How reliable are the ‘Di Felice Chess Results’ books?
Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2016 2:20 pm
I have always found these books a very useful historical reference. The other day however, my confidence in them was slightly shaken, when I spotted a number of quite sloppy errors and omissions in the 1964-1967 volume. I had only been browsing for an hour or two, so I began wondering if others had also found reliability issues; indeed, whether my stumbling on a few inaccuracies was simply a case of bad luck, or just the tip of the iceberg. Maybe I had unrealistic expectations of such a monumental effort in the first place.
The preface explains that the author has worked extensively with contemporary sources and has had access to the Koninklijk Bibliotheek in The Hague, which of course carries a fantastic selection of chess records. With some careful cross-checking, I had imagined this would give consistently high levels of accuracy.
Here are some of the things I noticed:
On page 147 – The Eastbourne International Open of 1965 had some strange entries for players’ forenames that didn’t ring true to me. It transpired that some were plain wrong, and it also appeared that two players bearing the same surname had been reversed in the standings, so the one mentioned was the wrong one. The results were sourced to a Dutch publication and I wondered why the author hadn’t used the relevant CHESS magazine report (about 9 pages long and with the players’ full names repeated over and over in round by round summaries), Surely that would be a better, more obvious source for an English tournament.
On page 202, Di Felice gives only the first 4 finishers at Whitby. For a 46 player event, that seems like an inadequate summary and once again, a Dutch publication has been used. To add further insult, Peter Charles Griffiths has been recorded only as ‘Griffiths’. Again, the relevant issue of CHESS or BCM would have been far more enlightening.
Page 177-178 gives a tournament held at Sabadkan YUG. The exact same tournament is duplicated on page 190, where it is credited as Subotica YUG along with other details of its memorial status. Worryingly, the first entry is simply sourced as ‘Internet’, so probably the author should have been wary of possible conflicts.
On page 196, the USSR’s Burevestnik Ch. has no location given. Yet from a simple Google search, I quickly established it was held in Sukhumi, thanks to an entry in one of Sosonko’s books (and he being a competitor at the event).
If these were just run-of-the-mill typographical errors, I could understand that a work of this size would contain a few. But some of these issues struck me as avoidable and a little sloppy. Does anyone else have a comment, or any experience in using or reviewing these books?
The preface explains that the author has worked extensively with contemporary sources and has had access to the Koninklijk Bibliotheek in The Hague, which of course carries a fantastic selection of chess records. With some careful cross-checking, I had imagined this would give consistently high levels of accuracy.
Here are some of the things I noticed:
On page 147 – The Eastbourne International Open of 1965 had some strange entries for players’ forenames that didn’t ring true to me. It transpired that some were plain wrong, and it also appeared that two players bearing the same surname had been reversed in the standings, so the one mentioned was the wrong one. The results were sourced to a Dutch publication and I wondered why the author hadn’t used the relevant CHESS magazine report (about 9 pages long and with the players’ full names repeated over and over in round by round summaries), Surely that would be a better, more obvious source for an English tournament.
On page 202, Di Felice gives only the first 4 finishers at Whitby. For a 46 player event, that seems like an inadequate summary and once again, a Dutch publication has been used. To add further insult, Peter Charles Griffiths has been recorded only as ‘Griffiths’. Again, the relevant issue of CHESS or BCM would have been far more enlightening.
Page 177-178 gives a tournament held at Sabadkan YUG. The exact same tournament is duplicated on page 190, where it is credited as Subotica YUG along with other details of its memorial status. Worryingly, the first entry is simply sourced as ‘Internet’, so probably the author should have been wary of possible conflicts.
On page 196, the USSR’s Burevestnik Ch. has no location given. Yet from a simple Google search, I quickly established it was held in Sukhumi, thanks to an entry in one of Sosonko’s books (and he being a competitor at the event).
If these were just run-of-the-mill typographical errors, I could understand that a work of this size would contain a few. But some of these issues struck me as avoidable and a little sloppy. Does anyone else have a comment, or any experience in using or reviewing these books?