Predecessors XVIII: Zukertort-Steinitz 1886

TEN-IN-A-ROW RAY

Last week, we were able, due to the assistance of our readers, to demonstrate that Ray's Times column for Monday 3 June 2013 had been plagiarised from Viktor Korchnoi and that Ray had therefore produced plagiarised columns in nine consecutive issues of the Times, from 3 to 12 June.

At least nine consecutive days: 2 June was a Sunday but the Times came out on Saturday 1 June. The chess column annotated the ninth game of the 1886 world chess championship match.

The notes were not, of course, original. They were plagiarised from the first volume of My Great Predecessors

where they appeared on pages 66 to 70.

1. Black's move nineteen.

My Great Predecessors:

Times:

2. White's move twenty-one.

My Great Predecessors:

Times:

3. Black's move twenty-five.

My Great Predecessors:

Times:

4. Black's move twenty-seven.

My Great Predecessors:

Times:

Little bit of plagiarised Lasker to go with your plagiarised Kasparov.

5. Black's move twenty-nine.

My Great Predecessors:

Times:

6. White's move thirty.

My Great Predecessors:

Times:

(It's a long note in My Great Predecessors, but I give it all just to show that Ray, in borrowing bits of Euwe's analysis, seems to have forgotten to offer the benefit to his readers of the correction in the final paragraph. Not that it matters very much.)

7. Black's move thirty.

My Great Predecessors:

Times:

And there we have it.

Ten consecutive plagiarised Times columns.

Ten-in-a-row Ray.

Here's the list in full:

• Saturday 1 June
• Monday 3 June
• Tuesday 4 June
• Wednesday 5 June
• Thursday 6 June
• Friday 7 June
• Saturday 8 June
• Monday 10 June
• Tuesday 11 June
• Wednesday 12 June

On 31 May, since you're wondering, Ray did a Carlsen-Anand game. As it happens it wasn't the first time he'd done that set of notes, but we'll return to that topic another day.

For the while, back to plagiarism proper, if "proper" is the right word. I suppose there may be other journalists who have written ten consecutive plagiarised columns - not that I can think of any off the cuff. But has any other journalist ever been shown to have plagiarised the contents of ten consecutive columns and kept their job?

Ever? Anywhere?

I stand to be corrected, but I'm guessing not.

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