How strong were Walter Korn and Irving Chernev ?

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Date: 19 Feb 2008 07:27:03
From: Mike Murray
Subject: How strong were Walter Korn and Irving Chernev ?

I've been browsing through old "Chess Life" pdfs, and was looking at
the Feb 5, 1959 USCF rating list.

I see Walter Korn rated at 1997 and Irving Chernev rated at 2000.

At that time, Korn was in charge of MCO (the 9th edition had just come
out), wrote regular columns on openings and endings for "Chess Life"
and "Chess Review", and Chernev had many books in print.

Can it be these noted authors were barely Expert in strength?

John W. Collins, Korn's collaborator on MCO-9 was rated 2257.

FWIW dept: Sam Sloan: 1651.

Date: 19 Feb 2008 21:53:21
From: David Richerby
Subject: Re: How strong were Walter Korn and Irving Chernev ?

Mike Murray <[email protected] > wrote:
> I've been browsing through old "Chess Life" pdfs, and was looking at
> the Feb 5, 1959 USCF rating list.
>
> I see Walter Korn rated at 1997 and Irving Chernev rated at 2000.
> [...] Can it be these noted authors were barely Expert in strength?

There's no contradiction here -- the skills required to be a good
author are, to an extent, independent of those required to be a really
good player. To be a good author, you have to be able to explain
things well and to analyze well with essentially infinite time. To be
a good player, you need to be able to analyze well with two hours on
the clock. Authors have to be able to understand and explain the work
of others; players have to be creative over the board.

k Dvoretsky is extremely highly-regarded as a coach and author but
he's only a 2460-rated IM. OK, that's still a very strong player but
even World Champions ask his opinion. These are people rated 300+
points higher than him, which means they'd expect to score about 85%
against him, over the board.

> FWIW dept: Sam Sloan: 1651.

You mean in 1959, right?

Dave.

--
David Richerby Perforated Car (TM): it's like a
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ high-performance luxury car but it's
full of holes!

Date: 19 Feb 2008 14:23:13
From: Mike Murray
Subject: Re: How strong were Walter Korn and Irving Chernev ?

On 19 Feb 2008 21:53:21 +0000 (GMT), David Richerby
<[email protected] > wrote:

>Mike Murray <[email protected]> wrote:
>> I've been browsing through old "Chess Life" pdfs, and was looking at
>> the Feb 5, 1959 USCF rating list.

>> I see Walter Korn rated at 1997 and Irving Chernev rated at 2000.
>> [...] Can it be these noted authors were barely Expert in strength?

>There's no contradiction here -- the skills required to be a good
>author are, to an extent, independent of those required to be a really
>good player. To be a good author, you have to be able to explain
>things well and to analyze well with essentially infinite time. To be
>a good player, you need to be able to analyze well with two hours on
>the clock. Authors have to be able to understand and explain the work
>of others; players have to be creative over the board.

I think this applies less when constructing a reference work such as
MCO. There's a lot of evaluation, ideally some original analysis that
adds value to current praxis, a relatively low percentage of verbiage.
You have to know what to include and what to leave out.

I think that's why Fine's revision (MCO-6) and Evans' revision
(MCO-10) were so much more highly regarded than the ones Korn did by
himself or in collaboration with players not of GM strength.

With Chernev, where many of his books pull together selected games
which stronger players have already annotated, and where he targets
players substantially below Expert strength, I'd disagree less.

Today, with programs such as Fritz, Rybka and others adding a GM-level
tactical dimension to the analysis, and with Database software helping
with organization and collection, it might be a different story. But,
if, as a reader, I'm using those tools, why would I need the
mediation of authors with roughly the same rating as myself?
(Excluding things like monographs on arcane specialty openings, etc.)

>k Dvoretsky is extremely highly-regarded as a coach and author but
>he's only a 2460-rated IM. OK, that's still a very strong player but
>even World Champions ask his opinion. These are people rated 300+
>points higher than him, which means they'd expect to score about 85%
>against him, over the board.
>
>> FWIW dept: Sam Sloan: 1651.

>You mean in 1959, right?

Yes.

Date: 19 Feb 2008 12:59:58
From: Offramp
Subject: Re: How strong were Walter Korn and Irving Chernev ?

Chernev used to have to bend over just to tie his shoelaces up.

Date: 21 Feb 2008 08:28:10
From: Offramp
Subject: Re: How strong were Walter Korn and Irving Chernev ?

David Richerby wrote:
> Offramp <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Chernev used to have to bend over just to tie his shoelaces up.
>
> Um. So do most people who aren't orang utans.

Good luck to you, Bendy!

Date: 21 Feb 2008 08:23:59
From: Offramp
Subject: Re: How strong were Walter Korn and Irving Chernev ?

Date: 20 Feb 2008 23:23:39
From: help bot
Subject: Re: How strong were Walter Korn and Irving Chernev ?

