Anti-Sicilians

     I will be entering another section on LSS and so have been giving some thought to what can I play against the Sicilian Defense that while off the beaten path is at the same time reasonably sound. 
     I have mostly been looking at either 2.a3 or 2.Na3, preferring the latter. Last year Russian Grandmaster Boris Savchenko won a strong open tournament in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan. Savchenko, known for his creative style of play, scored 6.5/9 and he successfully used the move in several games.
     2.Na3!? is interesting because the knight is not totally misplaced. It can go to c2, or b5 or c4. GMs Malakhov and Zvagintsev have also played 2.Na3. GM Jobnathan Rowson wrote 2.Na3 (aka the Kronberger Variation) is not a great move, but nor is it a bad move and opined that Black has to play the opening well not to emerge with a disadvantage. If you type 2.Na3 Sicilian into YouTube a bunch of videos come up with some decent commentary. So this looks like a promising idea.
     But there are other Anti-Sicilians out there, including many that I never heard of and some that look interesting! Using an engine, you could make your own book and get an some ideas to spring on unsuspecting opponents! To name a few:

Myers Attack 1.e4 c5 2.a4
Grob Variation 1.e4 c5 2.g4
Amazon Attack 1.e4 c5 2.Qg4
King David's Opening 1.e4 c5 2.Ke2
Brick Variation 1.e4 c5 2.Nh3
Myers Attack 1.e4 c5 2.h4
Big Clamp Formation 1.e4 c5 2.d3 Nc6 3.c3 d6 4.f4
Snyder Variation 1.e4 c5 2.b3
Bowlder Attack 1.e4 c5 2.Bc4
Gloria Variation 1.e4 c5 2.c4 d6 3.Nc3 Nc6 4.g3 h5
Staunton-Cochrane Variation 1.e4 c5 2.c4
Chameleon 1.e4 c5 2.Ne2
Halasz Gambit 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.f4
McDonnell Attack 1.e4 c5 2.f4
Morphy Gambit 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.Nf3
Coles Sicilian Gambit 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.Qxd4 Nc6 5.Qd1 Nf6 6.Bc4

Just as an example of what you can do, here is an analysis I did for about an hour using the Komodo 8 engine.

The Scandinavian Defense

     As I mentioned not too long ago, due to the imminent fall of Queen Alice where I played my games without engines, I decided to stay at LSS and play unexplored openings and gambits that have not actually been refuted. I occasionally play some online blitz and usually play some odd stuff there also. 
     One recent game featured the Scandinavian (or as I knew it, the Center Counter Defense), but not the normal Scandinavian. I played 3...c6 making it a real gambit. Blackburne played it once. A few minor masters have games in my database along with a whole lot of games by players in the 900-1400 range. Obviously 3...c6 is not a good move. 
     We reached a position where I was a Pawn down, no weaknesses in my position but no chances of attack...zero. For his part, white had a very nice setup: nicely developed pieces and control of the center. I mean, look at the position after his 10th move. 
     Oddly enough, as so often happens with us amateurs, we can get a nice position, even a winning one, and then we don't know what to do with it! Often we fritter away our advantage and end up losing, baffled as to why.  That's what happened to white here.  Why?  I think it was because there were no tactics in the position so he just started drifting. Has anybody written a book How to Win a Won Position yet?
     About the only good thing I had going for me in the position was I managed to get some pressure on the b and c-files and when he advanced his d-Pawn I was able to put some pressure on it also. Then when we got to the ending with Rooks and Queens on the board things were a little murky (at least to me.) In the end I think white resigned too soon. True, he was lost but anything could have happened.  It could have been frustration at having been a Pawn up with a better position then seeing it go down the drain and finding himself in a bad position that caused him to throw in the towel before all hope was gone.

