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| Sep-15-05 | | suenteus po 147: <WMD> You have very naughty fingers. ;) |
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| Sep-15-05 | | suenteus po 147: Here's a little game to play on the Reuben Fine page, since my participation in the game concern's Mr. Fine. If you could be any chessplayer during any period that they lived and competed, with complete foreknowledge of the chess events to come (large or small), who would you be and what would you do? I originally thought I would be Bronstein and prevent 35...Bxc1, which seemed to be the move to cost him the World Championship, but now I think I would be Reuben Fine and choose to participate in the 1948 World Championship with Botvinnik, Smyslov, Keres, Reshevsky, and Euwe. It's an event that, with Fine's participation, could have changed the outcome of the championship, and successive championships to follow! We might (just might) have had an American dynasty on the World Championship, instead of a Soviet one. Or Keres might have edged ahead of Botvinnik to be World Champion, continuing a tradition of different countries and nationalities succeeding the crown every three years. It will be interesting to see what everyone else chooses and why. |
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| Sep-15-05 | | sitzkrieg: Lol u got good ideas. I cant think of any great player i d (want to) be. But, if I had complete foreknowledge of my future chess events when i started, I d not have started at all. And maybe that goes too for some "almost" champions like Korchnoi e.a. Why bother if ur not gonna make it anyway.. |
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| Sep-17-05 | | suenteus po 147: Potential caption for Fine's picture: "Despite being an excellent chess player, Dr. Reuben Fine only ranked 13,789th on the list of greatest cartoon characters ever." |
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Sep-17-05
 | | tpstar: Alternate caption = "This is the last time I have a police sketch artist do my portrait." <suenteus po 147> I would be Fischer in 1972 right after winning the title. I'd do all the talk shows, then go on tour in the US while killing everyone in sight for 3 years, soundly defeat Karpov in 1975, and immediately retire for good on top and enjoy the residual benefits of my career for the rest of my life. |
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| Sep-17-05 | | suenteus po 147: <tpstar> An excellent choice, and one I assumed other kibitzers would jump on. Congratulations on being first, and therefore original! The bit of tragedy is that I think it could have been that simple for Fischer had he chosen so. The flaw is never in the universe, but always in ourselves. |
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Sep-17-05
 | | tamar: <suenteus po 147> Excellent game. I would be Harry Nelson Pillsbury just after Hastings 1895. But from September 1895-Dec 1895 I would check into a local monastery, study Lasker's games and forego those nights on the town... |
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| Sep-17-05 | | suenteus po 147: <tamar> Pillsbury won Hastings that year, didn't he? And did he have a match with Lasker the year after? I can't remember. |
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Sep-17-05
| | tamar: <suenteus po 147> Pillsbury won Hastings on September 2,1895 and was awarded the first prize of 150 Pounds. In early December 1895 he took part in a quadrangular tournament in St Petersburg Russia. Between those two events, he contracted
a venereal disease that was diagnosed the night before his fourth round game with Lasker. Surging along before that point, he lost that game and several others in a row, and never got a match with Lasker. So my choice would be to see how Pillsbury would have fared if he had
avoided spending his Hastings money on
ladies of the evening.
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| Sep-17-05 | | suenteus po 147: <tamar> Thank you for the information and clarification. I see now that monastery bit is an especially nice touch. |
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| Sep-25-05 | | jgs: Apropos Monoceros (Sept 15) and the discussion around Fine's views on the psychology of chess, for decades players have been bewildered by them. In fact, they're not limited to the theme of sublimated homosexuality and from a psychoanalytic perspective are extremely acute if in some respects dated. His book, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHESS PLAYER, is still well worth reading - even if you're not a Freudian - for his excellent and revealing sketches of the world champions.
By way of disclosure, I should add I knew Reuben Fine from about 1975. |
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Sep-27-05
 | | WannaBe: Excellent quote today... |
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| Oct-13-05 | | Bartleby: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuben...
