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. 

[Event "University of Chicago Invitational"] [Site "Chicago, IL USA"] [Date "1975.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Eric Schiller"] [Black "Tim Redman"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B51"] [Annotator "Stockfish 15.1"] [PlyCount "65"] [EventDate "1975.??.??"] {Sicilian: Moscow Variation} 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ {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.} Bd7 (3... Nc6 4. O-O Bd7 5. Re1 Nf6 {is also often seen.}) 4. Bxd7+ Qxd7 5. O-O Nc6 6. c3 Nf6 7. d4 {[%mdl 32]} Nxe4 8. d5 Nb8 9. Re1 Nf6 10. Bg5 Qf5 (10... e5 11. dxe6 fxe6 12. Bxf6 gxf6 13. Qd5 e5 {is equal. Socko,M (2439) -Krush,I (2464) Mallorca 2004}) (10... h6 11. Bh4 g5 12. Bg3 Na6 13. Na3 Nc7 { is about equal. Simutowe,M (2166)-Solomon,M (2170) Cape Town 2015}) 11. Bxf6 gxf6 12. Na3 Rg8 (12... Bh6 13. Qa4+ Nd7 14. Nb5 O-O 15. Rxe7 Ne5 16. Nxe5 fxe5 17. Nxd6 Qf6 18. Rd7 Kh8 19. Re1 Rad8 20. g3 b5 21. Qxb5 Rb8 22. Qe2 Bf4 23. gxf4 Rg8+ 24. Kh1 exf4 25. Nxf7+ Kg7 26. Ng5+ {Black resigned. Franco Ocampos, Z (2520)-Moreno,A (2270) Seville 1992}) 13. Nb5 Kd8 14. g3 Nd7 15. b4 c4 16. Nh4 {[%mdl 2048] Schiller is playing on both sides of the board.} Qg4 17. Nf3 Nb6 18. Qe2 a6 {White has managed to accomplish anything on either side and so rather thatn meekly retreat the N, Schiller takes a risk.} 19. Nxd6 exd6 20. Qe8+ Kc7 21. Qxf7+ {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.} Kb8 {After this white gets an overwhelming attack.} (21... Nd7 22. Nd4 {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.} Qg6 23. Qe6 (23. Ne6+ {fails to accomplish anything after} Kc8) 23... f5 {Now black will be better after 24.b5 Qxe6} 24. Nxf5 Ne5 {Things are getting a little tactical! Black is better after} 25. Nd4 (25. Rxe5 {is interesting, but insufficient.} dxe5 26. d6+ Bxd6 27. Qxc4+ Kb6 28. Rd1 Bf8 {Oddly, black's K is quite safe on b3!}) 25... Qxe6 26. Nxe6+ Kd7 { White has no attack abd he is down material.}) 22. Nd4 {An obviously good place for the N} Nd7 23. b5 {White wants to mate with b6!} (23. Ne6 {this looks very reasonable, but the N accomplishes nothing on e6 in this line and black equalizes after...} Ne5 {Here it's black's N that is too dangerous because of the threat of ...Nd3+ so...} 24. Rxe5 fxe5 {and it's back to equal chances.}) 23... Qg7 {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... Ka7 24. Rab1 Rc8 25. bxa6 Kxa6 26. Re8 Rxe8 27. Qxe8 Bh6 28. Qe7 {and white is winning.}) 24. Re8+ Ka7 25. Rxa8+ Kxa8 26. Qe8+ Ka7 27. bxa6 {White threatens Rb1 with mate to follow.} Nb6 28. axb7 Qxb7 29. Nc6+ {The N finally does land on the 6th rank but this time with devastating results.} Ka6 30. Rb1 Qc7 31. a4 {[%mdl 32] A much stronger blow than the N check on b8} (31. Nb8+ Ka7 32. Qb5 Kxb8 33. Qa6 Rg7 34. Rxb6+ Qb7 35. Rxb7+ Rxb7 36. Qxc4) 31... f5 {As good a move as any.} 32. a5 Nc8 {This allows a pretty finish.} 33. Qxc8+ {[%mdl 512] BANG!} (33. Qxc8+ Qxc8 34. Rb6#) 1-0