Chess During the Civil War

     To fill the long hours between marches and battles, soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War enjoyed reading. They read letters, newspapers, novels, the Bible, and any other printed material they could find. In fact, they were sometimes so into reading that when near enemy lines they would occasionally trade newspaper.
     Milton Barrett, of the 18th Georgia Volunteers, wrote in 1863: Our regiment has just come off picket. We stood close together and could talk to each other, then when the officers were not present we exchanged papers and barter tobacco for coffee. The way we managed this is with a small boat. with sail set it will go over by itself then they send back in return the same way.
     Sometimes soldiers published their own camp or hospital newspapers containing accounts of battles, poetry and essays. Music was another popular diversion. Gambling was also very popular: from horse races to louse races. Games like cards, chess, checkers, and dominoes could be played for money or if one was so inclined, simply for fun. Card games such as poker, twenty-one, keno, and euchre were played on both sides, but by the last years of the war decks of cards were hard to come by for the Southern soldiers so they obtained them by foraging them from dead Union soldiers, prisoners or by trading with enemy troops.

An Original Civil War Game Pack

     Wrestling, boxing, leapfrog, racing on foot or horseback, cricket, and bowling using cannon balls to knock down rough wooden pins were also played. An early form of baseball was also popular. During winter months activities such as ice skating, sledding, and building snowmen were popular. Being soldiers, they also invented a violent winter game...the snowball battle. Brigades would form up in lines, develop plans of attack, and pummel each other with hard snow and ice balls. Even officers joined in the battles, which often resulted in black eyes, bruises, and an occasional broken bone. This last reminded me of the "camel fights" we used to have in the Marine Corps. One man would get up on the other's shoulders...sort of like this, but just imagine it was two Marines:
  

   The object was to knock all the other guys over and be the last team standing. Officer's sometimes took part in these fights, too, and they were considered 'fair game.' Giving one of them a bloody nose was a real accomplishment. Some examples of chess pieces carved by soldiers can be seen at Sgt. Riker's Civil War Trading Post.
     Paul Morphy was in Richmond in October 1861 and the Richmond Chess Club was active during the War. They even held a tournament that had 32 entrants. Morphy may or may not have been involved with the Southern government during the war.  See my post HERE.
     General U.S. Grant was known to have played and General Robert E. Lee frequently played chess with his aide, Colonel Charles Marshall, on a rough home made chess table. Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston's intellectual past time was chess and his correspondence often contained problems submitted to him with his solutions. In 1861 Chaplain Warren H. Cudworth organized a chess club complete with tournaments at a place called Budd's Ferry, Maryland.

Original Civil War Set

Even Engines Need Time to Think

     33 running games. That's how many my opponent had going and quite often he replied to my move within a few minutes so he was effectively playing at a blitz pace in most of his games. He eventually got into a position where even the engine needed some time to sort things out and 2-3 minutes simply were not enough.
     Houdini, Komodo and Stockfish differ in their search and evaluation functions. Stockfish aggressively prunes the analysis tree and while it searches deeply, its search is more narrow than Komodo or Houdini. Sometimes this is an advantage, sometimes it's not.
     Komodo is the most positionally accurate of the three and it is slower in its search than either Stockfish or Houdini. It's initial evaluation can be more accurate, but it's usually a good idea to let it think a little longer just to make sure.
     All this means that if you are playing correspondence chess (need I add that I am talking about sites where engine use is allowed?) that playing an engine move after allowing it to think for a minute or two will likely lead to disaster. The temptation is strong sometimes to do exactly that though. The same thing applies when analyzing an OTB game; you won't always get the best results analyzing your game at 10 seconds a move...or even 60 seconds a move for that matter. Certain positions requite a lot of digging and even after letting the engine analyze by itself for awhile, interactive analysis is also necessary. Even then, as seen in the Hort-Alburt game I posted, engine evaluations may not always be on a par with Grandmaster opinions! Of course, most of the time we won't know what a GM opinion would be, but you know what I mean.

