Very odd, but I think there is a typo in the author's name. It should be Jack Straley Battell.
On the Death of Weaver Adams
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Mar 29, 2017
0
#23
batgirl wrote:1. N-QR3 in algrbraic in 1. Na3 and for this reason is sometimes called the Sodium Attack (Na is Sodium)
A.K.A. the favorite by chemists.
Mar 29, 2017
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#24
Zenrider wrote:
Very odd, but I think there is a typo in the author's name. It should be Jack Straley Battell.
Thanks. I changed it. Coincidentally the "r" and "t" are adjacent on the keyboard.
I found this.
In his book The Bobby Fischer I Knew Arnod Denker called Albert Pinkus (20 March 1903, New York - 4 February 1984, New York) “the Indiana Jones of chess” because in 1932 he embarked on a series of ten expeditions to the jungles of British Guiana and Venezuela to collect zoological and botanical specimens. In 1939, he returned to New York to work on Wall Street as a stockbroker and resumed his chess career.
https://tartajubow.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/ventnor-city-1941.html
He seems quite an unusual character.
Wonderful article.
Does anyone have any images of Albert Pinkus?
The column quoted says "His book, White to Play and Win, crossed the theory of most of the chess world which believes that Black can always equalize with correct play."
I certainly agree with "most of the chess world" that the advantage of the first move is not enough to force a win, so Black can always draw with correct play.
However, I don't think that I agree with the statement as actually phrased.
If a player has a slight advantage, then that player has a better choice of moves than the opponent - so generally speaking, with correct play by both players, it should be more common that if one player has a slight advantage, then that player will be able to increase that advantage, instead of the other player being able to equalize.
Thus, I imagine that the typical chess game, if it is hard-fought between very able opponents, would follow this course: White begins with a slight advantage deriving from the first move, gradually increasing that advantage over the course of the game, but not managing to increase it enough to avoid a draw.
In that case, Black would only equalize by obtaining a drawn game; before the result was decided, the position would never be equal, so I would tend to call that drawing instead of equalizing.
Feb 18, 2019
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#29
robbie_1969 wrote:
Does anyone have any images of Albert Pinkus?
just put it in google image
Thanks for another great article
Feb 19, 2019
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#31
Funny that Hans Berliner took Adams’ ideas to argue that 1.d4 (and often 2.c4) is the best first move (in The System). This book was heavily criticised, certainly with good reasons, but Hans Berliner was not exactly a patzer. He was world champion in correspondence chess with an unbelievable result.
Feb 19, 2019
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#33
Weaver Adams played a match against Harry Lyman (uncle of Shelby Lyman, the PBS host of the Fischer-Spassky match coverage) to test the "system". Lyman won decisively, pretty much derailing any claim that a winning system had been discovered.
torrubirubi wrote:
Funny that Hans Berliner took Adams’ ideas to argue that 1.d4 (and often 2.c4) is the best first move (in The System). This book was heavily criticised, certainly with good reasons, but Hans Berliner was not exactly a patzer. He was world champion in correspondence chess with an unbelievable result.
Of course Hans Berliner isn't the only top-flight chess player to write a book that the chess community is resistant to taking seriously. What about Bent Larsen's "Zoom 001"?
Geniuses come up with new ideas - and they're not always right.
I know that I am reluctant to accept this idea, because 1. d4 leads to the closed game, and Fischer, Kasparov, and Alpha Zero seem to illustrate that 1. e4 really is objectively better. Yet, Berliner could be right as far as he went - that the viable opening repertoire for Black in replying to 1. d4 is narrower than generally believed. (In his book, he admitted that he had not yet finished proving his claim, as he hadn't refuted all the replies to 1. d4.)
Feb 20, 2019
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#35
quadibloc wrote:
torrubirubi wrote:
Funny that Hans Berliner took Adams’ ideas to argue that 1.d4 (and often 2.c4) is the best first move (in The System). This book was heavily criticised, certainly with good reasons, but Hans Berliner was not exactly a patzer. He was world champion in correspondence chess with an unbelievable result.
Of course Hans Berliner isn't the only top-flight chess player to write a book that the chess community is resistant to taking seriously. What about Bent Larsen's "Zoom 001"?
Geniuses come up with new ideas - and they're not always right.
I know that I am reluctant to accept this idea, because 1. d4 leads to the closed game, and Fischer, Kasparov, and Alpha Zero seem to illustrate that 1. e4 really is objectively better. Yet, Berliner could be right as far as he went - that the viable opening repertoire for Black in replying to 1. d4 is narrower than generally believed. (In his book, he admitted that he had not yet finished proving his claim, as he hadn't refuted all the replies to 1. d4.)
You are right, he had prolems with the Slav. It seems that you read his book! I have also a copy of Adams’ book, quite a rarity and expensive (the original, I mean).
Though when I knew Durkin he no longer opened with his Opening, he was proud to say Karpov played a game that transposed into the Durkin Attack from the White side of a Sicilian !
Similar to Weaver Adams, he loved chess to the extent that daily living with upper class elegance took a back seat. Durkin earned an honest living as a dishwasher in the Atlantic City area.