Raymondo

[Matt Mackenzie]

Yes he is also alleged to have taken £50,000 from his brother-in-law

Hmm, it isn't like this is the *only* slightly, erm, "dodgy" thing he is alleged to have done over the years, is it??

I admitted above that whatever else you say about The Penguin, he gets things done - that is fair comment. That doesn't mean we should give him a free pass on all the other stuff, however

And many will sympathise with your comments re the ECF - but as ever, two wrongs don't make a right........

[JustinHorton]

I am no position to judge Ray Keene's actions, but I would just point out that at present he is organising an event in central London with lots of great players which you are entitled to go and watch for free. Yes he is also alleged to have taken £50,000 from his brother-in-law.
However, I would contrast this with the ECF Office which last year cost £110,000, who is really taking money out of English chess?

That's a bizarre comparison for all sorts of reasons.

I think you'd have to make a rather longer list of the ECF's alleged misdemeanours before they got anywhere close to Ray's. Come to that, one might look at the history of disputes between the two.

Thing is, it does annoy me a bit when people say "oh, he gets things done" or "he organises chess events" and what you will. So what. Am I really supposed to take the view that the other stuff doesn't matter because of it? That as long as you organise chess events - many of which, by the way, have been the subject of all sorts of controversies, financial and otherwise - we can overlook all the other stuff? I don't recognise that as any sort of ethical approach at all.

What annoys me about it that this is why it's been going on for so long. Whenever anything comes up, there's always people prepared to say "well, I dunno about this really, but I'll tell you one thing, he's organised a lot of chess events over the years" and round we go again. Yes, of course we're in a position to judge Ray Keene's actions. And if we can't do that - then we can't judge anybody else's.

[JustinHorton]

I admitted above that whatever else you say about The Penguin, he gets things done

Well, sometimes he does. But the things is, if you look at the allegations that have been made against him over the years - how many involved things that he needed to do, in order to get things done? I'd reckon, precious few.

There is, I suppose, a case for saying that a fair number of people who have become aggrieved at Ray are people who at other times, usually earlier, have benefitted from the sort of thing they complain about (the sine qua non in this instance being David Levy, whose complaints over the fifty grand that Ray was alleged to have done him for - "how could you?" - did not meet with a vast amount of sympathy from the chess world in general). But there's also quite a lot of people of who mthat can't be said.

I dunno, maybe English chess gets the prominent personalities it deserves, and maybe it deserves to have Ray Keene in such a prominent position, because so much of it has tolerated him for so long. But as I say, as long as that situation persists then I for one won't be too assiduous in listening to English chess complaining about anything else. Everything else is petty in comparison. There's an elephant in the room, and that elephant is dressed as a Penguin.

[Matthew Turner]

Justin and Matt,
The ECF Office takes a hundred thousand pounds out of English every year, for doing as far as I can see nothing to promote chess.
Ray Keene has brought World Championships to London and is currently organising a major event in London. We all know that Ray has a reputation for dodgy dealing, but what do YOU actually think he has done wrong? It is very easy to go with a flow of public opinion, but sometimes you have to think about it yourselves.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Justin and Matt,
We all know that Ray has a reputation for dodgy dealing, but what do YOU actually think he has done wrong?

Well Matthew, that is the point - the Penguin is slippery as an eel, to mix a metaphor He has expensive lawyers too!

I got into a tiny bit of bother "in another place" for using a certain word about him

There is lots of stuff out there about RDK's "dodginess" if you want to go and look for it. It's not that hard to find.......

[JustinHorton]

Justin and Matt,
The ECF Office takes a hundred thousand pounds out of English every year, for doing as far as I can see nothing to promote chess.
Ray Keene has brought World Championships to London and is currently organising a major event in London. We all know that Ray has a reputation for dodgy dealing, but what do YOU actually think he has done wrong? It is very easy to go with a flow of public opinion, but sometimes you have to think about it yourselves.

