Keene's claim to have won "22 national championship titles."

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Matt Mackenzie
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Re: Keene's claim to have won "22 national championship titl

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Fri Jan 09, 2015 6:39 pm

Jon Mahony wrote:
Kevin Thurlow wrote: not a ridiculous idea though - Bletchley Park then GCHQ (and the former Inland Revenue) have actively recruited strong chess players over the years. You do need GMs who can do something other than play chess of course.
Yes, but there is a big difference between Alan Turing & Co and RDK poncing about on a huge ego trip, pretending to be an intellectual and forwarding his bills from Simpsons to Westminster :wink:
A terrible chess player, according to reliable contemporary accounts :)

Alexander, Golombek, Milner-Barry - then yeah :wink:
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Re: Keene's claim to have won "22 national championship titl

Post by O.G. Urcan » Sat Jan 10, 2015 10:00 am

Raymond Keene's wild claims are not just about himself, but also about his entourage. "Cuttings" quotes this classic passage by Keene about two associates of his, Lorraine Gill and Tony Buzan:

"The association between Lorraine and Tony, practical thinker, philosopher, author, educator, sublime poet and Prime Apostle of Global Mental Literacy, has become one of the defining creative partnerships of the 21st century, each spurring on the other to ever greater heights of achievement, culminating in the award to Lorraine of The Brain Trust Charity BRAIN OF THE YEAR AWARD for 2014."

B.H. Wood wrote nearly 30 years ago that Raymond Keene "is capable of claiming anything on the flimsiest evidence."

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Re: Keene's claim to have won "22 national championship titl

Post by PeterFarr » Sat Jan 10, 2015 10:51 am

O.G. Urcan wrote:Raymond Keene's wild claims are not just about himself, but also about his entourage. "Cuttings" quotes this classic passage by Keene about two associates of his, Lorraine Gill and Tony Buzan:

"The association between Lorraine and Tony, practical thinker, philosopher, author, educator, sublime poet and Prime Apostle of Global Mental Literacy, has become one of the defining creative partnerships of the 21st century, each spurring on the other to ever greater heights of achievement, culminating in the award to Lorraine of The Brain Trust Charity BRAIN OF THE YEAR AWARD for 2014."

B.H. Wood wrote nearly 30 years ago that Raymond Keene "is capable of claiming anything on the flimsiest evidence."
Those associates have occasionally been creeping into the Times chess column, while the "Times Chess" twitter feed is essentially one long advert for RDK's coterie. I find it puzzling that The Times allows this:- a glance at their twitter feeds on areas like education and sport, for example, reveals nothing but focus on the relevant subjects. Also compare and contrast the twitter feed of The Telegraph, which is full of a wide range of chess commentary, with just a light sprinkling of other subjects in which Malcom is interested.

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Re: Keene's claim to have won "22 national championship titl

Post by Arshad Ali » Sat Jan 10, 2015 2:40 pm

Jon Mahony wrote:I always got the impression that Chess to RDK was kind of a means to an end after a while. Achieving the GM title gave him the credibility to write books, get on telly and make money - something he did very liberally after he retired.
RDK has long been an entrepreneur in the Thatcher era sense (promoting himself, playing fast and loose with facts, et cetera). Maybe long ago he had an interest in chess as an end in itself.

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Re: Keene's claim to have won "22 national championship titl

Post by JustinHorton » Sun Feb 01, 2015 6:53 pm

JustinHorton wrote:I did actually ask Ray about the "fourteen titles" claim in Samurai Chess. Well I say that, I managed to work out what he must have included and I put this to him on chessgames.com. My recollection is that he kind-of-assented. Regrettably I can't remember exactly how the trick was done and I've been banned from his page for years so can't ask again. I have no idea at all how he's topped it up to twenty-two.
Found it:

1 actual UK individual championship
1 UK junior championship
1 UK lightning championship
2 UK schools championships
2 UK universities championships
1 UK county championship
1 UK junior county championship
5 UK club championships
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JustinHorton
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Re: Keene's claim to have won "22 national championship titles."

Post by JustinHorton » Sun Feb 01, 2015 7:06 pm

The figure of 22 titles comes up here (you can read all 35 pages if you want, I certainly haven't) and it appears that some of the national titles are Dutch.
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Re: Keene's claim to have won "22 national championship titl

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sun Feb 01, 2015 7:17 pm

JustinHorton wrote: 1 actual UK individual championship
1 UK junior championship
1 UK lightning championship
2 UK schools championships
2 UK universities championships
1 UK county championship
1 UK junior county championship
5 UK club championships
I had forgotten that RDK had been a member of BUCA winning teams. I wonder which was the UK Junior one. Middlesex won the BCF U-18 in 1963 and 1965 with Surrey winning in 1966.
JustinHorton wrote:it appears that some of the national titles are Dutch
That may well explain how the count was increased to 22.

Once you start counting team championships, all long standing players for the successful teams could run up an equally or more impressive count.