     In examining this position with one CPU, Stockfish 5 initially suggests 1.Bf2 then in a few seconds begins to waffle between 1.Bf2 and 1.dxc5. It finally seems to settle down with 1.Bf2 (evaluated at -0.24). However, after a couple of minutes, it settles on 1.dxc5 evaluated at -0.29 and relegates 1.Bf2 to a -0.69 score.  I have no idea why an engine would look at 1.Bf2; to me it looks 'neutral.'  But sometimes when there are no tactics they tend to play aimlessly.
     But it gets worse...after about 5 minutes the move 1.Bf2 isn't even in the top ten! Komodo 8 took about 30 seconds to discard 1.Bf2 in favor of 1.dxc5. Houdini 2 and Fritz 11 didn't do much better than Stockfish.

1.Bf2 cxd4 2.Rc7 d3 3.Qe3?
More waffling between this and the better 3.Rxe7 by Stockfish.  Komodo 8 realized immediately that 3.Rxe7 was better but even then white is at a disadvantage (-1.08). Houdini 2 and Fritz 11 both immediately recognized 3.Qe3 as a poor move.
3... d2 4.Rd1 Re5

     White resigned rather than play on in this hopeless position. The moral to the story is that when you are analyzing any position with an engine you have to give it time and you need to be interactive and try out the different moves it suggests. You also have to go to the end of the engine's analysis and do some poking around. All this is especially important if the position is one that is devoid of tactics and requires strategic play. 

Hort vs. Alburt

    

     If you have never seen this amazing game by Lev Alburt don't miss the chance to play over it! If you have seen it, enjoy it again! If you don't want to take the time to play over it at least take a gander at the position after white's 29th move!
     Lev Alburt (born August 21, 1945 in Orenburg, Russia) is a Grandmaster and writer. He was three-time Ukrainian Champion and after defecting to the United States in 1979, became three-time U.S. Champion. Alburt won the Ukrainian Chess Championship three times, from 1972 to 1974. He earned the International Master title in 1976, and became a Grandmaster in 1977.
     Alburt defected to the United States in 1979, staying for several months with his former coach and fellow Ukrainian chess player and chess journalist Michael Faynberg. He won the U.S.  Championship in 1984, 1985, and 1990 and the U.S. Open Championship in 1987 and 1989. In 1986 he drew an eight-game match with British Chess Champion Jonathan Speelman. He is also a well-known author and coach.
     His opponent, Vlastimil Hort (born 12 January 1944) a Czech-born German Grandmaster, is probably lesser known to today's players. During the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the world's strongest players and reached the 1977–78 Candidates Tournament for the World Chess Championship, but never qualified for a competition for the actual title.
     Hort was born in Kladno, Czechoslovakia and was a citizen of Czechoslovakia for the first part of his chess career, winning national championships in 1970, 1971, 1972, 1975, and 1977. He achieved the Grandmaster title in 1965 as a Czechoslovak citizen. While playing for Czechoslovakia he won a number of major tournaments (Hastings 1967–68, Skopje 1969, etc.), gaining recognition as one of the strongest non-Soviet players in the world.
     He defected to the West after the 1985 Tunis Interzonal, moving to West Germany and winning the national championship of his new homeland in 1987, 1989, and 1991.

A Santasiere Gem

 

    Anthony Santasiere had a running argument with Larry Evans back in 1961. Writing in Chess Life Evans said, "His games are characterized by plodding, timidity, and opening repetition. He enters even the romantic debuts such as the Vienna and King's Gambit with reams of prepared analysis, strives constantly to keep the draw in hand and prevent complications from getting away from him over the board. Where are the glorious games which qualify Santasiere as the darling spokesman of romanticism?"
     "The Queen’s Gambit is neither a gambit nor an honor to any Queen. It is like a piece of dead flesh kept overlong on ice" - Santasiere in Essay on Chess.     
     I remember reading an old issue of the American Chess Bulletin in which Santasiere annotated the games from the 1941 Reshevsky vs. Horowitz match (won by Reshevsky +3 -0 =13) and he complained bitterly about the boring openings they played and the boring games they lead to. For all his whining about the way they played chess, Santasiere himself was accused of roaring like a lion while essaying gambits without sacrifices and playing like a mouse. For the most part it was true, but he was capable of playing swashbuckling chess on occasion. Take a look at the following gem. In this game Santasiere was making a bid for one of the brilliancy prizes offered each year by the Metropolitan Chess League.
 

