Well, readers, I have no idea how this will go, but this middle-aged dog will try a new trick. Substack gives us its writers the ability to embed video, so, let’s embed a video (or two).
The theme goes to the post I wrote about the need to “Beware of the Old Books”. I pointed out that the analysis can be untrustworthy, and not just in comparison to the computer-checked/generated analysis of our time. There’s the further problem that annotators often fit their commentary to the result and the winner’s prestige, so everything looks perfect, as if designed for textbook immortality.
The reality is usually more complex, and that complexity is instructive, too. Case in point: the game I present in the videos (I’m hoping they’ll both upload), Rubinstein-Salwe from Lodz 1908. Rubinstein wins a model game, and that’s how I present it in the first video: he does everything right, and poor Salwe makes a single error in a difficult opening and is brilliantly and beautifully outplayed. In the second video, I show that this is an illusion. Yes, it was a very nice game by Rubinstein, but his advantage was minimal or nonexistent until pretty late in the game. (If the second video doesn’t embed - and I think it won’t - I’ll quickly publish a second post and present the video there.)
I look forward to your comments - mostly on the nature of the experiment. Should I do more of this? Less (i.e. none)? If more, what topics would you like to see “video-ized”?
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