Gambit not so Galore

My first flirt with the Gibbens-Weidenhagen gambit was like a Microsoft demo. Everything looks fine but it just doesn't work properly. After just a few moves I had a clear advantage against a decent player. For the price of a g-pawn I had the center, easy development and self-confidence. But then reality crushed in! After a few weak moves I just got outplayed.

Note to self: Openings never replace thinking.

  

My second and last try with the gambit started bad and then got worse. My opponent played daring active moves and soon I found myself on a position hated by Mr Houdini and with My king as exposed as the king in a well known H.C Andersen story.

Does it make sense to play gambits with long medival double names? Well, why do you play Chess? If your answer is "to have fun" or "to exercise the brain", then why not? The road less travelled will take you to uncharted territory fast where you and your opponent will have to play Chess. What about the first move advantage? I am convinced that experience from playing wild weird stuff will offer a practical advantage. And do not forget the fun factor.

 Post Scriptum: Check out what Frisco has to say: Frisco's Post

The Cult of Blackmar-Diemer

Early in my chesshood I decided to give the Blackmar-Diemer gambit (BDG) a try. I had very little playing experience but I had solved quite a few tactics problems. I thought it was a wise thing to join the Cult of Blackmar-Diemer. My results were terrible or worse. It did not occur to me that playing a gambit is a lot more that using a bag of tricks.

After trying a whole range of openings (and buying books on most openings!), I am again tempted to give the weird world of gambits a try inspired by a handful of highly inspirational Facebook updates by talented chess book author Frisco Del Rosario.

A real gambit must have a Middle Earthesque double name! If you plan to play the BDG you must arm up with a few properly named gambits. Black will try 1. d4 Nf6 and then it might be worthwhile to introduce the wonderful Gibbins-Weidenhagen gambit (1. d4 Nf6 2. g4?!). So I did in my comeback game as a d4-player and it was a disaster (a topic for a later blog post). In my second game black was trying the dirty trick of trying a transposition into something French. Counter Measures! Enter the Diemer-Duhm gambit (1. d4 d5 2. e4 e6 3. c4?!). The Diemer-Duhm is presented in heartwarming fashion at Jyrki Heikkinen’s web site. I am especially impressed by his one page summary of the “duties” of all the pieces (for both sides!) in the opening (http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/doc/games/chess/ddg/Texts/men.html). This is a great way to prepare for studying the nuances of the opening. I think all opening books aimed at improving players should include such a condensed introduction.

Cannon Fodder

After being typecasted as cannon fodder on the ICCF Web Server for quite some time, I can finally brag about some success.

Here is the game with some notes:

And the companion game:

My Name is Paddy. I'm a Blunderer!

Sometimes I overcome blunders easily! Yesterday I  played a training game and blundered badly. After just nine hours playing with the kids, watching a funny movie and enjoying a glass of wine with some great cheese, I was able to see some interesting moments in the game.

As part of my new approach to playing, I will go for sharper games. Of course I missed a lot of good moves both when playing and when analyzing the game but there are great learning experiences in that as well.

How? Well, the idea of annotating your own games often feels overwhelming and too demanding. "How on earth am I going to find all the errors in my games? I'd better spend the time on shopping for opening books instead!" Totally off the target! You annotate your own games in order to improve you own chess. That is the main purpose and not primarily to make perfect annotations (whatever that is?).

My ambition to play a completely new repertoire had a fairly short lifespan. I decided to make some changes before trying the stuff in a single game. Embarrassing? Not really! It was a sort of well researched decision and furthermore just a minor change.

The training game had a few interesting moments and offered a few nice insights. I think I tend to overestimate the winning chances for the side with the initiative. After working for some hours with the game, I asked Mr Houdini for a few evaluations and they were not as optimistic as my own.

To read useful advice cannot hurt but quite often the full, if you like, force of the advice is hidden until you can apply the advice in a for yourself relevant situation. Sometimes two or more "advice" have to fertilize each other. Take for example Lasker's "when you see a good move then look for a better" and "the best way is not always the fastest". Let's try to tie all loose ends in this post together with one curious observation from the training game.

Look at the position after Black's 19th move (see below). White has to regain material but how? Qxc7 is obvious but look at the sneaky Qc6! A pretty neat move and it all comes together! One single discovery made the whole annotating effort to a soothing experience and I just might have transformed a few pieces of knowledge to something remotely similar to a skill. Something to be used in a future game!

(How do I set the initial diagram position using Aquarium?)

The Fascinating Réti Gambit

This looks like fun stuff to play against the annoying french defence:

1.e4 e6 2.b3!?


Have a look at Thomas Johansson's web site

Wonderful Weird World of gambits

I am sure this gambit has a name but I wonder if we managed to stay within theory for more than three moves?

Look for "Gibbins-Weidenhagen Gambit" or "Poisoned Spike" if you want to be amused by a semi crazy gambit. You might even find a game played by Humphrey Bogart using the gambit. Fun Stuff!