When an author, under the
Acknowledgment section writes, "For a book like Treasure Chess it is not easy to cite where all my references and impressions
came from, so I'm not even going to try," I became intuitively doubtful
that this new publication would offer anything new, especially considering the
false idea that chess is the "World's Oldest Game."
Page 21 Pandolfini
writes, "Surprisingly, strong players do not necessarily possess greater
recollecting skills, as evince in Dutch psychologist Adrian De Groot's seminal paper in 1938...(Which seminal paper is
that? Bruce doesn't mention it but it was Thought and Choice in Chess. 1938? Wrong date too. In 1946 he wrote his thesis Het
denken van den schaker,
which in 1965 was translated to English and published as Thought and choice
in chess. Source: Wikipedia.com Bruce probably meant to write,
"1978" referring to the 2nd edition (June 1978) Publisher: Mouton De Gruyter Source: Amazon.com)
Page 66 he writes, "In 1846
Page 67 Morphy's dates
are written twice correctly as (1837-1884) but on page 20 it reads,
"'Checkers is for tramps.' - Paul Morphy,
American Chess Master (1836-84)" and page 96 it reads, "(1843-87)
Page 73 he spells
Saemisch as "Samisch"
On page 236, Pandolfini
writes, "According to Professor Steven Garrard, (the correct spelling is Gerrard, L.T) the Blackwell published books of Ludwig
Wittgenstein (1889-1951) have at least 181 references to chess and its cognates
(chessboard, for example) Chess is not mentioned in the Tractatus
(the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Wittgenstein's seminal 1922 treatise analyzing modern logica and metaphysics through language), but here's what
the profound "Witt" says about certain chessic
fine points in The Blue Book, a set of notes compiled in 1933-34 by his
Cambridge students having to do with Wittgenstein's special way of thinking.
"We distinguish in chess between good and bad moves, and we call it a
mistake if we expose the queen to a bishop. But it is no mistake to promote a
pawn to a king."
I think he was on to something."
Did Pandolfini research Wittgenstein on his own or
did he happen to read the following articles, which were put together in
April/May right before the publication of Treasure Chess (Publisher: Random House
Puzzles & Games October 30, 2007, Source: Amazon.com)
http://sbchess.sinfree.net/Wittgenstein.html
and http://sbchess.sinfree.net/Chess-and-ChessProblems.html
It's one thing to combine references and place them online for the better good
of research, but to place it in a book as mere "trivia", pawn it off
as your own, and then write, "For a book like Treasure Chess it is not
easy to cite where all my references and impressions came from, so I'm not even
going to try," is very pathetic.
On the very next page (237) he goes on to cite Leo Tolstoy's famous work, War and Peace, with the title, "War and Piece"
On Chess and Psyche, page 209 Pandolfini writes,"Norman Reider a
psychoanalytic interpretation to chess in his 1959 paper, Chess, Oedpius,
and the Master Dolorosa. It 'crystallizes within its
elaborate structure the family romance, is replete with symbolism and has rich
potentialities for granting satisfactions and for the sublimation of
drives.'"
He also mentions Freud and Herbstmann but do the
following sites seem similar?:
http://www.goddesschess.com/chessays/normanreider.html
and http://sbchess.sinfree.net/Psychoanalysis.html
Page 265 it reads, in regards to Fischer's patented chess clock, "Devised and patented by Fischer in 1989..." Actually, it was filed in 1988 and issued in 1989, therefore it must have been devised earlier. One only needs to observe the patent below:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=LSY7AAAAEBAJ&dq=bobby+fischer
Patent number: 4884255
Filing date:
Issue date:
Inventor: Robert J. Fischer
368/96
International Classification
G04F 300
"Never judge a book by it's cover," seems
highly overrated and we can attest this during our observation of Treasure
Chess. (VIII) Preface Pandolfini writes,
"Treasure Chess is my collection of the fascinating trivia, inside tips,
stories, and anecdotes that I've been collecting over the years." I'm sure
it's a nice collection.
Avital Pilpel couldn't
have stated it any better when he wrote, "Utter trash."