Talk:Reuben Fine

Psychology +0 =1 -0, Chess +0 =0 -1

 * Some wag noted that this was "a loss for chess, and at best a draw for psychology"

I've seen this quote (with small variations) several times, but I've never seen a source for it - does anybody know where it comes from? --Camembert

I love that quotation. Edward Winter, a controversial chess writer, writes at chesshistory.com:


 * 6090. Reuben Fine and psychoanalysis (C.N. 5283)
 * We now note that the familiar comment about Reuben Fine was made by Gilbert Cant in an article ‘Why They Play: The Psychology of Chess’ on pages 44-45 of Time, 4 September 1972:
 * ‘When Fine switched his major interest from chess to psychoanalysis, the result was a loss for chess – and a draw, at best, for psychoanalysis.’
 * The full article can be read on-line via the link to Time given in C.N. 5819.

Winter has an entry in Wikipedia, for what that's worth. At least (to judge from the text sample), he doesn't quote "some wag," as everybody else does. Perhaps someone with access to the bound volumes of Time can verify. I'll check it next time I'm at a suitably-equipped library. WHPratt (talk) 03:04, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

UPDATE -- Here's the quote from the Time article:


 * A great chess player, Manhattan's Reuben Fine, has popularized a psychology of chess studded with phallic symbols, spattered with anal-sadistic impulses and imbued with latent homosexuality. In successive rounds, Fine once defeated Botvinnik, Reshevsky, Euwe, Flohr and Alekhine, and drew with Capablanca. When Fine switched his major interest from chess to psychoanalysis, the result was a loss for chess—and a draw, at best, for psychoanalysis. Many psychologists, some Freudians included, now believe that the sexual symbolism in chess is vastly overdrawn.
 * --Gilbert Cant, "Why They Play: The Psychology of Chess", Time, 4 September 1972, p 44-45.

And, no, he does not attribute that judgment to anyone else, anonymous or named. I'd say that this could go nicely in the section on Fine's psychology career, but I'll wait for comments. WHPratt (talk) 20:16, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

AVRO
Quote:
 * The winner of AVRO, a double round-robin tournament, was to be challenger to the world champion then held by Alexander Alekhine.

This was perhaps the hope of many in the chess world at that time. However this hope could reasonably be said to have been dashed when Alekhine spoke at the opening session denying that the winner would have any automatic claim to a challenge.

AVRO featured the best players of the era but the conditions were effectively weighed in favor of the youngsters in that the venue changed frequently. IIRC the players would more than once finish a game in the evening then travel overnight and have to play their next game the very next afternoon. (It was a traveling show to publicize the Dutch radio network AVRO.) Not very good for the chess and really, not very fair. -Wfaxon 03:41, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Fine has written that the criticism doesn't carry much weight because the travelling distances in Holland were short. (I don't necessarily agree, I'm just passing it on). Rocksong 07:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Binet
Quote:
 * (Fine is not the first person to examine the mind as it relates to chess—Alfred Binet, the inventor of the IQ test, had studied the mental functionality of good chess players, and found that they often had enhanced mental traits, such as a good memory).

Binet found that a chessplayer tends to have a good memory for chess positions and the like, things he or she has studied, not an overall superior memory. -Wfaxon 03:55, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Through the years, a number of tests re chess and memory have been undertaken by psychologists, so far as I know, and an interesting finding was this: when the positions were of a random nature, masters tended to fare no better than novices, though when better-organised positions were shown, the strong players scored far better than the beginners. I participated in such a test c 1988, with players of varying strengths, and this was again the case, according to the psychologist who administered the tests to the subjects. Hushpuckena (talk) 11:42, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Series of Reverts of sourced statement that Reuben Fine was Jewish
In the interest of resolving this on the discussion page, rather than join others such as Ioannes Pragensis in their endless series of reverts on this and other pages over the past two day, I move this discussion for the moment to this talk page.

Pragensis and (now that I have asked that Pragensis respect the 3-revert rule, after he had already engaged in 3 reverts) EliminatorJR (upon solicitation from Pragensis) have reverted repeatedly my reference to the fact that Fine was Jewish, and also deleted the supporting source material.

1. As I pointed out in my commentary that appears on the history page, given that the article is about Fine, not his family, it is of greater moment that Fine was Jewish than that his family was (which is what my colleagues would prefer to have the article say).

2. Pragensis, as the basis for his revert, wrote "I am not sure whether he personally was Jewish; the citation you mention is only very general and means probably his ethnical origin only."

