A Bust to "King's Gambit"

There is an unfortunate tendency, whenever a well-written book like Paul Hoffman's King's Gambit [Hyperion, 2007, 433 pages] is published, for reviewers to say nothing but nice things about it. Perhaps this is because such books have been so few and far between that no one wants to be negativistic, for fear of jeopardizing its chances, when a new one finally comes along.

My journalistic philosophy, to the contrary, has always been that the book reviewer's primary responsibility is to the reader and not the author. In this vein, I will now list some of the shortcomings in Hoffman's book.

Let me begin by stating that I enjoyed reading King's Gambit. The last non-fiction book on chess that made me feel this way was Searching for Bobby Fischer. In many ways, Paul Hoffman covers the same material that Fred Waitzkin did, but in reverse. This time, it is the chess son, not the chess father, who does the storytelling. But it is the inexactitude in these tales of Hoffman that worries me.

Chess masters like myself learn the discipline of putting aside our subjective feelings and analyzing with complete objectivity. Of course, we are only human and never 100% successful in our efforts. But the author, a 1900 rated player, seems to be far too undisciplined. Allow me to make the unkind observation that, if Hoffman is as imprecise with his chess moves as he is with (at least some of) his anecdotes, it is no wonder that he has never achieved a master's rating. Here are a few examples of inaccurate anecdotes, concerning people that I know.

In 1989, when I reviewed Searching for Bobby Fischer, I wrote that Fred Waitzkin's keen insights enabled me to see, as though for the first time, chess players that I had already been paired against. I can not say the same for Hoffman because the Nicholas Rossolimo in King's Gambit is unrecognizable to me. As portrayed by Hoffman, Rossolimo comes across as an alcoholic whose drinking problem may have led to his accidental death by falling down a flight of stairs in 1975.

Like Hoffman, I also played against Rossolimo in his chess salon, within walking distance of the Marshall Chess Club. In my case, it was one game for the usual $5 fee. I was accompanied by two other club members who were Class B players, as I was back then. Believe it or not, I made it to a minor piece ending with even pawns. But the pawn structure favored Rossolimo's bishop over my knight, and I soon lost. I can still recall how courteous Rossolimo was in accepting my resignation. I saw nothing to indicate that he was anything but sober.

No doubt Hoffman's footnote, pertaining to Rossolimo's untimely death, is the official version. I will give you the unofficial version as told to me, within days of the event, by a New York chess player who seemed to know what he was talking about. His story went that Rossolimo lived in a tough neighborhood. One night, in late July 1975, a couple of muggers waited for Rossolimo at the top of the stairs in his apartment building. In the ensuing struggle, Rossolimo either fell or was pushed down the stairs, suffering his fatal injury. I am not certain which version of events is the correct one. All I can say is that the chess player's story rang true when I heard it.

One of the more humorous anecdotes told by Paul Hoffman is his victory against Noah Siegel, a 2300 rated player, who was the highest rated opponent ever beaten by Hoffman, at least until he defeated FIDE master Asa Hoffmann in a tournament at the Marshall Chess Club. I got a kick out of Hoffman's failure to realize that Siegel was acknowledging checkmate, not offering a draw, at the end of the game. What I found less amusing was Hoffman's describing the opening as a French defense against which Hoffman played the exchange variation, just as Bobby Fischer had done.

This story is wrong on two counts. From my own experience against Siegel, I know that he favors the Caro-Kann defense. And Bobby Fischer never played the exchange variation against the French, although he did play it against the Caro-Kann. The likely explanation for this confusion is that Siegel played the Caro-Kann, not the French, against Hoffman. What this would mean is that, not only was Hoffman unaware that he had checkmated his opponent at the game's conclusion, he did not even realize what opening had been played!

Admittedly, just because there are a couple of less than accurate tales, this is not to say that all the other anecdotes are inaccurate as well. But, ironically, I find myself in approximately the same position as the author when it dawned on him that his father had lied about the milkshakes at Baskin-Robbins, of all things. In other words, there is a suspicion that the stories in Hoffman's book are not as objectively correct as they should be.

To a chess player, the words "King's Gambit" conjure up an opening that is entertaining, albeit slightly unsound. Alas, the same holds true for Paul Hoffman's book by the same name.