Nine times is a remarkable number. It would raise eyebrows even if we knew nothing else about Ray's journalistic habits. But we doh.Chris Rice wrote: Let me put it another way that mentioning it nine times in his column, since Steve Giddins book was published on August 13, 2014, because RDK liked the book, is not statisically significant enough to draw conclusions about RDK's entourage.
You know, I actually don't believe that Ray was unaware of the existence of this book. I'm aware of it, and I've neither seen it, nor been sent a rview copy, nor have payeall access to Chess Café. Still, if Ray really is sufficiently unaware of what's going on in the world of chess that he didn't know about it, then he really shouldn't be a chess journalist - it's like, I dunno, perhaps a cinema journalist not knowing that Richard Linklater had a flm out last year because they personaly didn't get invited to a screening. (Or perhaps Birdman might be a better example, given its subtitle.) It's laughable.Chris Rice wrote: The prime reason for this is that he did not even know Nunn had written a book on Lasker, because the publisher, Gambit, never send him review copies.
This level of performance wouldn't be accepted in any other field. No other field would accept a daily columnist who used that columns to boost his chums (like the buffoon Tony Buzan) who weren't even connected with the subject matter of te column. So why do we accept it in chess?