Some Authors are in BAD NEED of an Editor!

I don't know which author to blame or whether to blame the editor (if one even exists), but I doubt anybody has ever published something this blatantly wrong before in chess history content, even Eric Schiller!

In "Basman's Folly" by Cyrus Lakdawala and Carsten Hansen, the Introduction chapter, Game 1, a Correspondence game by Henry Grob played in 1941, note a to Black's third move, I directly quote the book here with the exception of using letters instead of figurines for the pieces, but all the text below in quotes is theirs, not mine:

"a) 3...dxc4 4.Qa4+ Nd7 5.Qxc4 Nb6 6.Qc5+ c6!? Black gambits for a gain of time. (6...Nd7 hangs on to the e5-pawn) 7.Qxe5+ Ne7 as played in D.Wedding-C.Bloodgood, corr. We don't really believe in Black's full compensation for the sacrificed pawn, although the engine does. Look, if you are going to murder your mother, don't expect to get a "Not guilty" verdict at your trial. Playing black is the wee bit controversial chess player Claude Bloodgood, who was sentenced to death for the murder of his mother in 1970. Later, his sentence was altered to life in prison, where he remains today at age 85."

Uhm, did you ever check your facts there Cyrus, Carsten, or Editor? Claude Bloodgood, who yes, IF HE WERE ALIVE, would have been 85 at the time of writing, which was early 2023, and would have turned 86 this past July, but get your facts straight. Claude Bloodgood died in August 2001 at the age of 64! Yes, 9/11 was more recent than Claude's death.

I have seen editorial mistakes before, like a horrible one in Carsten Hansen's book on 1.b4 on page 54, where lines get intertwined and it is very difficult to figure out the correct moves, which are all there, but elsewhere on the page.

But this error gets the biggest editorial knock of all time. Making a claim that someone who died at age 64 is still living in prison at age 85.

If anybody that reads this knows Carsten Hansen, see if he wants an editor, because he needs one badly! I have only read bits and pieces of 3 of his Opening Hacker Files books, namely 1.b4, 1.g4, and the one on 3.h4 against the Kings Indian snd Grunfeld, having read about 1/3 of the b4 book, from the beginning to move 3 of game 1 in the g4 book, and merely skimmed parts of the 3.h4 book for a couple of correspondence games on ICCF, and I have already found multiple ALARMING errors!

By the way, just for context, the previous moves in the game were 1.g4 d5 2.Bg2 e5 3.c4.

BTW, what Eric Schiller editorial mistakes are you talking about?

Eric Schiller's writing was atrocious. Pretty much any book he did not co-write with Watson.

For example, in Standard Chess Openings, the intro is a complete joke, and then in the Semi-Slav chapter, in a well known game between Ivanchuk and Shirov in 1996 (also used as "Game 1" in Sadler's Semi-Slav book from 1998), Schiller gives 23...d4 two exclams while Sadler gave it either ? or ??, don't recall which. The latter is correct. No mistake was made after move 23 in that game, and Black resigned move 35. But somehow it got two exclams! Pa-Leez! Schiller's analysis is terrible in any book he wrote by himself. His book on the Tarrasch Defense was terrible, his book on the Belgrade Gambit is full of mis-assessments.

Schiller's books are awful and wrong from an analytical standpoint while the Editing (not the analysis) is terrible in Hansen's books.