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(These Forums on uschess.org directly facilitate community commentary on CLOnline articles, but not for Chess Life articles. So instead of forum titled - “Chess Life Articles”, I must use this general - “All Things Chess” forum. So…)
In the 2013/October issue of Chess Life on page 11…
Grandmaster Ben Finegold gives a negative review of a new opening book titled - “The Dark Knight System” by James Schuyler (about 1…Nc6 as a universal reply).
Finegold’s review includes the following text, wherein he partly judges the book by its author’s Elo rather than exclusively on the book’s content:
QUOTE: If you already unfortunately play these kinds of openings or if you … don’t mind that the author is relatively weak (he is a FIDE master) then this is the book for you.
In contrast…
The NewInChess website has a webpage devoted to a new 2013 book by Graham Burgess, titled “A Cunning Chess Opening Repertoire for White” (tag line or subtitle is - “Take your opponents out of their comfort zone”).
QUOTE: FIDE Master Graham Burgess is Gambit’s Editorial Director, and one of the founders of the company. He holds the world record for marathon blitz chess playing, and lives in Minnesota. This is his 23rd chess book.
Standard is to capitalize a Master title and yet I don’t see much issue or disagreement. Consider the differences in source context. A strong (teaching) US GM is reviewing a book by an FM…or a publishing house is trumpeting the character and background of one of their authors. It will take a while for FM Schuyler to reach the publishing notoriety (infamy?) of FM Burgess and you have to start somewhere.
GM John Nunn is also a charter member of the UK Chess Publishing group…which is the fictional organization I made up for the team of 3-5 UK authors that all run together in the Everyman / Gambit / NIC circles. He and Graham are buddies.
Meh, I see Nunn’s comment as more defensive of his friend/employee at Gambit than a general rule to follow. UK chess is a small world with a lot of sour grapes (much like the USA). Sadler didn’t try all that hard (relative to others given self-reported effort) and made a pretty awesome come back to return very near his peak. Nunn peaked almost 20 years ago and dropped out of FIDE chess 7yrs ago after losing 15 points (which is massive at that level) to hold a 2600 rating forevermore.
Using author elo as a book judgement criteria isn’t a commentary on the author’s character or worth as a person. It’s a really fast way to evaluate whether the content of the book is likely to be worth what I pay in money and time to read the book.
Judging a book by the ELO of the author is a fast, but poor way to evaluate the content of a book. There are a number of authors who do not have flashy titles but who write quite well and give bang for the buck. David LeMoir is not on the list of GMs, but his books, “How to be a Deadly Chess Tactician” and “How to be Lucky in Chess” are wonderfully instructive books. Steve Mayer’s book, “Bishop vs. Knight: The Verdict” is a more than competent book on the subject. Jacob Aagaard is now more well known because of his many books on training, but his early work, “Meeting 1.d4” was well done. You can look his rating up and it barely compares with that of John Nunn, Ivan Sokolov, or of other GMs. If you judge books by the ELO of the author, then you will have to put down the books written by Jeremy Silman and John Watson.
The review by Finegold was wide ranging in its criticism of the book, “The Dark Knight System.” The flip comment on the rating of the author detracted from the review. It would have been better given the space allowed for the article to compare other works. The author seems to be trying to break new ground. That is very tough for Everyman Books, which appears to have a book on almost every opening known to man. I have most of them (sigh). Their books vary in quality, not so much because of the ELO of the authors, but because of their writing styles. Still most of the books conform to a familiar format. The book by Schuyler is probably not one that I would buy, but I might pick it up to scan for the ideas it has. That is a pretty good way to treat most books. If the ideas catch your fancy, buy the book.
Nunn’s comment does not look like a general rule to me either. I can understand a belief that his defense of The Slav may be biased, but, on the other hand, he could have chosen to be quiet rather than respond to the Sadler criticism of the Burgess book. If Nunn had seen the book as seriously flawed, it would not have been good from his point of view to call further attention to the book and possibly inspire Sadler to respond by publically identifying specific serious flaws. Consequently, I think it likely that Nunn did sincerely see The Slav as at least plausibly defensible as a “a workmanlike survey of the state of Slav theory at the time it was written”.
That still leaves the question of whether or not it is worthwhile to purchase a workmanlike survey of the state of Slav theory at the time it was written. I am particularly lacking in qualification to answer such a question, but I would guess that the answer depends somewhat on the ability of the purchaser as well as the time of the purchase. (What was available in 2001?) In another thread, Subject: Masters are Fish. , we have seen some indication that there are at least some players who can, for example, “mess around on ChessBase”, in order to learn about an opening. For players like that, I can understand a belief in author-rating as an approximate indication of the value of an opening book. However, we are not all like that, and it seems to me that a reviewer should keep in mind and address the possibly varying needs of his audience. (Related material at: viewtopic.php&f=24&t=19139 .)
I used to believe that - but after running a bookstore (years ago) I’m less certain its true. There are A LOT of golf books, for example. Searching googlebooks for chess yields 6MM results, for golf 38.4MM results.