I differ as to what the citation said, but in any event in the interest of satisfying him provided further supporting citations, which beyond cavil establish support for the statement that Fine was Jewish.

In addition, as I pointed out in my discussion which appears on the history page, there is no such thing as an "ethnic Jew" versus a "Jew Jew." One is Jewish, or not.

3. Pragensis, continuing to revert, in the wake of both this discussion and the added citations, came up with yet another thesis, that being that "everybody can change his ethnicity and religion." While Pragensis is of course correct that one can convert out of their religion, that is no reason not to reflect the person's religion ... any more than it would be to fail to reflect their citizenship.

In any event, no one has asserted or tendered support for the notion that Fine changed his religion.

And certainly, the hypothetical possiblity that one could change their religion is not a reason to RV a properly sourced reference to Fine being Jewish.

4. In the wake of all of this, which was clearly set forth on the history page, EliminatorJR has now reverted, saying that there was nothing wrong "with the original grammar." That confuses me, as grammar is not what is at issue.

5. I might point out that this series of reverts by Pragensis parallel those that he has made over the past two days in a number of other articles.

Mikhail Botvinnik. Pragensis has now also asserted in the Mikhail Botvinnik article that Jews should not be reflected as such if they are Soviet or Communists. He wrote, as his sole basis for his RV of the sourced reference to the fact that Botvinnik was Jewish: "Botvinnik was not Jew but communist and Soviet."

Keeping the original language, I explained that he was Jewish, as cited, and the fact that he was communist and Soviet has absolutely nothing to do with whether he was Jewish.

He supported his next revert with the following novel POV: "he was from a Jewish family, but I doubt whether he personally was a Jew as a member of the communist party...." This suffers from the above problem, and only present as support for his revert his unsupported POV.

Wilhelm Steinitz. Pragensis has also in another article suggested that zionism and judaism are the same thing. In the article on Wilhelm Steinitz, another chess player, he based his revert of the fact that Steinitz was Jewish as "second-hand zionist ideology."

When I pointed out in discusson on the history page that he was confusing two separate issues, he again RVd while taking the position that the citations were "dubious." His characterization was not supported by anything other than his POV.

After Pragensis had already engaged in 3 reverts, EliminatorJR (upon solicitation from Pragensis) RVd the page, despite my request that edit warring and reverts be ceased, and that discussion be had instead on the talk page.

Other articles. Similar problems have been caused by RVs these past two days in the articles on Samuel Reshevsky and Aron Nimzowitsch.

This is a problem, I would submit, that goes beyond this Fine article. It continues, as Pragensis continues to strip these mentions out of Wiki bios, despite discussion and multiple citations (his answer to the citations is to delete them).

6. I would suggest that the RVs that I have pointed out by others are bereft of basis or citations.

Therefore, I would ask that they undo their RVs of the sourced material while this discussion takes place on this page.

Furthermore, for the above reasons, I believe that the original language should remain permanently.

7. I would be grateful for suggestions as to both how to fix this issue on this page, and in general.

Thanks.--Epeefleche 20:59, 27 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for starting the discussion, Epeefleche. In most cases, it is better to discuss than to revert.


 * Regarding your points:


 * I do not agree with your description of the matter. In fact I am not against description of the said players as Jewish. They all were in the categories of Jewish players before your edits and they are still there after my edits. My concern is how to present the information in the articles, and I think that both general style of Wikipedia and the relative importance of "Jewishness" in the lives of the players must be regarded.


 * In my opinion, it is not true that "one is Jewish, or not". In fact, there are many definitions of Jews (see Who is a Jew) and many degrees of identification. We see the full scale of possibilities even in the top chess players: There are devout orthodox Jews here like Samuel Reshevsky, secularized Jews like Reuben Fine, assimiled Germans or Russians of Jewish descent like Siegbert Tarrasch or Mikhail Botvinnik and even Jewish-born people who hate Jews like Bobby Fischer. Wikipedia articles must reflect this, and not use a "one size fits all" approach. For more details, see WP:NPOV / WP:UNDUE.


 * Yes, I have sometimes "deleted the supporting source material" from articles. It is because the references should be (a) relevant to the article - not a reference to a study about USA immigrants in the article about Botvinnik who has never changed his home country (b) reliable (WP:V) - i.e. not a journalist's blog or a random web site with lists of alleged Jews (c) formatted in the usual way, as standard Wikipedia references. If they do not fulfill these criteria I always remove them or change the formatting, regardless whether they are about Jews or about something else.


