H.E.Atkins

[Keith Arkell]

Yes of course he did - I mean he really was 7 in the world at one point! Go take a look. My question is though: Can I still reasonably refer to M + G as the best 2 `players `to emerge from Leics?

Hi Keith. Does the answer not depend on how you are defining "best" or "greatest" or what have you?

e.g. Roger Bannister's 4 minute mile would suck by contemporary standards, but he was clearly a great runner. There must be a fair few folk who could run a mile in 3:50 these days - 10 seconds faster than him but nearly 10 seconds slower than the current best.

Who's better? The guy who was ahead of the world in his day or the guy who is, in absolute terms the fastest? I suppose you can make an argument either way.


Perhaps all three of Atkins/Hebden/Flear are the greatest from Leicestershire just in different ways. A reasonable compromise or an unsatisfactory cop out depending on your point of view.


BTW: looking forward to your book. Any details?

Hi Jonathan,

You're absolutely right - there's no simple way of expressing it,and certainly Atkins can't be ignored.

Cheers re the book.I was asked to write it about my life on the circuit. It'll take about 8 months....

[PeterTurland]

There are some of his games here, including a win against Tartakower.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=12879

[Adam Ashton]

I took the trouble to play through about 20 of his games,and he was rubbish by todays standards - nothing like as good as Mark and Glenn.What to do?

Any thoughts?

It's a shame you feel the need to refer to someone who ranked 7 in the world in his day as 'rubbish'. Of course his games don't look good in the modern era but you can only really be measured against your peers and I think he deserves a little(actually a lot) more respect.

"If you want to say M+G are the best/strongest you could consider using something like the phrase in the modern era."
Problem solved.

[Jonathan Bryant]

It's a shame you feel the need to refer to someone who ranked 7 in the world in his day as 'rubbish'.

Chopping the end off of sentences does rather tend to change the meaning, don't you think?

[Adam Ashton]

Keith has previously made his feelings about the older players clear . This was obviously another little dig.

[IanDavis]

Is this thread a little 'under the bridge'?

[James Pratt]

Atkins was highly spoken of by Golombek, who would have known him, saying that he had it in him to be World Champion. That's quite a statement.
He was born in Leicester, died in Huddersfield in 1955. He went down to Cambridge where he trained for academia.
(Keith, please get in touch about your book.)

James

[James Pratt]

He drew with Marcozy, Janowski, Chigorin. Beat Marshall - several times - Rubinstein, Tartakower, Znosko-Borovsky.

'His insistence on treating chess as merely a game was all that prevented him from becoming one of the leading players in the world.' - Sunnucks.

He played two Olympiads.
Bd 1 +3=8-1 in 1927
Bd 4 +3=6-4 in 1935

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Richard.

As I said, I'm pretty sure I read something about that game a well.
Also recall seeing the same finish in a 1890's BCM.
So another all day search to the Edinburgh CC is planned, always a pleasure.

I remember when I first saw it I thought "Wow this Atkins guy
must the King of the Gambiteers." and I eagerly sought out his games.

I'm not going to comment on the lad's games. He played how he played.
Let's just say I came to the conclussion that there must be two players called Atkins.

[Jon Mahony]

Just checked him out on Wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ernest_Atkins - the guy looks quite similar in the face to actor John Hannah if you ask me! Shall check out some of his games after my match tonight maybe - sadly Chessgames.com is blocked at work

[Keith Arkell]

I took the trouble to play through about 20 of his games,and he was rubbish by todays standards - nothing like as good as Mark and Glenn.What to do?

Any thoughts?

It's a shame you feel the need to refer to someone who ranked 7 in the world in his day as 'rubbish'. Of course his games don't look good in the modern era but you can only really be measured against your peers and I think he deserves a little(actually a lot) more respect.

"If you want to say M+G are the best/strongest you could consider using something like the phrase in the modern era."
Problem solved.y

Adam Ashton » Tue Jan 11, 2011 12:05 pm

Keith has previously made his feelings about the older players clear . This was obviously another little dig.

Calm down Adam I've always tried to give a balanced view of the past masters. Theirs are the shoulders each following generation climb on. I am full of admiration for the achievements of the most talented players in the world,however far you go back.
As Jonathan Bryant succinctly expresses it with the Roger Bannister example,standards naturally go up in all activities(and especially in information based ones such as chess),but this doesn't detract from the achievements of the early geniuses. 1920s aeroplanes were ''rubbish'' compared to todays 'planes,but it still required fantastic creativity to take those early steps!
I intended no ''dig'' Adam, I just voiced my dilemma,and have had some excellent replies

[John Moore]

I can say with some certainty that he was a damn sight better than Vera Menchik

[Adam Ashton]

But that was my point . No one ever refers to Roger Bannister as a crap runner do they? Or says that Stanley Mathews was useless. Generally people respect that these guys participated in a different era and don't apply todays standards to them as it's obviously unfair. So I think your statement that his games are 'rubbish' is pretty disrespectful and clearly inconsistent with what you've just written above.

I vote that profits from the book should now go towards a statue for HE Atkins

[John Moore]

Adam, my remark was prompted by another thread on the History section (which I doubt that you have seen) in which I suggested that Vera M wasn't up to much - so perhaps you can't call me as help on this occasion.

[LozCooper]

It remains to be seen if we have ML Hebden and GC Flear memorial tournaments in the future but I hope they won't be for at least another 50 years for obvious reasons albeit it diminishes my chance of playing in them