Wikipedia has quite an expansive biography on Reuben Fine, compared to other sites (CG included). Reuben Fine has a lifetime plus score against WCs Lasker, Euwe, Botvinnik, and Alekhine, and is co-winner of ARVO 1938 with Keres. Also, at ARVO, in the first half of that elite tournament after six rounds he had an incredible 5.5/6 points, a performance that reminds us today of Topalov at the WCC in San Luis after the same number of rounds. I believe Fine would have the best chance to defeat Alekhine in a title match had it been arranged; I believe Fine's style would have thwarted Alekhine more than Keres (Incidentally Fine won both his games with Alekhine at ARVO). Keres is a more dynamic player than Fine, certainly, but I believe Alekhine would be able to exploit that better (being a dynamic, aggressive, risk-taking player himself, but with a lifetime more experience than Keres behind him, and less "holes" in his technique) than Fine's super-refined, technician style, which not even Capablanca could crack. In fact, Fine was a New Jack Capablanca retired too early for him to really shine in chess annals. The wikipedia page has other interesting infobites about him, included an off-hand quote to Larry Evans about why he declined to participate in Hague 1948, as well as bits about his career in psychology and his personal beliefs. Amidst his other well-known literary efforts in the chess world he also revised the sixth edition of MCO, to much acclaim. Reshevsky seemed to be his most difficult rival (many players of historic note often have one particular rival that seems to trouble them OTB more than their peers), while at the same time Fine had a stronger international tournament record. In 1950 when the first US Chess rating list was published, Fine was ahead of Reshevsky rating-wise. Fine managed an impressive blindfold chess feat in winning four simultaneous games in which he was limited to 10 seconds per move when each board came around. Also, little known, he was an impressive blitz player too. It would have been something to see him compete with Najdorf and Tal in this arena. Reuben Fine, whilst not my favorite player exactly, wrote my favorite game anthology, "The World's Great Chess Games." The edition I own covers up to the late 70s with Karpov's ascendence. It's a historic travelogue of chess since the days of Ruy Lopez, peppered with games covering the careers of all the greats including minor masters here and there, replete with bios. Very informative and entertaining; a good crash course in chess history for the curious. Fine joins Pillsbury in stellar potential candidates for an American World Champion before Fischer. His abbreviated career is similar to that of William Napier and Oldrich Duras who also retired for the mundane necessity of making a living vs. professional chess. |
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Oct-13-05
 | | chessgames.com: That is indeed very interesting. We added the sentence to the bio, <In his foreshortened career, Fine had plus records against four world champions: Emanuel Lasker, Alexander Alekhine, Mikhail Botvinnik, and Jose Raul Capablanca.> We would like to add Euwe to that list, as you claim, but we find no evidence to support it. The Capablanca claim is also a little questionable, because the one game that he lost was during a simultaneous exhibition, Capablanca vs Fine, 1931. |
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Oct-13-05
 | | Gypsy: <The Capablanca claim is also a little questionable, because the one game that he lost was during a simultaneous exhibition> More than questionable! Incidentally -- blitz games. There Fine by his own words could not hold candle to Capablanca, though held more than his own with Alekhine. |
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| Oct-13-05 | | ughaibu: Wikipedia is hardly a reputable source, that article was probably written by RookFile. |
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| Oct-13-05 | | iron maiden: Perhaps the Wikipedia writer forgot the game Fine vs Euwe, 1951, which was played under serious conditions although Fine was no longer regularly active in tournaments. |
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| Jan-26-06 | | Knight13: He wrote the famous chess book Basi Chess Endings. It's a very good endgame reference that everyone must have!!!! |
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| Jan-26-06 | | RookFile: I find it amusing that my name was nowhere to be found on this page, and yet ughaibu decides to land a cheap shot at my expense. Kasparov confirms Fine's greatness, noting that Fine had a plus score against the numerous world champions he played. |
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| Jan-26-06 | | Jim Bartle: Yes, Basic Chess Endings is an excellent book, and also serves (at least the paperback) as an excellent exercise tool for strengthening hand and finger muscles. It requires above-average strength to hold open (two hands for many people, I'm sure), and if you let go it's a menace to anyone in the room as it flies in unpredictable directions. Less than ideal for a person trying to consult it while looking at a chessboard. |
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| Jan-26-06 | | RookFile: Maybe they'll convert it to a computer software edition. I'd love to see something like that. |
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| Jan-27-06 | | sleepkid: <chessgames.com> ...perhaps it's time to get a new picture of ole' Reuben. (What IS the deal with this one anyway? Did someone not know how to use a scanner?) Why not try the one here? http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/... If Winter can print it up, then it's probably free from copyright, though you may want to ask him where he got it, just to be sure. |
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| Feb-08-06 | | woodenbishop: Reuben Fine
US Grandmaster
Clinical Psychologist
Amatzia Avai
Israeli Master
Organizational Psychologist
Hans Berliner
US Master
Industrial Psychologist
Adriaan de Groot
Dutch Master
Psychologist
Sune Larsson
Swedish Master
Social Psychologist
Martin Harrow
US Master
Professor/Director of Psychology
(Drew two tournament games with GM Fischer)
Johan Barendregt
Dutch International Master
Professor of Psychology
Raymond Weinstein
US International Master
Psychology Major
(Physically assaulted IM Barendregt in the Netherlands) |
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| Feb-16-06 | | GoodChessClub: Gata Kamsky may be a true sucessor of Reuben Fine, in terms of style, Chinese zodiac (tiger), strength and length of career. |
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| Mar-03-06 | | jackmandoo: Hey we got a new photo of Mr. Fine! A handsome young lad he was. I say this with a perfect record of heterosexuality........Well maybe I had a couple of draws in there. |
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