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Jon Mahony
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Re: Keene's claim to have won "22 national championship titl

Post by Jon Mahony » Mon Feb 02, 2015 3:34 pm

Matt Mackenzie wrote:
Jon Mahony wrote:
Kevin Thurlow wrote: not a ridiculous idea though - Bletchley Park then GCHQ (and the former Inland Revenue) have actively recruited strong chess players over the years. You do need GMs who can do something other than play chess of course.
Yes, but there is a big difference between Alan Turing & Co and RDK poncing about on a huge ego trip, pretending to be an intellectual and forwarding his bills from Simpsons to Westminster :wink:
A terrible chess player, according to reliable contemporary accounts :)

Alexander, Golombek, Milner-Barry - then yeah :wink:
Was he really? :) That would explain why I can't find any of his games online. I wondered why they didn't stick a Chess game in the film with Turing destroying Alexander to prove intellectual dominance!
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Re: Keene's claim to have won "22 national championship titl

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Mon Feb 02, 2015 3:40 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:Once you start counting team championships, all long standing players for the successful teams could run up an equally or more impressive count.
I was going to suggest that someone see how many other players have more titles (using Keene's criteria) than Keene himself. Whether it would be worth doing that, I'm not entirely sure. If Keene is the only one to use these criteria, that says something. Though to be fair, if random Joe-average chess player had lots of these titles (including team championships) would anyone begrudge them flaunting them? Is it because Keene should really know better that this sort of self-aggrandising grates?

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Re: Keene's claim to have won "22 national championship titl

Post by Jonathan Bryant » Mon Feb 02, 2015 4:50 pm

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:Is it because Keene should really know better that this sort of self-aggrandising grates?
No, it’s because he’s quite deliberately saying something that is misleading even if it is "true" in some technical sense.

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Re: Keene's claim to have won "22 national championship titles."

Post by Alistair Campbell » Mon Feb 02, 2015 6:50 pm

Going back to the original web-site, I was struck by the first sentence, which states that Mr Keene is an "Officer of the British Empire". Is that the same as being an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, or merely something that sounds the same?

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Re: Keene's claim to have won "22 national championship titles."

Post by O.G. Urcan » Tue Feb 03, 2015 8:39 am

Another claim by Raymond Keene is that he is "the most widely read chess columnist in the world". With or without a paywall at "The Times", such a claim is unprovable (so why make it?).

Yesterday, John Nunn's Chess Course won the Chess Café Book of the Year award for 2014, but what has Raymond Keene ever done to inform his readership, whether big or small, of that excellent book? Please see a brief note of mine.

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Re: Keene's claim to have won "22 national championship titles."

Post by Chris Rice » Tue Feb 03, 2015 9:47 am

O.G. Urcan wrote:Another claim by Raymond Keene is that he is "the most widely read chess columnist in the world". With or without a paywall at "The Times", such a claim is unprovable (so why make it?)./quote]

Guess because its not disprovable either. Perhaps if you add hard copy with the online editions of The Times he may be able to make a claim even though its also possible that not one single person read his column. Think that may be termed as journalistic licence.
O.G. Urcan wrote:Yesterday, John Nunn's Chess Course won the Chess Café Book of the Year award for 2014, but what has Raymond Keene ever done to inform his readership, whether big or small, of that excellent book? Please see a brief note of mine.
I clicked on the link you gave and came away wondering where you were going with that argument. RDK's book Aron Nimzowitsch: a Reappraisal (1974) has been much admired globally as far as I am aware. Indeed Steve Giddins, who is a friend of mine and who you seem to have taken it upon yourself to denigrate for no good reason as a crony told me many times over the years how much he admired it. Steve Giddins puts a lot of hard work and effort into his work and his books are also generally well received. Is it therefore surprising that RDK respects his work on Nimzowitsch and promotes it?
I haven't read John Nunn's Chess Course yet but I'm betting it will be excellent like you say. Everything else he has done has been. However, I'm struggling to understand why RDK is under an obligation to publicise his books or anyone else's for that matter.

I fully understand the plagiarism and false claims controversies put forward by Edward Winter and there may well be a case to answer there but your note looks like gratuitous RDK bashing and the slagging off of two authors who have actually written decent books on Nimzowitsch.

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Re: Keene's claim to have won "22 national championship titles."

Post by JustinHorton » Tue Feb 03, 2015 12:08 pm

Chris Rice wrote: Indeed Steve Giddins, who is a friend of mine and who you seem to have taken it upon yourself to denigrate for no good reason as a crony
I'm afraid he is, Chris. He spends, and has spent, an awful lot of time sucking up to Ray. I'm sorry if saying so involves attacking a friend of yours, but unfortunately it's the case. That's how Ray works. He has cronies.
Chris Rice wrote: Is it therefore surprising that RDK respects his work on Nimzowitsch and promotes it?
No, it would be surprising if he didn't, since Ray's column, as various posters have observed above, plugs his friends and their works incessantly. If you don't think this is the case we could take a run through his columns and see how often the books he recommends are written or published by his chums, or how often the people he plugs are his mates.
Chris Rice wrote:I fully understand the plagiarism and false claims controversies put forward by Edward Winter and there may well be a case to answer there
"May well" isn't even close. Everybody knows this by now.
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Jonathan Bryant
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Re: Keene's claim to have won "22 national championship titles."

Post by Jonathan Bryant » Tue Feb 03, 2015 12:30 pm

Chris Rice wrote: Indeed Steve Giddins, who is a friend of mine and who you seem to have taken it upon yourself to denigrate for no good reason as a crony ... Steve Giddins puts a lot of hard work and effort into his work and his books are also generally well received.
Hi Chris,

Firstly, I would say that to say Gidders’ books are 'generally well received' is probably an understatement. Mr G as an author of books seems to be very popular. No doubt for good reason (although I can’t comment myself as I haven’t actually read any of them).

That said, friend of yours or otherwise, you really have to be going out of your way not to notice things to be able to suggest that there is "no good reason" to consider him a "crony" of RDK.

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