Chessville Editorials - USCF's Fingerfehler - Involving ther USCF's Book & Equipment deal with Chess Café, Chess Café's alleged banning of books by certain popular authors, and more.

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The USCF's Finger-fehler

In October 2005, TheParrot started reporting on what has developed into one of the major political scandals of the year, the USCF's book & equipment contract situation with Chess Cafe. Read all about it in TheParrot's Special Report - The USCF's Book & Equipment Deal with Chess Cafe, including the then only response from the USCF Executive Board on the subject, a very thin response from USCF President Bill Goichberg.

A related issue has also surfaced, the alleged blacklisting or boycotting of certain authors by USCF Sales. USCF Sales is the name of the business entity, operated by Hanon Russell of Chess Café, which has contracted with the USCF to provide book & equipment (B&E) sales on their behalf.

TheParrot received this message (12/29/2005) from GM Raymond Keene, regarding the controversy on USCF Sales:

Hardinge Simpole chess books:

1 Print on demand - far from being the mark of vanity publishing - is probably the future of publishing. Many publishers in the past have been hamstrung by large and unwarranted advances to authors which cannot be backed up by sales-the need to rent storage for extensive books as yet unsold and the need to maintain an hq and staff with attendant rent and tax costs. Many mainstream publishers in a huge number of areas are now embracing print on demand. The philosophy behind print on demand is to publish a great number of different titles - because overheads are reduced selling 1 copy each of 100 titles is equivalent to selling 100 copies of 1 title.

2 The advantage to an author - especially one who has many books out of print - is that virtually any title can be revived - so no worthwhile book ever need to be out of circulation.

3 Hardinge Simpole have made a special effort to ensure that the American greats are kept available - our books include games collections in fresh printings by Pillsbury, Fine, Marshall, Reshevsky-2 vols as well as the tournament books of Piatigorsky 1963, Piatigorsky 1966, many books by Evans and Watson - widely regarded as the most universally respected American writers, and a book by Parr and Denker. Not to mention books by Dr Eric Schiller. Since we also publish around 100 further books including hard to come by titles such as modern chess theory with articles by Timman, Euwe, Mednis and Kasparov, as well as books by Larsen, Reti, Nimzowitsch, Capablanca, Alekhine and new books such as Janowski's Best Games it seems an amazing coincidence that the USCF and its outlet consider none of these books worth stocking.

Hardinge Simpole books are now doing very well in outlets in the UK such as BCM and Chess and Bridge, both of which have both mail order and central London stores. It is odd that the USCF cannot or does not wish to replicate or even test this experience.

Happy new year, Ray Keene

Which was followed on January 3, 2006 by this letter from IM John Donaldson:

I found the letter you printed from GM Keene quite interesting. Hardinge-Simpole certainly deserve credit for trying to make older titles available, but I wonder if the lack of economy of scale that print on demand entails will make pricing prohibitive. When I see a book like Modern Chess Brilliancies (just one example) by GM Larry Evans for $30 I don't think many copies will be sold. Not because it isn't a good book, it is, but because a ton of copies are available on ABE books from previous printings, starting at $5. This includes some very clean copies of the 1994 Hypermodern Press edition that looks to have a nicer cover (I can't speak about the inside layout).

Book sellers only have so much storage space and capital and there are many new books coming out. In this particular instance rather than a "author boycott" it seems more likely that the USCF concessionaire, Hanon Russell, feels he can make a better return by carrying different titles.

The number of chess booksellers has dramatically declined the past ten years due to the Internet, particularly non-chess specialist book sellers. How the "little guys" make any money is a mystery to me. I certainly don't think they appreciate an outsider telling them what they can and cannot sell when they are fighting to stay in business with Amazon and other giants breathing down their neck. One wonders just how many people were interested in bidding on the USCF book and equipment concession. Assuming that the USCF demanded the vendor sell for them exclusively to avoid a conflict of interest, I can think of only a very few individuals that might have an interest let alone the necessary funding. The decision by the USCF Executive Board to extend Mr. Russell's contract despite less money for the Federation is more likely a reflection of economic reality than a back-room deal.

John Donaldson

Disclosure - Russell Enterprises, which bought out Inside Chess some years ago, published the second edition of my book Legend on the Road in 2005 and will publish expanded versions of the two volume series on Rubinstein by IM Nikolay Minev and myself later this year. I supported Bill Goichberg, Joel Channing, Greg Shahade and Robert Tanner in the 2005 USCF Executive Board elections.

A further post from GM Keene:

As you doubtless know, the USCF thru Hanon Russell openly boycott HS publications, even tho they include books by or about:

Bobby Fischer
Larry Parr
Arnold Denker
Larry Evans
Sammy Reshevsky
Reuben Fine
Frank Marshall
Garry Kasparov
Max Euwe
Alexander Alekhine
Bent Larsen
Richard Reti
Aron Nimzowitsch
Harry Nelson Pillsbury

etc etc

We believe the reason is that Chess Café attitudes are still very much influenced by the notorious Edward Winter-even tho it wd appear that Winter and Russell have had a falling out. It is a little known fact that Julian Simpole used to be a master at the school in Brighton Sussex UK where Winter studied and used regularly to thrash him at chess. Since Winter is a recluse who has done his best to hide his tracks - its very embarrassing for him to have someone out there who both knew him and cd beat him at chess all the time. We think this is the prime reason for the boycott which otherwise makes no commercial sense at all!! Just think about the way Stalin treated old colleagues who had known him in younger days. I think this syndrome explains the Winter mind-set. Getting rid of this boycott wd transform our USA profile - btw we also do books on Bob Dylan!!

with best wishes, RAY KEENE