Worst Chess Writing Ever?

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Worst Chess Writing Ever?

One of the worst books, at least for typos, has to be Rook Endings- I believe by Levenfish/Smyslov. It is lime green in colour. I struggled through the first chapter with the typos, but the errors continued throughout the rest of the book and I abandoned it. It took a difficult subject and made it impossible.

Mine has a deep red colour. Actually, it's probably technically one of best books on rook endings. I can't think of a better one. If only I could play all those endings.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Re: Worst Chess Writing Ever?

One interesting case was the late Eduard Gufeld. He had chess books published in Russian in the ex-Soviet Union. My Russian isn't good enough to judge the quality of the prose, but I've never heard anybody complain about the quality of the language in Russian chess books.

Once during a training session we judged a "Black" series (Gufeld, Panov, Suetin, Mikenas, etc). Most of us liked Gufeld book, as it was written in a quite different (more entertaining) language than others. There is an episode how Fischer praised his one of the first book (about Dragon, I think).

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Worst Chess Writing Ever?

To edit a book is no easy task. Two groups that failed in my recollection were: many books by Eric Schiller; and for a period (perhaps the late 1980s) a lot of Batsford (blessed be thy name) books. We're talking half a dozen typos per page.

One interesting case was the late Eduard Gufeld. He had chess books published in Russian in the ex-Soviet Union. My Russian isn't good enough to judge the quality of the prose, but I've never heard anybody complain about the quality of the language in Russian chess books. I can think of at least four people in Canada alone who could have turned those books into good English. Just take the Russian and translate it. At Inside Chess, I offered to do that. But no, that was not the way Gufeld worked. He would laboriously translate the books into an incomprehensible English and submit hand-written manuscript pages. So I refused that gig, which fell to Eric Woro (who does not know Russian). Since no Gufeld book has yet appeared in this thread, that is proof of Woro's good work in editing those books.

Real translation is another matter. Fred Reinfeld, who cranked out many a potboiler on his own account, did a good job translating the Tartan / McKay edition of Nimzo's My System. AFAIR. In more recent history, there has been a tendency to translate books from Russian in a too rigid, word-for-word fashion. But that too has (mostly) passed.

[David McTavish]

Re: Worst Chess Writing Ever?

One of the worst books, at least for typos, has to be Rook Endings- I believe by Levenfish/Smyslov. It is lime green in colour. I struggled through the first chapter with the typos, but the errors continued throughout the rest of the book and I abandoned it. It took a difficult subject and made it impossible.

One mans garbage is another man's treasure... I found this to be the most lucid and relevant endgame book for practical improvement.Combine with blueberries, a board, water, and fresh air esp. The hardcover lime edition is in classical notation. Better than Averbakh, Mednis, and even Dvortsetski imo.
My copy disappeared at a tourney long ago.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Re: Worst Chess Writing Ever?

One of the worst books, at least for typos, has to be Rook Endings- I believe by Levenfish/Smyslov. It is lime green in colour. I struggled through the first chapter with the typos, but the errors continued throughout the rest of the book and I abandoned it. It took a difficult subject and made it impossible.

Is it an algebraic version from the 1995 period? Re-published 60 games by BF had many typos too ;)

[Greg Beal]

Re: Worst Chess Writing Ever?

One of the worst books, at least for typos, has to be Rook Endings- I believe by Levenfish/Smyslov. It is lime green in colour. I struggled through the first chapter with the typos, but the errors continued throughout the rest of the book and I abandoned it. It took a difficult subject and made it impossible.

[Kerry Liles]

Re: Worst Chess Writing Ever?

Has anyone looked at "Improving Your Chess at any Age" by Andres D. Hortilosa? It's from Everyman (2009).

The book is interesting, but the prose is beyond tortured. I was going to put up a selection of quotes, but abandoned the notion as too painful. So, I'll just offer up the worst I have found so far:

"When you can take something away from your opponent, wisely resist the urge and falsify the idea first before biting into the apple."

It isn't clear who the editor is. If it was me, I wouldn't have put my name to it either.

Ouch. Maybe the book was translated into English using Google translate or Babelfish? It sure looks like an automated (bad) translation (perhaps via multiple languages?

Try taking a reasonable English phrase and getting Google to translate it: 1. to French 2. to German 3. to Spanish 4. back to English...

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Worst Chess Writing Ever?

Has anyone looked at "Improving Your Chess at any Age" by Andres D. Hortilosa? It's from Everyman (2009).

The book is interesting, but the prose is beyond tortured. I was going to put up a selection of quotes, but abandoned the notion as too painful. So, I'll just offer up the worst I have found so far:

"When you can take something away from your opponent, wisely resist the urge and falsify the idea first before biting into the apple."

Ignoring the prose, the spirit of the advice from your bold-faced quote can be applied to selecting or keeping one's opening repertoire as well.

Every now and then I subject one opening or another in my repertoire to great pressure in my home studies, trying to 'refute' my own opening by convincing myself that the opponent can get an edge (or clearly equalize if it's a White opening of mine), or get a dull/drawish position (unless I want a draw from the opening), 'by force'. In other words, I try to "falsify" my opening :D.