Matthew - I can't actually say on here what I think Ray has done without going rather further than I think Carl would be happy with (or for that matter further than I would myself be prepared to do on S&B or even perhaps in Kingpin). If you want I can PM you with the answer. I can say out loud that I think it scandalous that he retains his chess column gigs given his lapses of professional conduct in that sphere.

I really couldn't care less that Ray has brought world championships to London. There were what, three of these? One of these was due to be played elsewhere in England anyway. The two others were, shall we say, embroiled in financial controversy.

[JustinHorton]

Perhaps someone can explain to me the purpose of this thread!

Possibly, discussing whether or not Ray is an attribute (?) to the game of chess. And perhaps whether the "image of our game" is affected by having such an individual prominent within it.

[Jonathan Bryant]

I got into a tiny bit of bother "in another place" for using a certain word about him

The House of Lords?

[Paul McKeown]

Unbelievable thread.

Question: it was once widely reported that the the bailiffs turned up at the doors of the BCF, when was that and why?

Answer: If you don't know the answer, why don't you go and find out before writing drivel in this thread?

[Shakes head in disbelief.]

[JustinHorton]

Well Ernie, in the first place, this thread is about Ray and hence he does rather tend to be its major subject, in the second place, there are other threads about other issues and individuals should you wish to discuss them too and I don't think anybody here who has criticised Ray has entirely neglected other subjects for criticism, in the third place, if none of those threads are to your taste you can start others if you wish, in the fourth place, I have no idea whather Ray is a member of this forum or not, in the fifth place, I wasn't aware that he was prevented from joining, in the sixth place, I am quite sure you have criticised other people in the past and I'm far from sure all of them were members of the forum, in the seventh place, I've certainly criticised Ray in his online presence before and in places where he has every capacity to defend himself and in the eighth place, the very concept of Ray as a poor put-upon chap who can't defend himself is completely and utterly absurd, is is not?

Hey ho. I think I shall go for some salad and a beer.

[Paul McKeown]

Justin,

Thank you for writing on this thread with a great deal of both restraint and commonsense. I can understand your frustration when you see such guff.

Regards,
Paul.

[Jonathan Bryant]

Its unfair to target one individual who is not a member of this forum and thus not able to defend himself.

As I started the thread I should point out that:-

I originally posted the link to the blog post ... got a few views but zero (precisely zero) further contributions.

Once I became aware that Raymondo had made some references to the original article in a Chess Vibes thread I thought it only fair to post the link here - precisely to ensure that people who wanted to see Ray's defence could see it.

Only then did the thread take off.

Quite a bit of stuff about Ray has been published on the S*BC (C) blog - he responded by offerring to annotate one of his games and send it to us for publication. He did that and we published it.

Ray's big enough to look after himself don't you think?

[JustinHorton]

I wanted to say - I should have said it last night but I got distracted by the salad and beer - that in some ways I do agree with Geoff, on one level. I think Ray Keene is an extremely interesting man whose life and career are a great story. If I were still living in England and I could find a publisher, I think I would write a book about him. (I can't do it from here, I'd never be able to do the interviewing.)

I also think that the fact that he's been able to operate, as he has, for so long, tells us something about the world of professional chess and something about the wider society around it. To that degree, the story of Ray isn't so much about Ray as about us - and if it pleases Ernie, I don't for one moment think that Ray's approach is unique any more than I think Kelvin McKenzie is the only monster in the history of newspaper editors. It's just, you know, writ very large indeed in Ray's case.

I also think that he's a long way past his peak in terms of prominence - I think the BGN fiasco saw to that - and to be honest, when I look at the way he writes on the internet (see his Chessgames.com page, or recent Chessvibes threads about the Staunton) It's not at all obvious to me that he's in good nick. But for all that, really, ethics do matter, truths have to be spoken, and people who lift other people's work writing wholesale shouldn't keep the columns where they use it. If people think otherwise I propose they nominate Ray as ECF President. And we'll see where the hundred grand goes then.

[Matthew Turner]

Justin,
I would suggest £50,000 would go into Ray's pocket as organisational fees. The other half would probably go on chess though, so we'd be much better off than we are now.

[JustinHorton]

That would be a rather better split than BGN enjoyed....