Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-iv-1907 15-iii-1980)

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John Upham
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Re: Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-iv-1907 15-iii-1980)

Post by John Upham » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:38 pm

Who, in this place, has read (and has an opinion on)


IMG_0010.jpg
Not Only Chess, Gerald Abrahams, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1974, ISBN 0 04 794005 0
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Re: Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-iv-1907 15-iii-1980)

Post by Nick Ivell » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:40 pm

Not me. I only have the Chess Mind.

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Re: Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-iv-1907 15-iii-1980)

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Fri Jan 07, 2022 6:08 pm

Read it years (nay decades) ago, got it from the local library. It was readable enough like nearly all his stuff was.

I have his two guides to the game (Teach Yourself/Pan Book) fair to say they don't make them like that these days.
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Re: Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-iv-1907 15-iii-1980)

Post by Paul Habershon » Fri Jan 07, 2022 11:34 pm

Found 'Not Only Chess' on my bookshelf and so opened it probably for the first time in several decades. Abrahams has the lawyer's precise command of the English language, though his views on women's chess (pre-Polgars of course) would be highly controversial today. His anecdotes about leading Russian players of the day are fascinating.

Others have mentioned that he had a high opinion of himself, evident from what he writes on the inside cover:
'In the early 1920s I was Bobby Fischer - plus an enormous intellectual endowment in more than chess. It was too good. A gnome in the disguise of a chess victim warned me, 'Don't be only a chess player.' (cf: Broadbent's advice to the young Jonathan Penrose) The watershed was January 1925. In one month I won a scholarship to Oxford and invented the Abrahams Defence.

'Thereafter the dissipation of spiritual energy into polyglottery, poetry, law and the pursuit of a philosophy First, permitted my chess decline right down to master strength.'

Certainly no run-of-the-mill chess book. Perhaps Jonathan Rowson would be someone capable of something similar nowadays, written, I'm sure, with a modicum of modesty.

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Re: Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-iv-1907 15-iii-1980)

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Sat Jan 08, 2022 8:20 am

It sounds as if Abrahams would be a natural for this forum.

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Re: Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-iv-1907 15-iii-1980)

Post by JustinHorton » Sat Jan 08, 2022 9:01 am

Paul Habershon wrote:
Fri Jan 07, 2022 11:34 pm
Perhaps Jonathan Rowson would be someone capable of something similar nowadays, written, I'm sure, with a modicum of modesty.
Abrahams had a rather greater ability to stick to his point.

I've got Not Only Chess, though I've not opened it for a while: my recollection is that it's interesting, but not so much as The Chess Mind.
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Re: Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-iv-1907 15-iii-1980)

Post by Nick Ivell » Sat Jan 08, 2022 9:11 am

Truth is, Gerald was never Bobby Fischer. He was good - but not that good.

His reference to Bobby may have been a bit of hyperbolic comedy. Or maybe not?

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Re: Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-iv-1907 15-iii-1980)

Post by Nick Ivell » Sat Jan 08, 2022 9:46 am

I tried to find my copy of Chess Mind. I failed. Must try harder.

This got me thinking. I know I have it, but have I read it?

In the 1970s - my period of peak enthusiasm - I bought any chess book I could afford, including the one by Gerald. I also had a liking for Batsford hardbacks, one of which was Suetin's 'Contemporary Approach to the Middlegame'.

To this day, I remember IM Horner describing the latter as a book you 'buy but don't read'. He was right, in my case at least.

Might the Chess Mind come in the same category? And has anyone read the Suetin?

Caveat emptor. Buying is not the same as reading!

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Re: Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-iv-1907 15-iii-1980)

Post by John Upham » Sat Jan 08, 2022 10:07 am

Nick Ivell wrote:
Sat Jan 08, 2022 9:46 am
Caveat emptor. Buying is not the same as reading!
In a similar vein, reading is not the same as buying when it comes to borrowing.
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Re: Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-iv-1907 15-iii-1980)

Post by Nick Ivell » Sat Jan 08, 2022 10:33 am

Mike Conroy relates a telling anecdote from his early days as Lancashire captain.

Gerald's stipulation for turning out was top board, and a taxi to matches.

He never played for Lancs under Mike's captaincy, meaning that I never played in the same team as him.

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Re: Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-iv-1907 15-iii-1980)

Post by Paul Habershon » Sat Jan 08, 2022 11:13 am

Nick Ivell wrote:
Sat Jan 08, 2022 9:46 am
I also had a liking for Batsford hardbacks, one of which was Suetin's 'Contemporary Approach to the Middlegame'.

To this day, I remember IM Horner describing the latter as a book you 'buy but don't read'. He was right, in my case at least.

Might the Chess Mind come in the same category? And has anyone read the Suetin?
I think most of the unread books contain reams of notation and analysis, particularly openings books which at the time of purchase we think will guarantee us crushing victories. The average player needs to get out board and pieces to work through them - and there is the annoying bit: work! Thus books such as Chess Mind are more enjoyable to browse.

I haven't got the Suetin book, but I am reminded of my first term as a teacher in a school to which I had applied partly because it already had a strong chess club. Classrooms had the old-fashioned wooden desks into which pupils, risking the teacher's wrath, could carve graffiti. I noticed that someone had gouged SUE, presumably the name of a girlfriend, to which was added, clearly by someone else, TIN. Aha! I had come to the right place.

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Re: Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-iv-1907 15-iii-1980)

Post by JustinHorton » Sat Jan 08, 2022 11:27 am

Nick Ivell wrote:
Sat Jan 08, 2022 9:46 am
In the 1970s - my period of peak enthusiasm - I bought any chess book I could afford, including the one by Gerald. I also had a liking for Batsford hardbacks, one of which was Suetin's 'Contemporary Approach to the Middlegame'.

To this day, I remember IM Horner describing the latter as a book you 'buy but don't read'. He was right, in my case at least.
Well I tried to. I recall buying it at the bookstall at the Hitchin Open and having no idea what the point of it was, a state of bafflement that has not been relieved by subsequent attempts.
Nick Ivell wrote:
Sat Jan 08, 2022 9:46 am
Might the Chess Mind come in the same category?
Absolutely not, it's a breeze.
"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

lostontime.blogspot.com

Nick Ivell
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Re: Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-iv-1907 15-iii-1980)

Post by Nick Ivell » Sat Jan 08, 2022 11:29 am

I was thinking that openings books might lead to concrete success, and so might get read.

General books on the middlegame, or on psychology, might not get read.

Perhaps I will get round to the Suetin one day.

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Re: Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-iv-1907 15-iii-1980)

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Sat Jan 08, 2022 3:21 pm

On the subject of middle game books, has anybody read Znosko-Borovsky's effort?

(I admit to asking this mainly because Golombek memorably described it as "infantile and puerile" in his Encyclopaedia)
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Re: Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-iv-1907 15-iii-1980)

Post by David Sedgwick » Sat Jan 08, 2022 3:30 pm

Matt Mackenzie wrote:
Sat Jan 08, 2022 3:21 pm
On the subject of middle game books, has anybody read Znosko-Borovsky's effort?

(I admit to asking this mainly because Golombek memorably described it as "infantile and puerile" in his Encyclopaedia)
I have read Znosko-Borovsky's book, albeit decades ago.

I rated it more highly than Golombek did, but still not particularly highly.

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