Artikelnummer
LXKEEGS
Autor
Grandmaster Strategy
Ray Keene's Best Games
212 Seiten, kartoniert, Hardinge, 2. Auflage 2002, Erstauflage 1999
Final vergriffen
Foreword
by Julian Hardinge
I have known Ray Keene ever since we were not at University together.
Ray arrived at Cambridge in the October of the year I went down, but his reputation marched before him and he visited the university once or twice during my final year. We met briefly but I had no reason to believe he would have any recof me at all. I went to live in Canada, then returned, and enfor one of the minor tournaof the Hastings Congress. Ray was playing in the Premier. When I went over to watch the game, he not only remembered me and came over to talk, but rememthings about me which I had forgotten.
This is extraordinarily characRay has an amazingly exengagement with the world. He notices and remembers things better than anyone else I know -particularly things about people. His enthusiasm for projects, peoideas and the universe in genis based on this engagement, and it is fair to say that to be inin any enterprise with him is always fun.
Perhaps I should say something about chess. I think it was Tarrasch who wrote: 'Life is a kind if chess,' though I have not checked the refI think for Ray, chess is an extension of life, rather than the reverse. His best games are deeply characteristic of his personality and temperament - fluent, infected with enthusiasm, passionate, controverThere is something very literabout them; I think there is a real difference between the style of the person who knows about many other things besides chess, and that of someone who does not. The latgains, I think, some practical advantages, but loses something too - an ability to reflect a wider world.
And when the polymath turns to different applications of the same skill, his advantage is considerable. In Ray's case, this consisted of chess journalism, authorship and organisation.
The first thing to be said is that his talent for explaining in a simple way the underlying logic of a posior a game is unrivalled. I can think of no other living chess writer who comes close. It is this above all that makes his best books so good. The art of chess analysis, as a communicative skill, lies in what to leave out, and in the telling of the story. The good commentator tells a true story, but also a good story.
The second feature is the writGenerally, chess writers do not write particularly well. Ray is an exception, forceful, clear and imagdrawing original metaphors and ideas easily from other fields and experiences. It is for this reathat he is one of the very small number of chess writers who have been successfully published in other fields.
Some other people have moved successfully from the playing of chess to writing about it, and a few have moved successfully into orand obtaining sponsorbut I know of no one except Ray who has achieved both. The list of tournaments and matches for which he has arranged funding and co-ordinated the organisation is extraordinarily impressive, and contains six World Championships including two in chess.
This has partly been achieved as a result of an extraordinary fertility of ideas, and an unusual energy in putting them into practice. It is easy to think of half a dozen initiatives - some successful, some not, initiated and carried through by Ray. The most recent and largest is the Mind Sports Olympiad, which has alput on two major events, and in which Ray is undoubtedly the driving force and now the Chief Executive Officer.
I do not think I can omit mention of the desire to succeed - not, obvian unusual quality in a chess player, but one which takes many different forms. Again, Ray is unin the way he has transferred the ambition to win, which served him well as a chessplayer, into the other aspects of his life and in his (externally at least) relaxed attitude to the possibilities of disaster, and in his vibrant optimism.
The chess world has always been characterised by ferocious enmiand Ray, who is a doer more than a politician, and not always entirely patient, has had his share of controversy. It would be easy to give major examples, such as the dispute with Campomanes over the latter's decision to terminate the first Kasparov - Karpov match, but I prefer a trivial one in which I was personally involved.
A friend, Julian Simpole, and myself contracted Ray to write a book for us, which ultimately apunder the title Warriors of the Mind. It was well received, except by a few critics who hapin every case, to be sworn enemies for other reasons. The most ferocious review was by EdWinter, a man not only unto see the wood for the trees, but who finds it hard to pick out the trees for the twigs. After an apocatalogue of the typographierrors in the book, he ended the review with the word 'swill'. When we were contemplating a second edition, this was one of the quotes picked by Ray to go on the flyleaf. Another, which I cannot resist quoting, was from a person called Hugh Myers, the wonderful: 'the only chess book which can actually be described as evil'.
And what about the future, the next half century? Well, I think it very likely to be original, and difand unexpected and fun: with a career or two still to go.
by Julian Hardinge
I have known Ray Keene ever since we were not at University together.
Ray arrived at Cambridge in the October of the year I went down, but his reputation marched before him and he visited the university once or twice during my final year. We met briefly but I had no reason to believe he would have any recof me at all. I went to live in Canada, then returned, and enfor one of the minor tournaof the Hastings Congress. Ray was playing in the Premier. When I went over to watch the game, he not only remembered me and came over to talk, but rememthings about me which I had forgotten.
This is extraordinarily characRay has an amazingly exengagement with the world. He notices and remembers things better than anyone else I know -particularly things about people. His enthusiasm for projects, peoideas and the universe in genis based on this engagement, and it is fair to say that to be inin any enterprise with him is always fun.