A Great Article by IM Jeremy Silman

     On Chess.com Silman has a great article titled A Chess Engine Is Not Your Friend. A must read!
     Speaking of The Amateur’s Mind, he wrote. "Chess engines and databases weren’t around when I wrote that book (the same goes for the early editions of How to Reassess Your Chess), and I was using pen and paper, with a chess set on the table. As a result, The Amateur’s Mind was filled with errors. And, of course, once chess engines were a dime a dozen, the know-it-alls not only gleefully pointed this out, they claimed the book was terrible due to those mistakes."
     "But, that’s completely wrong. The Amateur’s Mind is an exceptionally instructive book, and like all my work, it’s about concepts that will help most amateurs improve their chess understanding."
     "The errors are unfortunate in that they have distracted people (thanks to chess engines) from the book’s purpose. And, once again, the people who allowed the chess engines to distract them walked away learning nothing."
     "So, should all books that have lots of errors be tossed into the bonfire? If that’s the case, any book written before the engine age is guilty and needs to be placed in front of a firing squad. This includes Alekhine’s brilliant books and notes, Capablanca’s comments on his own games, and on and on it goes. Take any old book or look at any old game and your chess engine will slice and dice it."
     "When amateurs look at master games, the point is NOT to find errors, but to learn enough to appreciate the game’s beauty, and learn the lessons that eventually will allow you to create that same beauty in your games."
     Well said!! Silman asks the question, "Is unknowable computer chess real chess, or a form of chess that our human minds can’t comprehend?" As I mentioned in my post on Peter Clarke, the game may have ended in a flurry of errors on both sides, but that in no way detracted from Clarke's attack. Who would you rather watch play...Tahl or Nezhmetdinov with their risky, often unsound sacrifices or Petrosian with his near flawless technique or Ulf Andersson with his 100-move Rook and Pawn endings?

Danish Gambit (Also evaluation bug in Stockfish 5 and Komodo 8)

     In the Danish Gambit, aka the Nordic Gambit, (1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3) white sacrifice one or two pawns for the sake of rapid development and the attack. However, with care, Black can either accept one or both pawns safely, or simply decline the gambit with good chances. From the very beginning the nomenclature of the Danish Gambit was very confusing. The idea stems from a famous correspondence game London–Edinburgh, 1824: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Bc5 5.c3 Qe7 6.0-0 dxc3 7.Nxc3.
     The Swede Hans Lindehn played 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3 on a regular basis from 1857 at the latest. He defeated the later World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz with his gambit in London, 1864. It is possible, that Severin From met Lindehn in Paris in this period and learned about the gambit there. According to Graham Burgess, in Denmark itself, the opening is called the Nordic Gambit.
     The opening was popular with masters of the attack including Alekhine, Marshall, Blackburne, and Mieses, but as more defensive lines for Black were discovered and improved, it lost favor in the 1920s. Today it is rarely played in top-level chess. Frank Marshal wrote that he used to use it all the time at simuls at his club, but eventually everybody got booked up with the best lines so he had to give it up.
     The idea is for white to threaten to establish a strong pawn centre with pawns on d4 and e4, controlling the key squares c5, d5, e5 and f5. White also offers a sacrifice of the d-pawn by challenging the d4-pawn with c2-c3.
     If Black declines the gambit, White will often end up with an isolated pawn on d4 but will aim to compensate by activating the pieces into the early middlegame.
     If Black accepts the gambit, White will generally aim to put pressure on f7 with Bc4, Qb3 and/or Ng5, and Nc3-d5 is also a common motif. If Black plays ...Nf6 too early then the knight is a target for an e4-e5 push from White. In lines with ...Nc6, White has to be careful of the ...Na5 fork, which can force the exchange of White's c4-bishop for the black knight on c6.
     However, if Black refrains from playing an early ...Nc6, then there is greater scope for Black to get in ...d7-d5.

