Imprecision

Raymond Dennis Keene (Photo © Kingpin)

Some articles on Raymond Keene’s untrue statements and shoddy writing:


Commenting in his Times column of 24 June 1978 (page 19) about Raymond Keene’s book on the 1977-78 Korchnoi v Spassky Candidates’ match, Harry Golombek wrote that the account “is so partial as to fail to carry any real conviction.”


Pages 262-266 of the September 1986 issue of CHESS published an interview with Raymond Keene conducted by his brother-in-law David Levy (view a PDF copy). It received the following implacable reply from Florencio Campomanes (CHESS, November 1986, pages 323-325):

The same issue of CHESS published a brief statement from Edward Winter (November 1986, page 327):


Two quotes from Tim Harding’s Eminent Victorian Chess Players (McFarland, 2011) concerning Howard Staunton the English World Chess Champion by R.D. Keene and R.N. Coles (British Chess Magazine, 1975):

  • “It contains a large selection of annotated Staunton games but suffers from numerous historical errors, is hagiographical in tone and is marred by such judgments as ‘Morphy, as the world was soon to realize, was himself an incipient pyschopath’.” (page 37)
  • “The idea of Staunton as the founder of an ‘English chess school’ is also faintly ridiculous. He has influenced no modern grandmasters except Keene, who created a kind of ‘Staunton industry’ and helped to revive Simpson’s in the Strand, site of the old Divan, as a chess venue.” (page 71)

cn9046_keene

From Magnus Carlsen – Viswanathan Anand 2014 Re-Match for the World Chess Championship by Raymond Keene (Bronx, 2014). The book had well over 100 similar diagrams. See Cuttings.