Frederick Rhine

A very badly written book. Often the player doing the "upsetting" is actually stronger than the player he beats, so it's not an upset at all.

Very weird book. The author, Reuben Fine, was an extremely strong chessplayer and a contender for the world championship until World War II intervened. After world champion Alekhine's death in 1946, Fine was among the players invited to play in the match-tournament for the world championship. He declined in order to pursue a career as a psychologist. Some wag observed that this was "a loss for chess, and at best a draw for psychology." In this book, Fine takes a Freudian approach, claiming that chessplayers (who are overwhelmingly male, especially at the time he wrote this book) want to kill their fathers and $&%# their mothers. The game of chess is supposedly a way to achieve these goals metaphorically: one aims to checkmate the enemy king (dad?!), with the queen (mom?!) often playing a key role in doing so. A very odd thesis. The book gives the impression that anyone who likes chess is a total pervert. Fine also proves himself ignorant of chess history. For instance, he declares that Paul Morphy, the first great American chessplayer, must have been an egomaniac because he recorded so many of his games. In fact, Morphy did not record his games. It was his friend Charles Maurian who did so. This book is good for a laugh, but that's about it.