     While analyzing this game with Komodo 8 and Stockfish 5 I noticed a problem I have run into several times in the past...incorrect evaluations. 
     I posted a warning a couple of years ago HERE about evaluation bugs in Komodo 3. I also discovered that a few players have posted regarding evaluation bugs in Stockfish 5.
     I have run into this problem several times in tactical situations and/or positions with material imbalances. Both K8 and SF5 give totally incorrect evaluations. Is that reason to cause suspicion about the programming? I have no idea. Anyway, for me, it's enough of a problem that I have started running Houdini 2 as kibitzer just to alert me to these situations! 

But this post is about the Danish Gambit and this snazzy little Mieses vs. Marshall game.  If you ever get tired of the Ruy Lopez and Sicilians then it's fun to play loer games like this once in awhile!

Ottis Dewey Whitman, Jr.

    
 Ottis (pronounced AH-tis) Dewey Whitman, Jr. (January 20, 1923 – June 19, 2013), known professionally as Slim Whitman, was an American country music and western music singer, songwriter and instrumentalist known for his yodeling abilities and his smooth high three octave range falsetto. In the 1950s he toured with Elvis Presley.
     Once known as America's Favorite Folk Singer, he was more popular throughout Europe, and in particular the United Kingdom. His 1955 hit single "Rose Marie" held the Guinness World Record for the longest time at number one on the UK Singles Chart for 36 years.
     Whitman was born in Tampa, Florida and growing up he liked the country music of Jimmie Rodgers and the songs of Gene Autry, but he did not embark on a musical career of his own until the end of World War II, after he had served in the South Pacific with the United States Navy. While in the Navy he entertained shipmates by singing, yodeling and playing the guitar.
     After the war he played weekly in a supermarket and was hired to perform on local radio stations. Colonel Tom Parker, who later managed Presley, heard him and helped him get a contract with RCA Victor Records. Whitman adopted the stage name Slim and began to appear on the radio show “Louisiana Hayride,” whose performers also included Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis.
     Whitman, a self-taught left-handed guitarist was right-handed, but he had lost almost all of the second finger on his left hand in an accident. He worked at a Tampa shipyard while developing a musical career, eventually performing with a band known as the Variety Rhythm Boys.  After signing with RCA Records, he was billed as "the cowboy singer Slim Whitman" and released his first single in 1948. He toured and sang at a variety of venues, including on the radio show Louisiana Hayride. A yodeler, Whitman avoided the "down on yer luck buried in booze" songs, preferring instead to sing laid-back romantic melodies about simple life and love. 
     Although he recorded many western tunes, love and romance songs figured prominently in his repertoire. In 1956 he became the first ever country music singer to perform at the London Palladium and soon after he was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry, and in 1957, along with other musical stars, he appeared in the film musical Jamboree. Despite this exposure, he never achieved the level of stardom in the United States that he did in Britain, where he had a number of other hits during the 1950s.
     After 1957 Whitman lived at his estate, Woodpecker Paradise, in Middleburg, a city located south of Orange Park, Florida, in Clay County. In 2009, Whitman's wife of 67 years, Alma Geraldine "Jerry" Crist Whitman died at the age of 84. She was a songwriter and embroiderer as well as the daughter of a church minister, A.D. Crist, founder of the Church of the Brethren. Whitman and his wife had a daughter, Sharron Beagle; and a son, Byron K. Whitman, who is also a performer and music producer who has released a number of recordings and who toured and recorded with his father on numerous occasions. Slim died of heart failure on June 19, 2013, at age 90, surrounded by family at Orange Park Medical Center in Orange Park, Florida. His home has recently been torn down.
     Whitman told The A.P. in 1991 that he wanted to be thought of as “a nice guy” and a good father. “I’d like people to remember me,” he said, “as having a good voice and a clean suit."  That alone made him unique among performers of today. 

