The capacity of the termites to blame Ray Keene for all the ills of the world is a credit to conspiracy theorists all round the globe. The latest classic comes from "Sir" Roger de Coverly, the Egregious Chess Forum's most verbose poster, who has now blamed Ray Keene for all the quick draws in the Anand-Gelfand match! Apparently, he copied the style from Petrosian, and that infected others, and led to the custom of quick draws being accepted. Quod erat demonstrandum, as they say over on princecharlesblewupthetwintowers.com.
Sir Roger also adds the now-obligatory codicil to the effect that of course, "Saint Tony of Miles" was not guilty of such hideous practices. The mental process (to the extent that it can be so dignified...) in this reasoning is that Miles hated Keene, Keene is the Anti-Christ, ergo, Tony must have been the Archangel Gabriel in human form. "Tony Miles was more unwilling to take the early draw than Keene or Hartston", quoth Sir Roger.
Yeah, right. That must explain the following masterpiece:
Miles - Christiansen, San Francisco 1987
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nc3 Bf5
6. Nxe4 Bxe4 7. d3 Bg6 8.Bg5 Be7 9. Bxe7 Qxe7+ 10. Be2 Nc6 11. O-O O-O 12. Re1 Rae8 13. Qd2 Ne5 14. d4 Nxf3+ 15. Bxf3 Qd7 16. c3 b6 17. Rxe8 Rxe8 18. Re1 Rxe1+ 19. Qxe1 Kf8 20. g3
1/2-1/2
Truly a battle to stir the blood.
"But wait a minute", I hear you say. "That diagram position looks a bit familiar! Why doesn't 6.Qe2 win a piece in this position?"
The answer is that it does, as Anand found out, when he subsequently repeated Black's first five moves, against Zapata, at Biel 1988. Zapata indeed played 6.Qe2, whereupon Anand resigned. So why didn't Miles play it?
The explanation, of course, is that Tony, being "more unwilling to take the early draw than Keene and Hartston", had already pre-arranged a draw in the game in question! He was sufficient of a gentleman to keep his word, and although he saw 6.Qe2, he did not play it. He did have a bit of fun, first, however - apparently, he begun ostentatiously "polishing" the e2 square with his forefinger, and smiling at the initially bemused Christiansen, until the awful truth finally dawned on the latter. Larry C then turned bright red, whereupon Tony played 6.Nxe4 and the draw was soon agreed.
So, there we have it. No hint of Tony taking early draws. Only nasty Ray Keene would do a thing like that. By the same token, Tony would never agree to share money with someone, in return for supporting that person's claim to have worked as Tony's second at an Interzonal, would he? But that is a story to which we must return, when the libel laws permit.
In the meantime, I am still trying to work out how Ray Keene organising all these quick draws in Moscow is the result of the ECF's compulsory membership scheme. It must be the case, because everything Sir R de C posts on the Forum has something to do with the ECF compulsory membership scheme. It's just a matter of finding the connection. I'm none too good at these conspiracy theories, but I'll keep trying.