On Feb 19, 4:55 pm, David Richerby <[email protected] >
wrote:

> > Chernev used to have to bend over just to tie his shoelaces up.

> Um. So do most people who aren't orang utans.

People cannot be orang Utans; only Utans can.

I tried looking up those two names at the Web site
chessmetrics.com, but there was nothing. I got the
impression that they were insignificant, if not for their
unusual shoe-tying abilities and freaky tallness. Oh,
and the number of chess books they wrote or edited.

One more important point: orangutans don't wear
shoes. (But if they did, they would need to have
matching sets of knuckle protectors for their hands.)
And in any contest of bench-pressing strength, the
big apes would likely win, hands down. (In basket-
ball, Mr. Chernev would be the odds-on favorite.)

-- monkey bot

Date: 19 Feb 2008 21:55:49
From: David Richerby
Subject: Re: How strong were Walter Korn and Irving Chernev ?

Offramp <[email protected] > wrote:
> Chernev used to have to bend over just to tie his shoelaces up.

Um. So do most people who aren't orang utans.

Dave.

--
David Richerby Simple Laser (TM): it's like an
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ intense beam of light but it has no
moving parts!

Date: 19 Feb 2008 12:58:38
From: Offramp
Subject: Re: How strong were Walter Korn and Irving Chernev ?

On Feb 19, 3:27 pm, Mike Murray <[email protected] > wrote:
> I've been browsing through old "Chess Life" pdfs, and was looking at
> the Feb 5, 1959 USCF rating list.
>
> I see Walter Korn rated at 1997 and Irving Chernev rated at 2000.
>
> At that time, Korn was in charge of MCO (the 9th edition had just come
> out), wrote regular columns on openings and endings for "Chess Life"
> and "Chess Review", and Chernev had many books in print.
>
> Can it be these noted authors were barely Expert in strength?
>
> John W. Collins, Korn's collaborator on MCO-9 was rated 2257.
>
> FWIW dept: Sam Sloan: 1651.

Walter Korn was 6' 8" - which might seem tall. But Irving Chernev was
an incredible 7' 10"!!
He was the tallest chess player of all time.

Date: 21 Feb 2008 07:19:36
From:
Subject: Re: How strong were Walter Korn and Irving Chernev ?

On Feb 19, 3:58=A0pm, Offramp <[email protected] > wrote:
>
> Walter Korn was 6' 8" - which might seem tall. But Irving Chernev was
> an incredible 7' 10"!!
> He was the tallest chess player of all time.

Just in case anyone takes this put-on seriously -- I have seen
photos of both men, and neither Chernev nor Korn looked unusually
tall, as far as I could tell.

Date: 19 Feb 2008 13:30:48
From: Mike Murray
Subject: Re: How strong were Walter Korn and Irving Chernev ?

On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:58:38 -0800 (PST), Offramp
<[email protected] > wrote:

>Walter Korn was 6' 8" - which might seem tall. But Irving Chernev was
>an incredible 7' 10"!!
>He was the tallest chess player of all time.

Irrelevant. We were discussing strength. What could they bench?

Date: 19 Feb 2008 08:44:33
From:
Subject: Re: How strong were Walter Korn and Irving Chernev ?

On Feb 19, 10:27=A0am, Mike Murray <[email protected] > wrote:
> I've been browsing through old "Chess Life" pdfs, and was looking at
> the Feb 5, 1959 USCF rating list.
>
> I see Walter Korn rated at 1997 and Irving Chernev rated at 2000.
>
> At that time, Korn was in charge of MCO (the 9th edition had just come
> out), wrote =A0regular columns on openings and endings for "Chess Life"
> and "Chess Review", and Chernev had many books in print. =A0
>
> Can it be these noted authors were barely Expert in strength?

Arnold Denker's "The Bobby Fischer I Knew" doesn't say much about
Korn, but he does describe Chernev as "a solid master." In support of
this he cites Chernev's +4 -7 =3D4 showing in the 1942 US Championship
-- "making 40% in the US Championship and holding Al Horowitz to a
draw in the process is certainly a solid master result." He also cites
Chernev's winning "some very strong rapid transit tournaments at the
shall Chess Club" in the 1930s.
By 1959 Chernev had been retired from serious competition for at
least 10 years, I think. He wasn't very ambitious as a player, saying
high-level tournament play "was not chess to enjoy." I'd guess he
peaked somewhere around 2200 well before the USCF started keeping
track of ratings.

Date: 19 Feb 2008 09:52:58
From: SBD
Subject: Re: How strong were Walter Korn and Irving Chernev ?

I am a big Korn fan. His studies and books were very good. As with
most chess authors, his out-of-print books are quite good (it seems
only popular crap survives....).

In one of his books, which I left at my mother's house and thus not
accesible to me for awhile he shows some of his wins against European
masters - albeit in informal settings.

He probably was close to 2200 by today's standards, however, this is
just an opinion based on reading his writings.