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Dark Squares: A cult leader, a child prodigy and the chess revolution
368 pages, Hardcover
Published September 16, 2025
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January 31, 2026
I confess that I am an addict. I have been an online Chess player for almost 30 years. I started on FICS but moved to Chess.com because the user-experience was better. FICS required a graphical client interface, unspecified in so far as you could download any that you liked, whereas Chess.com was always web-based. Lichess is also a good online platform, but I prefer Chess.com because of its integrated chess engine analysis. I use the Chess.com app, which I have set to 1hr 40min. (It prevents me from playing up to 6 hours a day like I used to). Anyway I always use up all my allocated time on my app timer. It's a form of meditation for me.
The other reason I read this book was because I am interested in alternative religions. As Danny Rensch points out, in the sixties many baby boomers in the US were moving away from traditional religions, and cults such as the Church of Immortal Consciousness, or the Collective or Family as it came to be known, were practicing communes. None of these cults seemed to work out. Waco. Jonestown. They ended badly. I myself briefly flirted with the Divine Light Mission in London, but I rapidly became disillusioned with all religions.
I am told by my JW friend that a belief in life after death is not a bible-teaching. Resurrection is all that is on offer if Jehovah, as judge, decides you are justified. So the idea of immortal consciousness is not in the bible.
The weirdness of the Collective is that a woman called Trina Kamp (nee Fitch) is able to channel a 15th century English physician called Dr Pahlvon Duran in a trance-like state in a darkened room, and issue immediate pronouncements on anything or anybody. Danny Rensch was and still is a believer in Duran. Weird or not?
Eventually the whole Collective collapsed.
Many people will read this book and be surprised that cheating happens in Chess games. But chess players have known for 30 years that computers are better than any Grandmaster or World Champion, and gone are the days when players would scoff at you when playing a desktop computer and say "Haha, you just got beaten by a pocket calculator."
At first it was annoying that you could sometimes tell you were playing a cheat. I used to play at faster and faster speeds (3 min, 3 + 1, or even 1 minute (bullet games) to make it difficult for cheats. On one occasion Chess.com gave me a bonus ratings uplift when they caught a cheat.
As for Hans Nieman I am convinced he was and is a cheat.
Surprisingly it is much harder for a computer to beat a Bridge player because the order in which the bidding goes, or the playing goes, affects the outcome, unlike Chess where previous moves have no effect on the judgement of a position.
Anyway I enjoyed reading this book, but I don't think non players would really enjoy it. Perhaps they would?
The other reason I read this book was because I am interested in alternative religions. As Danny Rensch points out, in the sixties many baby boomers in the US were moving away from traditional religions, and cults such as the Church of Immortal Consciousness, or the Collective or Family as it came to be known, were practicing communes. None of these cults seemed to work out. Waco. Jonestown. They ended badly. I myself briefly flirted with the Divine Light Mission in London, but I rapidly became disillusioned with all religions.
I am told by my JW friend that a belief in life after death is not a bible-teaching. Resurrection is all that is on offer if Jehovah, as judge, decides you are justified. So the idea of immortal consciousness is not in the bible.
The weirdness of the Collective is that a woman called Trina Kamp (nee Fitch) is able to channel a 15th century English physician called Dr Pahlvon Duran in a trance-like state in a darkened room, and issue immediate pronouncements on anything or anybody. Danny Rensch was and still is a believer in Duran. Weird or not?
Eventually the whole Collective collapsed.
Many people will read this book and be surprised that cheating happens in Chess games. But chess players have known for 30 years that computers are better than any Grandmaster or World Champion, and gone are the days when players would scoff at you when playing a desktop computer and say "Haha, you just got beaten by a pocket calculator."
At first it was annoying that you could sometimes tell you were playing a cheat. I used to play at faster and faster speeds (3 min, 3 + 1, or even 1 minute (bullet games) to make it difficult for cheats. On one occasion Chess.com gave me a bonus ratings uplift when they caught a cheat.
As for Hans Nieman I am convinced he was and is a cheat.
Surprisingly it is much harder for a computer to beat a Bridge player because the order in which the bidding goes, or the playing goes, affects the outcome, unlike Chess where previous moves have no effect on the judgement of a position.
Anyway I enjoyed reading this book, but I don't think non players would really enjoy it. Perhaps they would?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 of 1 review