Interesting Quotation

[Richard Pask]

'Checkers is a splendid game, possibly the marvel of games of pure skill.' Al Horowitz in The Personality of Chess

The italicised the is Mr Horowitz's. In an interesting section on games other than chess, Mr Horowitz writes respectfully and accurately about checkers, and even references several books on the game.

[George Hay]

Richard Pask, thank you for the quote from Al Horowitz. That adds to my list of chess authors I was familiar with as chess authors in my teen years (c. 1972) with an interest in checkers: Al Horowitz, Fred Reinfeld, Emanual Lasker, Irving Chernev, Larry Evans, and as I learned in Starting Out In Checkers, Bobby Fischer.

--George Hay

[jaguar72]

Richard and George and All,

Also Edward Lasker who, in addition to Checkers and Chess, also wrote about and played Go, as did the better known Emanuel.

There you have it,

Gary/Jaguar72

[George Hay]

(Belatedly) Yes, Edward Lasker, how could I forget?

--George Hay

[Edgar C. Atkinson]

Another chess player, who is not so well known, who wrote a checker manuel is David Andrew Mitchell. His book, Checkers, was reprinted in 2011 and is probably still in print. Two checker players who wrote a book on chess are Kenneth Grover and Tom Wiswell. I have fond memories of conversations with both of them.

[George Hay]

Ed, you may have seen this in the General Discussion topic "List of checkers books as of 1922" posted by tgf on Fri Nov 22, 2019. The link is to the Bulletin of the Brooklyn Library, Oct, 1922. It has an entry for the Mitchell book:

Mitchell, David Andrew. Checkers. An ex-
pert explains all the moves of the game,
its openings and positions, and gives many
problems. Phila., 1918.

Another author listed is Atkinson, Mathew.

Kenneth Grover and Tom Wisswell, as you know, co-authored Let's Play Checkers. They would have been familiar with a player listed in at least three match publications from the 1922 list, one Newell W. Banks.

Than you Ed, I really sat up in my chair reading your post!

--George Hay

[Edgar C. Atkinson]

Another source is The American Draughts Player which lists every book in print up until about 1878, icluding foreign books such as Lanci's work in Italian. Lanci was the first to publish the fortress position (see Boland's Masterpieces for examples).

As far as I know I am not related to Matthew Atkinson, who wrote books on the White and Black Doctor openings. When I started playing in national and regional tournaments, some players would ask if we were related, all in good fun.

Ed Atkinson