The Worst Ever Chess Book....

....was sent to me to review.

http://www.chessville.com/GC/TheWorstEverChessBook.htm

I wish I could be like David Watts.

Geoff, this made me Laugh out loud. Brilliant!

I might just offer up a suggestion for runner up in the 'worst book of all time' competition.

The opening according to Kramnik

Undoubtedly it has lots of useful ideas in it, but there is no text! It is a wall of impenetrable variations, i tried on multiple occasions to wade through, some how, but came to the conclusion that i'd actually prefer to burn my own eyes out.

I saw 'Doncaster Chess Books' on the cover and met it with a facepalm...

That is my hometown

I've flicked through many a book like at book stalls there were the
source of inspiration and of course 'fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa......'
because I needed a name and I was listening to the Kinks at the time.

Doncaster is a gag I do in the Oak or Belss when I sing there.

I do a take on 'Winchester Cathederal' by The New Vaudeville Band.

I call it 'Doncaster Cathederal' and when some wit says it's 'Winchester Catherdal'.
I tell the them. No. A Winchester is a rifle.

YouTube

A classic.

Are there any details about the author? He doesn't appear to have played a FIDE rated game for at least twelve years:
http://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=401650
and there's no sign of him in the ECF grading list.

Is this book for real? I can't find any mention of it on 'tinternet, or even of "Doncaster Chess Books".

An idea for a book: "32 Great Games of Chess", which is actually based on each of the pieces and pawns. So game 1 would be one where White's queen's rook played a crucial role etc. up to game 32. It would probably be quite tricky to find a high quality game for some of the pieces / pawns.

Of course if you like book reviews.

Thread 103080

You will find or two there......

I used to know FM David Watts back in the 70s when he was quite a formidable player. It took me several hours of phoning around, but I finally managed to get a contact number for him and called him last night. He was quite despondent about Greenpawn's scathing review and has decided not to publish his book after all (it was going to be one of those "self publishing" jobs).

That's a pity, It was going to be non-classic.

Hmmm......

"An idea for a book: "32 Great Games of Chess", which is actually based on each
of the pieces and pawns. So game 1 would be one where White's queen's rook
played a crucial role etc. up to game 32. It would probably be quite tricky to find
a high quality game for some of the pieces / pawns."

I reckon I could get 32 such games from RHP and by the time I've finished
writing them up they will be games of high quality.

For me,it's a toss-up between the book on Spassky,by some guy named Van Reek(how apropo) Don't know where this guy learned his English from,but he comes off speaking gibberish. Another clunker is Idle Passion:Chess and the Dance of Death,by Alexander Cockburn,a right-wing looney who has a tremendous hatred for chess and all connected with it,but never explains why he hates the game so much. Anything by Eric Schiller is pretty much garbage. The turn of the century books by a guy named Franklin K. Young are pretty unreadable-he uses military terms to describe chess strategies. Nothing but gibberish there!

I'm sorry, but that award still goes a book that's so bad my brain can't even compute the name or author.


It's a book called 'Shocking Chess Novelties" or something like that, and the guts of the tome consist of moves generated by the mind of the author, who I think was rated around 1700 USCF at the time he wrote it.

Originally posted by Thabtos
I'm sorry, but that award still goes a book that's so bad my brain can't even compute the name or author.

It's a book called 'Shocking Chess Novelties" or something like that, and the guts of the tome consist of moves generated by the mind of the author, who I think was rated around 1700 USCF at the time he wrote it.

Perhaps "100 Awesome Chess Moves" by Eric Schiller?

Originally posted by greenpawn34
Doncaster is a gag I do in the Oak or Belss when I sing there.

I do a take on 'Winchester Cathederal' by The New Vaudeville Band.

I call it 'Doncaster Cathederal' and when some wit says it's 'Winchester Catherdal'.
I tell the them. No. A Winchester is a rifle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv_RfFmJ5nA

A classic.

I thought the video was screwed up when they played that first weird song. Just like the British, I guess. 😏

Originally posted by RJHinds
I thought the video was screwed up when they played that first weird song. Just like the British, I guess. 😏

My father taught me that if you have got nothing good to say, it is best not to say anything at all. You could learn from this advice