Perhaps I should say something about chess. I think it was Tarrasch who wrote: 'Life is a kind if chess,' though I have not checked the refI think for Ray, chess is an extension of life, rather than the reverse. His best games are deeply characteristic of his personality and temperament - fluent, infected with enthusiasm, passionate, controverThere is something very literabout them; I think there is a real difference between the style of the person who knows about many other things besides chess, and that of someone who does not. The latgains, I think, some practical advantages, but loses something too - an ability to reflect a wider world.
And when the polymath turns to different applications of the same skill, his advantage is considerable. In Ray's case, this consisted of chess journalism, authorship and organisation.
The first thing to be said is that his talent for explaining in a simple way the underlying logic of a posior a game is unrivalled. I can think of no other living chess writer who comes close. It is this above all that makes his best books so good. The art of chess analysis, as a communicative skill, lies in what to leave out, and in the telling of the story. The good commentator tells a true story, but also a good story.
The second feature is the writGenerally, chess writers do not write particularly well. Ray is an exception, forceful, clear and imagdrawing original metaphors and ideas easily from other fields and experiences. It is for this reathat he is one of the very small number of chess writers who have been successfully published in other fields.
Some other people have moved successfully from the playing of chess to writing about it, and a few have moved successfully into orand obtaining sponsorbut I know of no one except Ray who has achieved both. The list of tournaments and matches for which he has arranged funding and co-ordinated the organisation is extraordinarily impressive, and contains six World Championships including two in chess.
This has partly been achieved as a result of an extraordinary fertility of ideas, and an unusual energy in putting them into practice. It is easy to think of half a dozen initiatives - some successful, some not, initiated and carried through by Ray. The most recent and largest is the Mind Sports Olympiad, which has alput on two major events, and in which Ray is undoubtedly the driving force and now the Chief Executive Officer.
I do not think I can omit mention of the desire to succeed - not, obvian unusual quality in a chess player, but one which takes many different forms. Again, Ray is unin the way he has transferred the ambition to win, which served him well as a chessplayer, into the other aspects of his life and in his (externally at least) relaxed attitude to the possibilities of disaster, and in his vibrant optimism.
The chess world has always been characterised by ferocious enmiand Ray, who is a doer more than a politician, and not always entirely patient, has had his share of controversy. It would be easy to give major examples, such as the dispute with Campomanes over the latter's decision to terminate the first Kasparov - Karpov match, but I prefer a trivial one in which I was personally involved.
A friend, Julian Simpole, and myself contracted Ray to write a book for us, which ultimately apunder the title Warriors of the Mind. It was well received, except by a few critics who hapin every case, to be sworn enemies for other reasons. The most ferocious review was by EdWinter, a man not only unto see the wood for the trees, but who finds it hard to pick out the trees for the twigs. After an apocatalogue of the typographierrors in the book, he ended the review with the word 'swill'. When we were contemplating a second edition, this was one of the quotes picked by Ray to go on the flyleaf. Another, which I cannot resist quoting, was from a person called Hugh Myers, the wonderful: 'the only chess book which can actually be described as evil'.
And what about the future, the next half century? Well, I think it very likely to be original, and difand unexpected and fun: with a career or two still to go.
| EAN | 9780951375792 |
|---|---|
| Gewicht | 300 g |
| Hersteller | Hardinge |
| Breite | 13,8 cm |
| Höhe | 21,5 cm |
| Medium | Buch |
| Erscheinungsjahr | 2002 |
| Autor | Raymond Keene |
| Sprache | Englisch |
| Auflage | 2 |
| ISBN-10 | 0951375792 |
| ISBN-13 | 9780951375792 |
| Jahr der Erstauflage | 1999 |
| Seiten | 212 |
| Einband | kartoniert |
006 Symbols
007 Brief Biography
009 Preface
010 Ray Keene's Opponents
013 Foreword by Julian Hardinge
075 1 Junior Championships - Games 1961-67
037 2 Olympiad Medal - Games 1968-1970
059 3 British Champion - Games 1971
073 4 International Master - Games 1972-73
102 5 In Search of the Grandmaster Title - Games 1974-75
129 6 Grandmaster! - Games 1976
145 7 England's Ambassador - Games 1977-79
170 8 Gold Medals - Games 1980-84
196 9 The Mind Sports Revolution - Games 1985
202 10 Live Long and Prosper
007 Brief Biography
009 Preface
010 Ray Keene's Opponents
013 Foreword by Julian Hardinge
075 1 Junior Championships - Games 1961-67
037 2 Olympiad Medal - Games 1968-1970
059 3 British Champion - Games 1971
073 4 International Master - Games 1972-73
102 5 In Search of the Grandmaster Title - Games 1974-75
129 6 Grandmaster! - Games 1976
145 7 England's Ambassador - Games 1977-79
170 8 Gold Medals - Games 1980-84
196 9 The Mind Sports Revolution - Games 1985
202 10 Live Long and Prosper