 * Thank you for understanding, --Ioannes Pragensis 07:20, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

If there is a genuine dispute of evidence - that some sources say Fine was Jewish and others disagree, that is one thing. But if there are reliable sources that say that he was Jewish and none that he was not, then the category should be there. Anything else violates WP:NOR, which is non-negotiable.--Runcorn 10:42, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * My reaction is: who cares? My limited printed sources on Fine (including 2 pages on Fine by Fine himself in The World's Great Chess Games) do not mention whether he was Jewish. I assert therefore that his Jewishness was not terribly notable and should not be given more than a passing mention. I would make the same comments about other players here, except for Reshevsky and Fischer, for whom their religion/heritage was/is particularly important. Rocksong 10:50, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that there is no dispute about the category - it should stay because Fine was surely from a Jewish family. The problem is whether we should stress his Jewish ethnicity in the article and whether we should base it on a blog of a chess journalist (see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reuben_Fine&diff=126223820&oldid=123155625). In my opinion, if we introduce him as a Jew in the article, we should have a reliable source stating that Fine himself identified as a Jew - that he normally introduced himself as a Jew or regularly visited Jewish services in synagogues or something similar. And even then we should introduce the source as usual, i.e. in a numbered reference, not as an external link in the body of the article. --Ioannes Pragensis 11:21, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Two very dubious arguments. If you have a reliable source that someone was Jewish, and no source that he was not, the fact that "limited printed sources" do not mention it is irrelevant.  And there is no requirement that someone must normally introduce himself as a Jew or regularly visit Jewish services in synagogues or anything of the kind.  That is all original research.  Would anyone suggest that someone cannot be identified as British unless he normally introduced himself as British or regularly went to cricket matches or anything?  If you want a reliable source that he was Jewish, which is all that WP:A requires, there is an article about him in Encyclopaedia Judaica.  Case closed.--Brownlee 15:27, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Once again: Nobody denies, that Fine was Jewish. Nobody wishes to remove the category "Jewish chess player" from his article. The question is the due weight to give it in the articles. Try to understand the case before closing it.--Ioannes Pragensis 16:21, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

We give the facts as much weight as reliable sources do - no more and no less. That is what WP:NPOV means.--Brownlee 16:43, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Brownlee's comments are so compelling and well presented that there is little for me to add to them.

I might only point out the following at this point.

The fact that someone is reflected as Jewish in the category section is not a substitute for them being reflected as such in the article. First, when a Wiki article is quoted, the category section is not typically quoted. Second, I daresay that all other information in category sections is reflected within the text of the article. I would find it peculiar for one to suggest that the years of birth and death, and location of birth, and nationality, and grandmaster status of the subject of an article should --for example--all be deleted from the article's body because they are reflected in the category section. Quite the opposite is true, I would submit. If noted in a category section, information should properly be noted within the text of the article.

I would also note that there is no support for the notion that Jewishness must be important in the lives of the article subjects, or that they be happily comitted adherents of Judaism, to be noted within the article, any more than there is to support the notion that their nationality be important to them (or their year of birth) for those to be mentioned.

It is true that among Jews, as was pointed out, there are varying levels of observance. Still, a Jew is a Jew, whether he is Orthodox or Reform or assimilated or self-hating or Zionist or anti-Zionist. Just as Muhammed Ali and George Washington and the Oklahoma City bombers were/are all Americans.

A penultimate observation --sources that I believe are relevant and appropriate have been deleted.

And this leads into my last point --responding to the question "who cares," well for one those who wrote those articles (both the deleted ones and those that have not been deleted). I have certainly btw seen many more articles about Jewish chess players than about, say, chess players born in 1914. And, for another, in case this was missed, I care.

It troubles me to see such energy being comitted, with shifting and dubious rationales, to make the Wiki articles of these chess players Judenrein.

