Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Chess Warts


   Warts have plagued humans for thousands of years and have even been discovered on 3,000-year-old mummies. The medical books will tell you that although warts generally aren’t dangerous, they are ugly, potentially embarrassing and contagious. They can also be painful. The same could be said of a lot chess moves. 
     I remember when I got my first real engine and created a database called “My Games.” The first games I had the engine analyze were all those great postal games that I had put so much effort into and some of my best OTB games. It didn’t take long for the ugly truth to come out...they were all covered with warts, big, ugly, embarrassing and painful warts. And, that was just the “best” games. 
     Eventually I got used to the fact that my games were going to be filled with more warts than a toad, but sometimes they were still interesting. Such was the following recent online game. 
     I decided not to play silly openings and gambits which I have been doing a lot lately just for amusement. Instead, I played the Vienna Game. The original idea behind the Vienna was to play a delayed King's Gambit, but in modern play white often plays more quietly (for example, fianchettoing his B with g3 and Bg2. 
     My intention was to play the Vienna the old fashioned way, but black wouldn’t cooperate and played 3...Qh4?? Why do so many online players insist on the early excursion of the Q to h5 or h4? Do they really think their opponent is going to fall for getting mated or blundering away a R? 
     The Danvers Opening, also known as the Kentucky Opening, Queen's Attack, Wayward Queen Attack, Patzer Opening or Parham Attack is characterized by the moves1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 and I have heard a lot of players swear by it because Hikaru Nakamura has played it with great success in Blitz. But, Nakamura is also an FIDE 2800+ rated Blitz player with a 2700+ classical rating which means he can beat most players no matter what he plays. 
     The opening is just awful and in this game my opponent played a variation of it, got a bad game and was mated in an amusing fashion.

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