Me and Howard Staunton

Staunton was the most profound opening analyst of all time. He was more theorist than player, but nonetheless he was the strongest player of his day. Playing over his games, I discover that they are completely modern; where Morphy and Steinitz rejected the fianchetto, Staunton embraced it. In addition, he understood all of the positional concepts which modern players hold so dear, and thus - with Steinitz - must be considered the first modern player. - Bobby Fischer

     I was aware of Fischer's opinion a long time ago and, in fact, I knew about Staunton before Bobby Fischer ever mentioned him. But, here's a little secret: until yesterday I had NEVER played over a Staunton game.
     Apparently Fischer had a higher opinion of Staunton's play than some of his contemporaries. Thomas Beeby didn't like Staunton, claiming after he beat a couple of players Staunton gushed 'offensive flattery' because his real objective was to inflate himself. On the other hand, when he lost it was never because of his lack of skill but rather because of carelessness, inattention, fatigue or he got bored during the game or some such. Beeby claimed Staunton was so eaten up by self-conceit and his opinion of himself so exaggerated he could not be a safe guide as to the real ability f other players.
    From 1840 onwards he became a leading chess commentator, and won matches against top players of the 1840s. In 1847 he entered a career as a Shakespearean scholar. Ill health and his two writing careers led him to give up competitive chess after 1851. In 1858 attempts were made to organize a match between Staunton and Morphy, but they failed. It is often alleged that Staunton deliberately misled Morphy while trying to avoid the match, but some claimed he was simply afraid to play Morphy. Come to think of it, maybe Staunton and Fischer were kindred spirits and that's why Fischer liked Staunton so much. 
     I think Fischer lost a lot of skill in a hurry after he became world champion. His second match against Spassky for the "world championship" was a joke and nobody was really too interested in the games. By the way, I did a review on the fascinating book on this match by Nenad Nesh Stankovic HERE. I have to tell you, Mr. Stankovic handled Fischer better than I would have because even if I was being paid to babysit him, I could not have stomached Fischer's antics.
     I remember hearing one of Fischer's absolutely insane radio rants where he claimed the games from the first Karpov-Kasparov match were made up with the help of a computer because they played so well. Fischer simply did not understand the games...proof that in his absence chess had simply advanced to the point he didn't understand the games of the two best players in the world. That's why he tried to level the field by inventing a new version of the game.
     Back to Staunton...unlike most players of the day, he was not an all-out attacking player but he was known for accurate attacks when his preparations were complete. Here's one of his games I played through.

Bobby Darin Chess Enthusiast

 

