Eric Schiller Crushes His Opponent

     I thought it was odd when I read that Oregon prison officials banned inmates from reading Amy Schumer’s biography and a book about playing the ukulele.

     Amy Beth Schumer (born June 1, 1981) is a stand-up comedian, actress, writer and director. Why those books were banned, I do not know, but Oregon prisons have banned many books about technology and computer programming citing security reasons and fears that prisoners could use them as tools to compromise the prison's systems. 

     All state prisons have banned books. A prison in Ohio blocked an inmate from receiving a biology textbook because it contained nudity. In Colorado, prison officials banned Barack Obama’s memoirs because they were “potentially detrimental to national security.” And, a prison in New York tried to ban a book of maps of the moon, saying it could “present risks of escape.” 

     Prisons often ban books containing sexual material, nudity, racially inflammatory material, chemistry, tattooing, martial arts and the list goes on and on. One can understand some, but not all, of their reasoning. 

     G. Gordon Liddy (November 30, 1930 – March 30, 2021) was an American lawyer, FBI agent, talk show host, actor and...a convicted felon in the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration. He was convicted of conspiracy, burglary and illegal wiretapping. 

     Liddy, who himself did not come across as being all that smart, characterized the average prison guard as "stupid" and said most prisons are run by the inmates. Liddy added, "Your typical prison guard puts himself in there because he cannot compete with the rest of society. He is a failed individual." 

     That coming from a convicted felon who said, in what sounds like a case of misplaced loyalty or hero worship, that he would do it all over again for his president. While I respect the OFFICE of the President of the United States, I am not going to ruin my life and go to prison for one of them while they carry on with their privileged life with no regard for mine. That would be stupid. 

     True or not, Liddy claimed to have cooked a rat and eaten it in order to overcome his childhood fear of them. He claimed that when he was a child he would go down underneath the piers on the waterfront to confront the rats. This didn't work and when his sister's cat killed a rat he recalled how certain American Indian tribes used to consume the heart of an enemy that they considered to be courageous in order to overcome the fear of that tribe. So, he cooked and ate the rat. He also told about holding his hand over a candle flame to strengthen his will.

     A few years before he died in exile from Nazism, the Austrian novelist Robert Musil delivered a lecture in Vienna in which he put forth the idea that stupidity was not mere dumbness (lack of mental processing power), but it was something very different and much more dangerous. His reason: some of the smartest people, the least dumb, were often the most stupid. 

     According to him, stupidity is a very specific cognitive failing. Basically it is when a person does not have the right conceptual tools for the job. The result is an inability to make sense of what is happening and a resulting tendency to force things into pigeonholes. 

     I was recently reading an article by Bill Wall about the time he and Eric Schiller were visited by the FBI because they subscribed to Russian newsletters and magazines. He also told about the time in 2001 when Schiller's chess books were banned from the Oregon Department of Corrections because the books "contain code throughout." 

     They specifically banned his Standard Chess Openings thinking that the algebraic notation was some sort of code. In reality, I guess you could actually call it that...it's a coded form of the really old chess books which contained notation like, "31. B to R 5th discovering check" and such; nowadays we'd write, "21.Bh5+" 

     They claimed the book "Contains material that threatens or is detrimental to the security, safety, health, good order, or discipline of the facility, inmate rehabilitation or facilitates criminal activity." 

     I've never read a chess book by Eric Schiller, but some reviewers do not speak well of them and feel that they should be banned, not just in prison, but everywhere. They claim that Schiller went for quantity over quality and his books are data dumps containing bad analysis and hundreds of gross errors. On the other hand, a lot of people are fans of his books. 

     As for Oregon officials claiming chess books contain coding and threaten the security, safety, health, good order, etc., etc, of the prison, that sounds like stupidity to me. 

     Eric Schiller (March 20, 1955 - November 3, 2018) was born in New York. He was an FIDE FM, USCF Life Master, chess organizer and an International Arbiter. He was the 1974 Illinois State Champion and the 1995 California State Champion. Suffering from diabetes, he passed away of heart disease after a long illness. 

