<Reuben Fine played 25 games with five world champions and had a score of +3; which is amazing. +1 against Botvinnik, +1 against Alekhine, +1 against Lasker (only one game), and even score with Euwe and Capablanca. This is something that makes it more exciting for the audience because there is a fact. There’s something they can rely on.>

I am pretty sure Fine received consideration for invitation, and may have even been invited to play at the World Ch. tourney at The Hague in 1948, but he had made his decision a couple of years earlier to do the psychoanalyst thing.

Sure, Fine could have been at least a challenger for the World Ch., at some point had he seriously stayed with chess, if not achieving even more, but we will never know.

He was awesome in the 1930's that's for sure.

Middlemarch-like in length and in-digestibility, as Basic Chess Endings was and is, it was a pioneering work that no one else had even tried. I have to give Reuben credit for daring to take on such a daunting task. I kind of think Keres book: Practical Chess Endings was one of the healthier early offspring of Fine's flawed but creditable magnum opus.

I'll assume you meant the US Open.

However, just for fun let's say the match would have been held in New York. A stones throw from his apt. Then what.

My hunch is he would have said yes.
Notice the distance and otherness of
Russia did not matter to Reshevsky.
Probably it was no single factor that
kept him from playing, though what's most interesting for me is that Fine had nothing much to say in 48, just a kind of whimpering dissembling.

At least Reshevsky DID play, to his credit, but hardly to rest the notion that the Russians could cheat their way to the top. He was beaten and Fine certainly would have had his work cut out for him in that kind of stress and strain. The Russians had kind of a take you pick, any one of us can carry on the glory of Motherland, were not under the daily relentless push to beat the others whereas the American interloper had to pound away game after each game with them.

Lurking also was the distinct possibility that were Fine going to start edging ahead then Keres or Smyslov could start throwing the games, which some say was exactly what happened.

In the end that's likely what brought about Fine's run, a tremendous run, when it was only too clear that at least for another decade Russia would hold the reins on the championship by hook or crook. Told himself, I've done all I can, proved that I was ONE of the best if not THE best and this is as far as that road leads.

<My hunch is he would have said yes.

Notice the distance and otherness of
Russia did not matter to Reshevsky.
Probably it was no single factor that
kept him from playing, though what's most interesting for me is that Fine had nothing much to say in 48, just a kind of whimpering dissembling...>

In particular, here: http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

<In an e-mail message dated 7 January 2001 Arnold Denker wrote to us regarding Fine:

‘... as a young man he was terribly mixed up and a horrible liar. That is one of the reasons my wife and I both allowed him plenty of space. He had a screwed-up youth and never really overcame his strong feelings of inferiority. Thus the bragging. My fondness for him was more a feeling of sadness.’>

But has anybody ever heard of Alexander Cockburn and his work,

Poor Reuben Fine. His works are scattered to ashes like that Eloi bookcase in The Time Machine.

His games lie strewn in the dust and rubbish, trampled on by laughing conquerors.

For is it not written (on this page, in fact):
"Babylon has fallen! Babylon has fallen!
All her idols lay scattered on the floor."

The ruined city lies desolate.
The entrance to every house is barred shut.
People in the streets call for wine.
All joy passes away,
and the earth's happiness is banished.
The city is left in ruins.
Its gate is battered to pieces!

Edward Winter savages him here:-

On the other hand, I can't help but wonder how the name Cockburn came about. It's apparently quite rare in the US:

<Out of 5,647,426 records in the U.S. Social Security Administration public data, the name "Cockburn" was not present. >

http://www.names.org/n/cockburn/about

Where I was informed of the following:

<I do not know how you feel about it, but you were a female in your last earthly incarnation. You were born somewhere around the territory of Yugoslavia approximately on 1750. Your profession was entertainer, musician, poet, and temple-dancer.

You were sane, practical person, materialist with no spiritual consciousness. Your simple wisdom helped the weak and the poor. Your lesson - to conquer jealousy and anger in yourself and then in those, who will select you as their guide. You should understand that these weaknesses are caused by fear and self-regret.>

Not sure how much I like being referred to in the past tense, even if reincarnated.