Epeefleche

Mikhail Botvinnik
Here is a quote from the Encyclopaedia Judaica article on Botvinnik: "Botvinnik grew up in an assimilated family, but encountered antisemitism in daily life. He displayed courage in the dark years of Stalin and after, and published warm words about Israel, Pinhas Rutenberg, and the kibbutz, defending the right of the Jews to live in their ancient homeland. In contrast to other Jewish cultural activists, he never signed letters condemning Israel." It is an insult to the memory of this brave man to try to cover up his Jewishness.--Brownlee 15:32, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Do not take offense, please, but I think that you do not understand the problem, Brownlee. Nobody wishes to cover somebody's Jewishness, I believe. The only question is how to present the Jewishness in the Wikipedia articles. How much weight to give, which references to choose, how to format them etc. We need well-balanced articles with a neutral point of view, not a wild growth of nationalistic speculations.--Ioannes Pragensis 16:13, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The above quotation (by Botvinnik's friend Gerald Abrahams) shows how important Judaism was to Botvinnik. There is no speculation here. If we want to be NPOV, surely we should state what reliable, well-informed sources say.--Brownlee 16:49, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * But Kasparov (whose citation you repeatedly removed from the Botvinnik article) is an about equally reliable source, because Botvinnik was his teaches - why do you protest against alleged suppressing of a Jewish identity and at the same time try to suppress a Russian and Soviet identity of a person? Is this really WP:NPOV? Do you think that Jews are more notable than Russians?
 * Moreover your citation does not refer to Botvinnik's Judaism - AFAIK he was an atheist and communist. It is only about his sympathy to Israel and Jews.--Ioannes Pragensis 17:42, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I am certainly not trying to suppress his Russian and Soviet identity, which is abundantly covered in the article. Of course, if you want to include the Kasparov quotation as well, I would not object. The quotation explicitly calls him a Jewish cultural activist.--Brownlee 19:59, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, I revert to the version with both citations. I think that the Kasparov's one is important - it shows how Botvinnik perceived his overlapping identities. - By the way "Jewish cultural activist" does not mean "Judaism" (the religion). There are also secular Jews, like Botvinnik. --Ioannes Pragensis 20:23, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Obviously, nobody is saying that you are only Jewish if you are a rabbi. Of course there are secular Jews. If a Jewish cultural activist is not Jewish, who is? WP:AGF, I assume that the removal of key words from the quotation from Encyclopaedia Judaica was an accident; I have restored them.--Brownlee 21:50, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I must most emphatically second Brownlee's above point. It would be wonderful if we have discovered this to be the core misunderstanding that has spawned this entire discussion. Given that the point has been made before, though, I will keep my optimism to a cautiously muted level.

But yes, a Jew is a Jew. He may be secular, a rabbi, gay, communist, soviet, black, self-hating, Czech, or any number of other "types" of Jew. But the fact that he falls into any of those categories does not mean that he is not, ipso facto, a Jew.

In short, if we all agree that some is a "Jewish ---(fill in whatever you wish), then he is a Jew. And there should not be the slightest problem in reflecting him as such.

Epeefleche


 * Of yourse, I agree. It is just what I am always stressing: You can have multiple, mixed identities. But Wikipedia should then describe them accordingly and must mention all the identities in right proportions. And the proportions are clearly different for Reshevsky and for Botvinnik.


 * Moreover if you are Jewish (like Botvinnik, who was of course also Jewish), it does not imply that Judaism (=the Jewish religion) is important for you (as Brownlee stated). I have e.g. never seen a source stating that Judaism was important for Botvinnik and I would be very surprised if such a source exists.


 * Shalom, Ioannes Pragensis 10:43, 29 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Great. Then any of us can now go ahead and restore the references that say "x was Jewish," if properly sourced of course. (Note that this is shorter and more relevant than saying that their parents or family was Jewish). If you wish to augment that with discussion of other aspects of their heritage, of course go ahead--none of us have expressed any problem with that.

The question of how important that aspect of their heritage is to them is a separate issue. We would not delete the sentence that would indicate that the Oklahoma bomber was American simply because his values appeared to diverge from certain American ideals. Epeefleche


 * Nobody is against relevant, reliable and also properly formatted references. Nobody ever was. But all aspects must be regarded, icluding WP:NPOV - the article must be balanced (e.g. it is not a good idea to present details about Steinitz' racial theories in the article about him, because he was a chess master and not a racial theorist - therefore his racism is not important, just as his musical taste or his tap-dancer experiences).--Ioannes Pragensis 17:47, 29 April 2007 (UTC)


 * OK. So let's get the "x was Jewish" references in.if you want to add any properly sourced references that you believe provide balance, go ahead and do that as well.

We can then continue to discuss your last point. I differ with you on that. Obviously, for example, Jackie Robinson and Angela Buxton were athletes not experts on racism and antisemitism. Still, as evidenced (and this is key) by mention in multiple articles, etc, their experiences with and thoughts on racism and antisemitism are ipso facto notable. That is precisely what determines notability on Wiki. Not your (or my) subjective views. Check it out -that point is clearly made in wiki policies.

But let's at least get the "x was Jewish" references in there. Thanks. Forward movement.

