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James Schroeder
July 26, 2017
Two of the most controversial writers/players in American Chess are Sam Sloan and James Schroeder.
The following is called The Colorful James R. Schroeder by Tartajubow
James R. Schroeder, now retired from chess, was a colorful and sometimes controversial character. His name is pronounced Sch-A-der with a long a, NOT Sch-roader! On his website (now defunct) he described himself as "a renown chess author, editor, critic, master, historian and constant student of the game. He was the Ohio Chess Champion of 1950 and 1985 and the winner of fifty consecutive USCF rated games." Schroeder founded and operated The Prison Chess Fund. He was also a seller of books and chess equipment.
Schroeder was born on November 30, 1927 and as far as I know is still alive and living in Washington state. I knew him quite well when he lived in Cleveland, Ohio and was active as a tournament director and was known for visiting the John G. White chess book collection at the Cleveland Public Library where he would meticulously hand copy games from famous tournaments, type them up, mimeograph them and then sell them for fifty cents apiece at tournaments. I even helped him on one book by proofreading the games and I think he gave me a book (a real one) of Karpov's games for my efforts.
One day he approached me at a tournament and asked if I had a car and could I give him a ride to his apartment to pick up some chess books to bring back and sell. His apartment was in an older building and was sparsely furnished with a small portable black and white TV with a coat hanger antenna. Chess books were piled all over the place. On the way back we stopped for lunch at an out of the way Chinese restaurant where we were the only non-Chinese in the place, but Schroeder seemed to be pretty well known.
One lesser known incident in Schroeder's career was when he was selected by the controversial Nestor Farris to be the editor of The Chess Correspondent. According to Bryce Avery in Correspondence Chess in America, it was the "most catastrophic blunder in Farris' entire CCLA career."
Avery wrote that when he got the job, Schroeder had been given enough material for a couple of issues, but he wouldn't use it, choosing to write his own material instead and got the CCLA board's dander up by complaining in the magazine that they had not given him enough material. He also changed the design that had been used by the previous editors, Isaac Kashdan and William Wilcock. Schroeder's cover was too dark and the font hard to read. He also used filler that included drawings of maggots, photos of Elizabeth Taylor dressed as Cleopatra and a cartoon of a woman wearing only a towel
http://tartajubow.blogspot.ca/2017/0...schroeder.html
A note to the above article says:
James Schroeder died July 8, 2017 in Vancouver WA.
________
J Schroeder was the first researcher to really take advantage of the famous John G. White collection at the Cleveland Public Library, and he used its resources to produce many bulletins and books on forgotten tournaments. Among his best books was Boris Spassky: World’s Greatest Player (1967), the first work in English on Spassky. The series of pamphlets he produced on early World Championship matches, which relied heavily on primary sources, were first rate.
Jim could be brutally honest in his reviews, and, for him, it was never personal. He considered his criticism to be professional and constructive, but those on the receiving end did not always see it that way—friend and foe alike!
Tony Miles has the record for the shortest book review – Utter crap. – but Jim was not far behind. His review of The Dragon Variation by Anthony Glyn could have ended after the first sentence: “I have one good comment on this slop: the book is well bound.”
https://new.uschess.org/news/remembe...der-1927-2017/
________
I subscribed to The Chess Correspondent in 1975 and remember getting the Schroeder issue, which was loaded with typos and ended with the new editor challenging the whole readership to individual matches with him!
July 26, 2017
Two of the most controversial writers/players in American Chess are Sam Sloan and James Schroeder.
The following is called The Colorful James R. Schroeder by Tartajubow
James R. Schroeder, now retired from chess, was a colorful and sometimes controversial character. His name is pronounced Sch-A-der with a long a, NOT Sch-roader! On his website (now defunct) he described himself as "a renown chess author, editor, critic, master, historian and constant student of the game. He was the Ohio Chess Champion of 1950 and 1985 and the winner of fifty consecutive USCF rated games." Schroeder founded and operated The Prison Chess Fund. He was also a seller of books and chess equipment.
Schroeder was born on November 30, 1927 and as far as I know is still alive and living in Washington state. I knew him quite well when he lived in Cleveland, Ohio and was active as a tournament director and was known for visiting the John G. White chess book collection at the Cleveland Public Library where he would meticulously hand copy games from famous tournaments, type them up, mimeograph them and then sell them for fifty cents apiece at tournaments. I even helped him on one book by proofreading the games and I think he gave me a book (a real one) of Karpov's games for my efforts.
One day he approached me at a tournament and asked if I had a car and could I give him a ride to his apartment to pick up some chess books to bring back and sell. His apartment was in an older building and was sparsely furnished with a small portable black and white TV with a coat hanger antenna. Chess books were piled all over the place. On the way back we stopped for lunch at an out of the way Chinese restaurant where we were the only non-Chinese in the place, but Schroeder seemed to be pretty well known.
One lesser known incident in Schroeder's career was when he was selected by the controversial Nestor Farris to be the editor of The Chess Correspondent. According to Bryce Avery in Correspondence Chess in America, it was the "most catastrophic blunder in Farris' entire CCLA career."
Avery wrote that when he got the job, Schroeder had been given enough material for a couple of issues, but he wouldn't use it, choosing to write his own material instead and got the CCLA board's dander up by complaining in the magazine that they had not given him enough material. He also changed the design that had been used by the previous editors, Isaac Kashdan and William Wilcock. Schroeder's cover was too dark and the font hard to read. He also used filler that included drawings of maggots, photos of Elizabeth Taylor dressed as Cleopatra and a cartoon of a woman wearing only a towel
http://tartajubow.blogspot.ca/2017/0...schroeder.html
A note to the above article says:
James Schroeder died July 8, 2017 in Vancouver WA.
________
J Schroeder was the first researcher to really take advantage of the famous John G. White collection at the Cleveland Public Library, and he used its resources to produce many bulletins and books on forgotten tournaments. Among his best books was Boris Spassky: World’s Greatest Player (1967), the first work in English on Spassky. The series of pamphlets he produced on early World Championship matches, which relied heavily on primary sources, were first rate.
Jim could be brutally honest in his reviews, and, for him, it was never personal. He considered his criticism to be professional and constructive, but those on the receiving end did not always see it that way—friend and foe alike!
Tony Miles has the record for the shortest book review – Utter crap. – but Jim was not far behind. His review of The Dragon Variation by Anthony Glyn could have ended after the first sentence: “I have one good comment on this slop: the book is well bound.”
https://new.uschess.org/news/remembe...der-1927-2017/
________
I subscribed to The Chess Correspondent in 1975 and remember getting the Schroeder issue, which was loaded with typos and ended with the new editor challenging the whole readership to individual matches with him!
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