Darin vs. actor Jose Ferrer

    Bobby Darin (born Walden Robert Cassotto; May 14, 1936 – December 20, 1973) was an American singer, songwriter, and actor of film and television and chess enthusiast. He performed in a range of music genres, including pop, rock'n'roll, folk, and country.
     Throughout the 1960s, he was politically active and worked on Robert Kennedy's Democratic presidential campaign. He was present on the night of June 4/5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles at the time of Kennedy's assassination.
     The same year, he discovered that he had been brought up by his grandparents, not his parents, and that the girl he had thought to be his sister was actually his mother. These events deeply affected Darin and sent him into a long period of seclusion. Although he made a successful television comeback, his health was beginning to fail, as he had always expected, following bouts of rheumatic fever in childhood. This knowledge of his vulnerability had always spurred him on to exploit his musical talent while still young. He died at age 37, following a heart operation in Los Angeles.
     His mother, Vanina Juliette 'Nina' Cassotto (born November 30, 1917), became pregnant in the summer of 1935 when she was 17. Presumably because of the scandalous nature of out-of-wedlock pregnancies in that era, Nina and her mother hatched a plan to pass the baby off as her parents' child and for Nina to be passed off as his older sister. Even until her death in 1983, Nina refused to reveal the identity of her son's biological father to anyone, especially to Darin himself.
     His maternal grandfather, Saverio Antonio 'Big Sam Curly' Cassotto was of Italian descent and a wannabe mobster who died in prison from pneumonia a year before Darin's birth. His maternal grandmother, Vivian Fern Walden who called herself Polly, was a vaudeville singer.
     Darin graduated from the prestigious Bronx High School of Science. He matriculated at Hunter College but soon dropped out in order to play nightclubs around the city. Darin's career took off with a songwriting partnership, formed in 1955 with fellow Bronx High School of Science student, Don Kirshner, and in 1956 his agent negotiated a contract with Decca Records. The songs recorded at Decca had very little success. He was introduced to singer Connie Francis, for whom he helped write several songs. They developed a romantic interest of which her father, who was not fond of Darin, did not approve, and the couple split up. At one point, Darin wanted to elope immediately and Connie said that not marrying Darin was the biggest mistake of her life.  His music career I too long to list here, but his success was enormous.
     Darin suffered from poor health his entire life. He was frail as an infant and, beginning at age eight, was stricken with recurring bouts of rheumatic fever that left him with a seriously weakened heart. In January 1971, he underwent his first heart surgery in an attempt to correct some of the heart damage he had lived with since childhood, where two artificial heart valves were implanted in his heart. He spent most of that year recovering from the surgery.  During the last few years of his life towards the end of his career, he often was administered oxygen after his performances on stage and screen.
     In 1973, after failing to take antibiotics to protect his heart before a dental visit, Darin developed an overwhelming systemic infection that further weakened his body and affected one of his heart valves. On December 11, he checked himself into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for another round of open-heart surgery to repair the two artificial heart valves he had received in January 1971. On the evening of December 19, a five-man surgical team worked for over six hours to repair his damaged heart. Shortly after the surgery ended in the early morning hours of December 20, 1973, Darin died in the recovery room without regaining consciousness. He was 37 years old.
     There were no funeral arrangements; Darin's last wish in his will was that his body be donated to science for medical research. His remains were transferred to UCLA Medical Center shortly after his death. His last days had been filled with fear, anguish, hospital visits and mental dissociation. He had a fantastic memory, especially for people, but at the end he began repeating himself, resisting treatment, forgetting dates and speaking nonsense...jabberwocky as it was described. When he died there was no viewing and no proper mourning services.  Actor Jackie Cooper and his wife invited some of Darin's friends over to their house where guests watched a tape of Darin's last television show and got drunk. Darin's ex-wife Sandra Dee, their son and Darin's sister spent Christmas together and shared a meal of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Darin explains chess on his TV show

     Darin was an enthusiastic chess player and his television show included an occasional bizarre segment in which he would explain a chess move. He arranged with the United States Chess Federation to sponsor a grandmaster tournament, with the largest prize fund in history, but the event was canceled after his death.
     In 1973 plans were actually finalized for the first annual Bobby Darin International Chess Classic, to be conducted under the auspices of FIDE and the USCF. This all-Grandmaster event was to be held in Los Angeles, starting in late October and running for three and one-half weeks. The Darin Classic was to have the biggest purse, $25,000, in the history of tournament chess. That is about $133,000 in today's currency. Scaled gradually from $5,000 (about $26,000 today) first prize through $1,000 for tenth place (that was bigger than the first prize in many tournaments), distribution of the purse was considered especially attractive and equitable. Even last place won $300 ($1,600 today) and, of course, all of the players' travel and stay expenses are underwritten by the sponsor.