Epeefleche


 * Sorry, I am unable to follow your example because I never heard about Jackie Robinson and Angela Buxton. But I know that Steinitz was very extravagant - to say it mildly - especially in his late years and I do not think that all his ideas are just what we need here. He was a Jewish racist, well, many people in his time were racists, but why to stress it here?--Ioannes Pragensis 21:18, 29 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry ... here you go ... Jackie Robinson and Angela Buxton. I think that where it is notable (as measured by mention in appropriate sources), it is worthy of mention here if an editor takes the time to reflect it here.

I think, by the way, that we have an anti-semetic chess player of note, whose negative comments on Jews (during the Nazi period) were noteworthy enough that they were reflected (properly, I believe) in his bio.

And then there is the head of FIDE who, when Libya sought to not allow Jews to a championship held there, didn't interfere.

Interesting stuff (to me, at least). --Epeefleche 21:32, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the links. - Regarding the anti-semitic player: You probably mean Alekhine - and I think that in this case his comments about Jews were really noteworthy because they gained a wide audience and caused Alekhine's isolation in the last months of his life. This is just what means "notable" here: if a person's antisemitic (Alekhine) or pro-semitic (Buxton) stance is widely discussed outside of Wikipedia, then it deserves its proper place in Wikipedia.--Ioannes Pragensis 21:51, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, you are correct, Alekhine it was.

And yes, notability for Wiki purposes means only that it has received coverage in multiple (preferably; the importance of the number of sources decreases as the quality of the source increases) reliable sources (which may be in all forms and media) that address the subject (in a more than trivial manner, though it need not be in an important manner) and are independent of the subject and each other.

(It does not, btw, require that a topic be the sole focus of a source). Significant means more than trivial, but less than important.

--Epeefleche 22:31, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Article advanced considerably from 'Start' class
I spent a lot of effort on this to make it much more comprehensive; the topic is ranked 'High' as far as Importance goes. So I am curious about what people think now.

Frank Eldon Dixon, Kingston, Canada, Sept. 12, 2007, 19:17, GMT + 5, FrankEldonDixon 23:18, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The article is very nice, which is typical of your fine work on chess bios. I would rank its quality as "A" class, but it needs better referencing. Quale 00:53, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

It's untrue that Fine declined his invitation to the 1948 World Championship Tournament. In fact, he accepted his invitation and then withdrew at the last minute. The tournament began in March. His withdrawal is reported in Chess Review, February 1948, page 4, which reports that he sent a telegram reading: "Professional duties make it impossible for me to get away in time to play in the tournament." (in later years he gave different explanations for his absence).

This is why the tournament only consisted of 5 players. Chess Life, August 1947, page 2 reports that there was a No Substitutions Rule:

"To prevent further complications and delays, no postponement or substitution of players will be permitted and in the absence of one or more contestants the remaining contestants will play for the title."

If Fine really had declined his invitation, someone else would have been in the #6 spot. It was only because he had accepted it that it was impossible to replace him. Fine had spoken quite positively about the tournament in his Chess Review column of November 1947, and was still in at that point. BurkeDevlin (talk) 14:03, 2 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Good work. It would be good to put those references in the article.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 14:59, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Unsupported statement about Alekhine
In the AVRO section: "Since Alekhine won the title in 1927, he had been avoiding a rematch with his predecessor, Capablanca" This is not only irrelevant, but false. In fact, Alekhine's terms for a match with Capablanca were exactly the same as the terms that Capablanca had offered him for the 1927 match: the organisers had to raise enough money to fund a $10,000 prize fund for the players (in addition to other costs). That was a lot of money in the 1930s, but Alekhine had faced the same hurdle. Surely nobody, in Alekhine's position, would feel obliged to offer easier terms than the ones he had had to meet himself! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Insulation2 (talk • contribs) 18:38, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Autobiographical material available
Please note that there is a 20+ pages autobiographical essay by Fine avaible in Twelve Therapists : How They Live and Actualize Themselves (1972) by Arthur Burton, available to loan for free digitally at http://archive.org/details/twelvetherapist0000unse 2A02:908:2810:8780:3C3D:F0D0:94DB:B128 (talk) 23:48, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Playing style
There's a whole lot of detail in this article about Reuben Fine's tournament record, his bibliography, his career as a psychologist, his questionable psychoanalytic theories, etc., etc. – but precious little about the kind of chess he played. That's pretty striking. It's especially strange coming from the Magnus Carlsen article, in which Carlsen (probably the strongest player of all time) is quoted as saying he looks on Fine as a kind of stylistic parallel. I hope an expert will add some well-sourced material about Fine's style of play. Ou phrontis (talk) 22:46, 27 October 2023 (UTC)