Do this seem familiar?

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John Upham
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Do this seem familiar?

Post by John Upham » Mon Nov 22, 2021 12:40 pm

William Winter wrote in his 1955 memoir:
When I joined the professional ranks in the middle of the twenties the situation with regard to chess reporting could only be described as disgraceful. It is hardly believable that a paper like The Times, which justly prides itself as being represented by the best available
talent in all forms of human activity, should hand over its chess, both in the main paper and the subsidiary supplements, to a man to whom any first class chess player could give a rook. Yet it is absolutely true. This man, Tinsley by name, was the son of a minor professional who represented the paper fairly satisfactorily in the beginning of the century. When he died of a sudden stroke his son went to The Times office with the news, and offered to carry on for a week or so until a successor could be appointed.

He carried on for nearly thirty years! Uncouth and almost uneducated, he made The Times reports a laughing stock all over the chess playing world, but, by a mixture of bluff and bluster, maintained his position until his own death in 1936. ln the eyes of the powers-that-be at The Times anything seemed to be good enough for chess players. I shall have more to say about Mr. Tinsley and his goings-on in a later chapter.
This appears to be portent of things to come for The Times of London.
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Joey Stewart
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Re: Do this seem familiar?

Post by Joey Stewart » Mon Nov 22, 2021 1:22 pm

Why would that be - is the new chess editor a player of ill repute?
Lose one queen and it is a disaster, Lose 1000 queens and it is just a statistic.

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