ChessBase

Eric Schiller–Tim Redman1–0B51University of Chicago InvitationalChicago, IL USA1975Stockfish 15.1

Sicilian: Moscow Variation 1.e4 c5 2.f3 d6 3.b5+ This is the Moscow Variation or Canal–Sokolsky Attack as it is sometimes called. After 2...Nc6 3.Bb5 is the Rossolimo Variation. It's main advantage is that avoids a ton of theory. d7 3...c6 4.0-0 d7 5.e1 f6 is also often seen. 4.xd7+ xd7 5.0-0 c6 6.c3 f6 7.d4 xe4 8.d5 b8 9.e1 f6 10.g5 f5 10...e5 11.dxe6 fxe6 12.xf6 gxf6 13.d5 e5 is equal. Socko,M (2439) -Krush,I (2464) Mallorca 2004 10...h6 11.h4 g5 12.g3 a6 13.a3 c7 is about equal. Simutowe,M (2166)-Solomon,M (2170) Cape Town 2015 11.xf6 gxf6 12.a3 g8 12...h6 13.a4+ d7 14.b5 0-0 15.xe7 e5 16.xe5 fxe5 17.xd6 f6 18.d7 h8 19.e1 ad8 20.g3 b5 21.xb5 b8 22.e2 f4 23.gxf4 g8+ 24.h1 exf4 25.xf7+ g7 26.g5+ Black resigned. Franco Ocampos, Z (2520)-Moreno,A (2270) Seville 1992 13.b5 d8 14.g3 d7 15.b4 c4 16.h4 Schiller is playing on both sides of the board. g4 17.f3 b6 18.e2 a6 White has managed to accomplish anything on either side and so rather thatn meekly retreat the N, Schiller takes a risk. 19.xd6 exd6 20.e8+ c7 21.xf7+ White only has one P for his pieces and there is no forcing continuation that will gain him an advantage after black interposes the N. b8 After this white gets an overwhelming attack. 21...d7 22.d4 This is probably the move Redman didn't like the looks of because Ne6+ looks quite good. With careful play black comes out of the complications quite well, but OTB it was not easy to see. g6 23.e6 23.e6+ fails to accomplish anything after c8 23...f5 Now black will be better after 24.b5 Qxe6 24.xf5 e5 Things are getting a little tactical! Black is better after 25.d4 25.xe5 is interesting, but insufficient. dxe5 26.d6+ xd6 27.xc4+ b6 28.d1 f8 Oddly, black's K is quite safe on b3! 25...xe6 26.xe6+ d7 White has no attack abd he is down material. 22.d4 An obviously good place for the N d7 23.b5 White wants to mate with b6! 23.e6 this looks very reasonable, but the N accomplishes nothing on e6 in this line and black equalizes after... e5 Here it's black's N that is too dangerous because of the threat of ...Nd3+ so... 24.xe5 fxe5 and it's back to equal chances. 23...g7 An exchange of Qs would easy black defensive burden, but white does not have to oblige and Schiller finishes black off in brutal fashion. 23...a7 24.ab1 c8 25.bxa6 xa6 26.e8 xe8 27.xe8 h6 28.e7 and white is winning. 24.e8+ a7 25.xa8+ xa8 26.e8+ a7 27.bxa6 White threatens Rb1 with mate to follow. b6 28.axb7 xb7 29.c6+ The N finally does land on the 6th rank but this time with devastating results. a6 30.b1 c7 31.a4 A much stronger blow than the N check on b8 31.b8+ a7 32.b5 xb8 33.a6 g7 34.xb6+ b7 35.xb7+ xb7 36.xc4 31...f5 As good a move as any. 32.a5 c8 This allows a pretty finish. 33.xc8+ BANG! 33.xc8+ xc8 34.b6# 1–0

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