| Hooked on Chess A Memoir (New in Chess 2007, www.newinchess.com, 191 pages, paperback, $22.95) by Bill Hook is the sort of book that should be written more often. It�s a record of a life full of chess, art, gambling and more by a Washington D.C. master who has been around for more than eighty years and is still going strong. Before reading Hooked on Chess A Memoir I knew that Bill Hook was a painter, serious chess photographer and journeyman master who had played in chess Olympiads for the US and British Virgin Islands going back to the 1960s. Reading this book I learned much more, particularly what an excellent memory he has, what a fine storyteller he is and how lucky he was to find his wife Mimi who has supported him in so many ways for over half a century. Reading Hook�s memoir it is possible to divide a line between the time before he met his future wife and after. The former was not a lot of fun. You wouldn�t know it if you saw Bill Hook but he was not always in the best of health, in fact he was very ill with tuberculosis in his late teens and early twenties that necessitated his being hospitalized several times for extended periods. One of the hospitals was in Denver where many of his fellow patients were former prisoners from Nazi concentration camps who were trying to recover their health. Much of Hook�s twenties and early thirties were spent in abject poverty in New York City. His health precluded steady work and his painting hadn�t taken off but Hook had one good thing that kept him going. Known by different names at different times � The New York Chess and Checker Club, Fischer�s, Fursa�s and finally the �Flea House�, the game playing establishment on 42nd street near Times Square was a home away from home for many lost souls. Hooked on Chess has many stories of the characters that passed through this 24 hour New York City institution that ran from the Depression until the early 1970s. Some of the strongest players in the United States like George Treysman and Abe Kupchik were regulars when Hook first started going but there were also plenty of weak players and odds games for various stakes were always being contested. According to Hooked on Chess it was the client�le who created the special atmosphere. Certainly it was not the mismatched furniture or smoked stained walls that did. The tables that chess, bridge and various games were played on were frequently covered in a pile of ashes and it was not uncommon to see people sleeping at night in the club. Hook gives a lengthy and moving testimonial to the many people he met daily at the club. Besides capturing the �flea house� and its characters, Hook does an excellent job recounting the various international events he has participated in representing the US or British Virgin Islands (he and his wife lived part-time for many years on Cooper Island in the BVI). These events include most of the Olympiads from 1968 to 2006. Hook was the gold medalist at the 1980 Olympiad and a position from his final game against the Kenyan Salfudin Kanani) made it to the official BVI postage. Hook does an excellent service in fleshing out several well known but not completely understood events such as Igor Ivanov�s defection from the Soviet Union. Hook was playing in Cuba at the same time as Igor and alerted the Canadian authorities that Ivanov was going to be transiting through Ganders, New Foundland , and wished to defect. All went smoothly in the end but Hooked on Chess relates that Igor inadvertently alerted the Soviet authorities in Cuba as to his intentions and they changed his return itinerary to transit through Senegal instead of Canada. Fortunately Igor was able to switch it back. I found Hook's recollections to be quite fair and accurate. The one mistake I did spot, which is commonly made, was referring to Max Pavey (yes he is the one Fischer played in a simul when he was very young) as an immigrant from Scotland (page 16). Pavey did win the Scottish Championship while doing graduate studies inn Scotland but he was born in Boston and died much too young at 39 of radiation poisoning. Hooked on Chess is a fine read and the thirty pages of high quality, black and white and color photographs, with subjects ranging from George Treysman to Magnus Carlsen - all taken by Bill Hook � are great. |