego got the better" of me.
Now really, Larry, after all these years we've been
thrust-and-parrying at each other, I would have hoped that you'd credit
me with at least a small degree of intelligence. Do you honestly think
I would be so stupid, or so egotistical, as to post a false claim that
anyone could refute in seconds? Do you honestly think I would expect to
get away with it? And do you have so little respect for our readers
here as to think they'd fall for it?
And yet you claim "[Kingston] knew what most of you would conclude
about [his] playing strength ... and that you would not be imagining
'2300 ELO' meant performances in postal tournaments." (6 June, 6:50 AM)
Sorry, Larry, I knew the exact opposite. I knew that fair-minded
readers would check the facts, and so they did. Only 7 minutes after
Sam trumpeted "He's lying!", Paul Rubin posted:
"About 2 seconds of Google searching reveals that he's talking about
pre-1985 correspondence ratings, not OTB." 5 June, 11:30 PM
So you see, Larry, I tried to fool nobody, I simply spoke facts. And
nobody was fooled (unless they believed Sloan!).
You are right about one thing, Larry. You said that I "knew what I
was doing when claiming to be 2300 ELO and got called on it by Sam
Sloan." Yes, I knew exactly what I was doing, and it worked like a
charm. Sam took the bait, and fell right in the hole. Then, as a bonus,
he dug a second hole, and fell right in. Serendipity!
And now, Larry, you're spin-doctoring in the wind, trying to obscure
the fact that you tried a cheap smear, and got caught red-handed, and
that Sam Sloan, by whom you set such great store, is both rash and
ignorant. Besides trying to wipe the egg off your own face, you're
trying to get Sam out of the hole, and succeeding at neither. Quite an
amusing spectacle.
So, let's sum up what we've learned here:
1. My ranking/rating claim must be slightly revised. I had believed
that when USCF converted postal ratings to the OTB system, they simply
added 500 points. As Tom Martinak showed, my old 1816 postal rating
converts to about 2270, not 2316, and I was ranked #45 in April 1985,
not #46. Rating slightly down, ranking slightly up. Still better than
"weak."
2. As Alexander Pope wrote in "An Essay on Criticism" (1711): "Fools
rush in where angels fear to tread." Almost 300 years later, Sam Sloan
proves Pope right again.
3. Larry Parr, who likes to criticize other's research abilities,
couldn't be bothered to do a little research himself before making yet
another blatantly false statement. And he's too stiff-necked, not to
mention hypocritical, to admit it.
Well, the "3 Simple Questions for Larry Parr" thread, which I started
back on May 25th, has been a lot of fun. It's pointed out old
Parr/Evans/Sloan falsehoods, and revealed new ones. However, it's gone
off on many tangents, of which this is just the latest, and its
present usefulness is about over. Still, it will serve as an archive of
information on Evans, Parr and Sloan for years to come, and while it's
been a lot of work, I think it worth the effort for that reason.
Now I have other commitments, and will be spending less time on
rec.games.chess newsgroups. Parr will no doubt continue spin-doctoring
(I suspect he will even spin-doctor in his grave once he's there), but
I will be responding less, if at all. To others who may deal with him,
I have only two words of advice: Caveat emptor.
Taylor Kingston
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