So far my (very wide) repertoire (which took years to establish) has held up pretty well despite all the pressure I (or my opponents) have thrown at it. I play some openings which the books may regard as rather suspect too. My repertoire (and chess) does seem quite resilient, IMO :).

[Peter McKillop]

Re: Worst Chess Writing Ever?

No one has mentioned Franklin K. Young yet...so I will. I found an article by Richard Shorman on the net with the following quite typical sample of Young's writing:

"Whenever a point of junction is the vertex of a mathematical figure formed by the union of the ligistic symbol of a pawn with an oblique, diagonal, horizontal, or vertical from the logistic symbol of any kindred piece; then the given combination of two kindred pieces wins any given adverse piece" ("The Major Tactics of Chess," Boston, 1898, pg. 147).

[Neil Sullivan]

Re: Worst Chess Writing Ever?

Maybe it's just me, but I always found Nimzowitsch a very difficult writer. Perhaps he just suffered from poor translation, but here is an example from the 1929 Bell edition as translated by Philip Hereford:

"If I were running a race with someone, it would be, to say the least, inopportune were I to throw away valuable time by rubbing, say, a smut off my nose, although I must not be considered as blaming that operation in itself." (page 3, Chapter 1, section 3).

Nimzo is talking about not squandering a lead in development, but the image is arcane, and the prose ponderous. A smut, by the way, refers to a cinder or soot, as from burning coal. In the age of steam these were an everyday hazard; now I don't think many would have the first clue what he's talking about. Anyhow, my memories of My System have been forever coloured by that one sentence.

In 2007, Quality Chess put out a new edition of the classic My System. They wrote:

"The problem for an English-speaking audience has been that My System was written in German more than eighty years ago. The commonly-used contemporary translations have sounded dated for some time, and were always questionable: the translators frequently toned down many passages, fearing Nimzowitsch’s biting wit would be too controversial.

This edition uses a brand-new translation that recreates the author’s original intentions. For the first time an English-speaking audience can appreciate the true nature of a famous chess book."

I also had a lot of trouble digesting the book in its older translations, but this new one is a lot lighter and fresher. Here's the paragraph you cited:

"If I were running a race with someone, it would at least be a waste of precious time to stop in order to blow my nose, though there is nothing wrong with blowing one's nose. But if I could oblige my opponent to indulge in some similar time-wasting activity, this would allow me to achieve a lead in devlopment."

No promises, but you might be able to enjoy it now. :)

[Gordon Taylor]

Re: Worst Chess Writing Ever?

Maybe it's just me, but I always found Nimzowitsch a very difficult writer. Perhaps he just suffered from poor translation, but here is an example from the 1929 Bell edition as translated by Philip Hereford:

"If I were running a race with someone, it would be, to say the least, inopportune were I to throw away valuable time by rubbing, say, a smut off my nose, although I must not be considered as blaming that operation in itself." (page 3, Chapter 1, section 3).

Nimzo is talking about not squandering a lead in development, but the image is arcane, and the prose ponderous. A smut, by the way, refers to a cinder or soot, as from burning coal. In the age of steam these were an everyday hazard; now I don't think many would have the first clue what he's talking about. Anyhow, my memories of My System have been forever coloured by that one sentence.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Worst Chess Writing Ever?

I have this book as well, though I haven't read it yet. Perusing its pages at random definitely yields a number of examples of tortured phrases and sentences. I don't agree that this failing makes it a bad book.

The system that the author offers reminds me of some of the writings of Cecil Purdy and Dan Heisman with a smattering of Alexander Kotov thrown in for good measure.

Everyman Chess probably needs to take a look at its editing and proofreading. There were similar complaints on Amazon about another recent Everyman book, "Modern Chess: Move by Move" by Colin Crouch. The prose there was not quite as tortured but there are issues with typos. There has been a suggestion that the typos drop what may have been a great book down to a very good book. I'm not sure that I agree but I'll know in a few weeks once I finish with the book.

[Lucas Davies]

Re: Worst Chess Writing Ever?

Look at the guy on the cover... That is why you buy the book. Tried to make this post in all caps, but it converted my all caps into all lower-case. Pretty lame...

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Worst Chess Writing Ever?

No, it does not.

On the Everyman chess forum, the author discusses the fact that changes to the book were made after the cover had already been designed. The promise of a study plan was not respected. Oh well ...

I agree that the style isn't necessarily the most important element, but, if you don't understand what I am telling you, it doesn't matter how great my advice might really be.

That's the important part.

Strictly going from the quote, which is out of context and I have never seen the content of the book, I assumed it means that once you see you can obtain an advantage, or a piece, do the proper preparation rather than immediately pouncing and possibly spoiling the long term prospects of your game.

[Neil Sullivan]

Re: Worst Chess Writing Ever?

For me the major question is if a person can improve his chess from the book.

I don't care if he writes with an accent. I only care if the title fairly represents the content of the book. In you opinion, does the title fairly represent the content of the book?

No, it does not.

On the Everyman chess forum, the author discusses the fact that changes to the book were made after the cover had already been designed. The promise of a study plan was not respected. Oh well ...

I agree that the style isn't necessarily the most important element, but, if you don't understand what I am telling you, it doesn't matter how great my advice might really be.