     Sixteen Grandmasters from ten countries were expected to compete. Darin expressed his delight at being able to sponsor a tournament of such high caliber and international standing. "Along with millions of other people, I had my personal interest in chess reawakened last year via the Fischer-Spassky Match. I have found my own involvement in the world of chess to be an extremely rewarding experience, and I hope that this tournament will add to the popularity of the game in this country as well as help to raise the dollar value of all tournament purses to a level more commensurate with the skill and accomplishments of the participants," Darin said.
     The Darin Classic was to be the first sixteen-man GM tournament ever held in the Western Hemisphere, and one of the greatest events in the history of chess. In all likelihood, Bobby Fischer's 1975 challenger for the World Championship was to be in the tournament, since the strongest players in the world were expected to compete. From the USA, five of the following were to be included: U.S. Champion Robert Byrne, Samuel Reshevsky, Pal Benko, Walter Brown, Larry Evans, Lubomir Kavalek, and William Lombardy. The USSR Chess Federation was invited to send two (possibly three) from the following list: Former World Champions Boris Spassky, Tigran Petrosian, Mikhail Tal, Vassily Smyslov; or Anatoly Karpov, the Soviet's strongest hope for the future.
     The five highest-rated players in the world from countries other than the USA and the USSR had been invited. They were Lajos Portisch of Hungary, Bent Larsen of Denmark, Vlastimil Hort of Czechoslovakia, Robert Huebner of Germany, and Svetozar Gligoric of Yugoslavia. Other possibilities include Ulf Anderson of Sweden, Ljubomir Ljubojevic of Yugoslavia, and Henrique Mecking of Brazil. Also invited were Walter Brown, Robert Huebner, and Anatoly Karpov who were the best young players of the day. Grandmaster Isaac Kashdan, International Referee, was to be Tournament Director.

The Elephant Gambit

  1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d5 I don't know where they get these names...to me this was always the QP Counter Gambit, or the Englund Gambit. The general opinion has always been that black has no compensation, so the line is unsound. My feeling has always been why deliberately give your opponent the better position PLUS material; I have a hard enough time trying to win anyway without starting out with a disadvantage.
     But, I have gotten tired of engine play in correspondence and drawing most games so went back to Queen Alice only to discover that the site owner abandoned the site and it is crawling with spammers, hackers and people with multiple accounts. As a result, I came up with another idea for play on LSS. I decided to try out weird, offbeat openings just to see if they are really as bad as their reputation. 
     For example, I've tried the Urusov Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.d4) and guess what? I am +1 -0 =4. I have also tried 1.a4 and 1...a5 which so far has not resulted in a lot of disasterous losses. The move usually results in positions very similar to some regular opening with the exception that I have thrown in a superfluous advance of the a-Pawn. This may result in getting a stragecially lost position against a GM, but so far it's held up well against engines which don't understand strategy, especially opening strategy, that well anyway. The Grob Attack (1.g4) has resulted in a plus score. The Milner-Barry Gambit (1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4) has held up well, too. The Sicilian Wing Gambit did not fare too well until I delayed it and played 3.b4.  For reasons I don't understand playing 2.Nf3 first seems to make an important difference.
     This is interesting because these openings are supposed to be bad and they may very well be, but the engines seem to have trouble refuting them which explains why the advice is to play grandmaster approved book moves and never trust the engines until move 15 or so. At least that's the theory if you're a top-rated CC player. The judgment of GM's is more reliable in the openings than engine evaluations. However, since I don't play GM's, it seems pretty obvious that as long as an opening does not have a clear refutation then just about any opening is OK to play even when my opponent is using an engine.
     Recently I've been giving the Elephant Gambit a whirl and so far nobody has blown be off the board! Tim Harding says it is one of the "grey area" gambits and he does not believe it should be sound, or even especially dangerous, but still White must be careful.  Here is a site with some old analysis...Rapporto di apertura
     One line I've recently been messing around with is 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d5 3.exd5 Bd6. This move is not in the Rybka2 opening book but it's in the Fritz 12 book. I do not have any analysis on this move but did refer to the Harding article where it's recommended. In one game white played 4.Qe2 The only Fritz 12 book move is 4.d4 and 4...e4 is the only 'human' move in the book but there are no recent examples by strong players.  Here's the position:

Black to move

     There may be some analysis or a database with games from this position somewhere, but I am unaware of such. The point is that already on move 4 we have reached a position where I could not locate any analysis or games and the engines were evaluating the position at nearly dead equal. Interesting! There appears to be plenty of room for experimenting here and the position seems to offer equality if you believe the engines. Maybe I will continue to experiment with even more silly stuff just to make playing with engines fun again. But what, you ask, are the effects of playing risky openings going to have on my rating?  Drew Carey sums it up: