Congratulations to John Shaw! I didn't vote for the king's gambit book since I haven't seen it, but I'm sure it is fantastic.

I can't vote in the novelty poll, since the right definition (mine of course!) isn't there: Not previously played, mentioned or suggested by a human in a known source.

The way they use "anyone" (compared to "human" in option B) it appears to include moves/suggestions from computers. But in my view a move being known from computer games or raw computer analysis (like Chessbase's engine cloud) doesn't "un-noveltize" it. That takes at least some human involvement.

Hello ChessPub people,

Thanks for taking enough of an interest in chess books to vote, whoever you voted for. Obviously I am happy Quality Chess finished first and second, but if you followed the thread you will note there was criticism of some parts of The King’s Gambit, particularly from Stefan Buecker. I stayed out of it while the vote was open, as replying might have seemed like campaigning for votes, which doesn’t feel in the spirit of the vote.

The short version is that some of the criticisms seem accurate on the facts, but some of the hints and speculation about why they happened are far too cynical. Writing a chess book is a tough task, and impossible to do without slips (at least in our experience). In reality, any errors were accidental, and not intentionally planned to increase sales or boost my reputation as a King’s Gambit expert (good grief).

Did I say something was a Novelty when I knew it had been played in a game? No.

Did I intentionally misquote someone’s analysis or pass someone else’s analysis off as my own? No. 

Did I misspell ‘Kaissiber’? Yes, sorry about that. It seems when I added the name to my spellchecker I messed up, so I made sure I had it wrong every time. Also, I don’t read German, so those magazines were tricky for me to follow.

I will not go into a blow-by-blow about every point (though I will contact Stefan privately by email to ask if he wishes to point out where he thinks errors about him should be corrected in any possible reprint) but let me take the Novelty issue as an example.

This 5.Qe2 move was apparently played by Bronstein. I am happy to believe this, but our database does not have this game (that’s how I see if a move is a novelty or not). If I knew how to post an image, I could show a screenshot taken from my database to back this up, but I hope reasonable people will simply believe me.

Similarly, in the case of a game Koch-Kosten. I claimed a move Kosten later played was a novelty (I say ‘later’ as Tony’s game was played after the chapter was written). Apparently there were previous games with this move, but not in our database, which still shows Tony’s game as the only example.

So in summary: thanks to all, and sorry to those upset by my errors, but please try to be less cynical about my motives.

Today someone has started a poll at the Quality Chess Blog:

Poll
What do you understand the word Novelty (N) to mean?
Not previously played in a game
Not previously played in a game by humans
Not previously played, mentioned or suggested by anyone

Does anybody have an idea what this poll is about? 


Nicely phrased questions, pretty sure that the outcome is exactly how Jacob Aagaard wants it to be.

This won't count for the poll, but I am in favor of Burgess' "A Cunning Repertoire for White".

It is very coherent in every sense and Burgess is among the best or as best as they come when writing, and this book keeps him at that spot.

proustiskeen wrote on 03/01/14 at 22:27:31:

Presumably because it will take much longer to learn and you have less chance to drag a player into a line he is either unfamiliar and/or uncomfortable with?

Ametanoitos wrote on 03/01/14 at 19:28:11:


I thought of it as an opening book fashioned after Carlsen's playing style. Not necessarily critical in theory, but playable positions from which you can pose the opponent some problems.

All-critical-all-the-time repertoires are probably going to go the way of the dodo after what Khalifman went through with his Anand series.

Congrats to Shaw and QC!

After the good result I think I might have to buy Playing the French ... 

I still think Berg has been the best work by a long way. But hey. Good luck to the winners.