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Posted by doctor_knight beck-web.com 8/04/2008 22:59:42 Play online chess	Subject: elusive openings Message: hello everyone, I was just wondering what kind of openings you might consider "elusive" or "deceptive" and why.
Posted by ionadowman beck-web.com 8/05/2008 13:52:02 Play online chess	doctor_knight... Message: ... Do you have any examples of what you think might be elusive or deceptive? Maybe the Modern Defence? I don't know the state of the theory these days, but it seemed to be one of those defences in which too direct an approach by White tended to close on thin air, whereupon Black's counterplay could prove decisive. A couple of years ago witchman organised a "Hippo-Feustel-Robatsch" MT with the opening 1.e4 g6 2.d4. Bg7 3.Nf3. I think White won more than he lost, but not by a statistically significant margin. Here's an example of the play - a wild and woolly encounter White: ionadowman Black: chuckventimiglia 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nf3 b6 4.c4 c5 5.dxc5!? bxc5 6.Qd5!? Nc6 7.Qxc5!? Rb8 8.Nc3 Nb4 9.Bf4 Rb7 10.Rc1 d6 11.Qe3 e5 12.Qd2 exf4 13.Nb5 Rxb5 14.cxb5 Nxa2 15.Rc6 Nf6 16.Bc4 Bd7 17.e5 Ne4 18.Qd5 Be6 19.Qxe4 d5 20.Qxf4 dxc4 21.0-0 0-0 22.Rxc4 Qd5 23.Ra4 Qxb5 24.Rxa7 Qxb2 25.Re1 Nc3 26.Qe3 Nd5 27.Qe4 Rc8 28.Nd4 Qb4 29.h3 Nc3 30.Qe3 Nb5 31.Nxb5 Qxb5 32.Qd4 Bd5 Draw agreed. Such a fast pace couldn't endure forever! Cheers, Ion
Posted by doctor_knight beck-web.com 8/17/2008 21:54:06 Play online chess	Message: yes I suppose most modern openings is kind of what I mean. But I was also thinking about elusive in that perhaps in a certain type of opening or line it is easy to forget about one wing. And not necessarily difficult to see far in, just perhaps difficult to remember certain aspects of the position. Hopefully I'm clear enough. Of course it may be that nearly all openings are like this to an extent. Anyway, I thought elusiveness in chess might be an interesting topic to discuss in general as well as openings. Hopefully my writing is not too elusive :) ——— The f-pawn, part 1: cheap, crude and obvious? — Is an f-pawn advance the chess game's equivalent of route-one football? RB For some time I've been nagging Dan to do a series of columns on the f-pawn advance. He's been resistant, partly, I suspect, because pushing the f-pawn is a bit like route-one football, the long ball punted down the park in hopes of a quick goal. The advance can sometimes be crude, obvious and speculative, but, like the infamous route-one game, it can also produce results, and, as we will see over the next few weeks, some very classy chess players have used it. We start with one of the classiest of all time, Botvinnik, in a chess game played in the decade before he became world chess champion. Having ...
Posted by ionadowman beck-web.com 8/18/2008 02:36:37 Play online chess	Perhaps opaque is the word... Message: ... I still think an example or two might help. I tended to think of openings that are perhaps obscure/enigmatic/elusive in some sense that the enemy is very difficult to pin down. The Modern Defence is like that, but maybe so is the English Opening. But it seems to me what you might be driving at is the kind of opening that is difficult to master on account of (a) it's variety of avenues to explore, and (b) its tendency to "lead one up the garden path" into disaster, or to obscure and problematical byways. I remember being shown, many years ago by a well-known player in this country, some very murky ideas for Black in the Alekhine's Defence and in the Nimzo-Indian. I have no recollection of details except that the former involved an early ...c5 as I recall, whilst the latter was a line something like this: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.a3 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 Ne4 6.Qc2 f5 7.f3 Qh4+ 8.g3 Nxg3 9.Qf2 f5 10.hxg3 Qxh1 11.Nh3 etc. (I'm fairly sure this ain't it, but the idea was similar: the Q snatched White's h1-rook, but then had to oil out of the trap somehow. I gather the whole idea was one of M. Tal's schemes). This line reminds me of a game I played earlier in the year against an opponent who has a healthy disrespect for rating differences: White: ionadowman Black: nicolso 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bg5 (The Torre Attack. Not too much theory: highly recommended) 3...Ne4 4.Bh4 f6!? An interesting concept... 5.e3 h5!? Now this was getting decidedly worrying. I'd not seen this before! In the end I couldn't find anything better than 6.Ng1 g5 7.f3 gxh4 8.fxe4 dxe4 with a mess. I don't think White has anything better than an even game at this point, and might even have the worse of it. Cheers, Ion ——— At Gibraltar Chess Event, Women Begin to Close Gender Gap — Why aren’t there more great female chess players? One theory is that men are physically stronger and more aggressive by nature and therefore better suited at a game that simulates warfare. Another is that the talent pool among women has not been big enough to produce many great chess players. That has been changing over the last 20 years. And the results of the Eighth Gibtelecom Chess Festival in Gibraltar, which ended on Feb. 3, seems proof of that change. The chess tournament had a strong field that included 35 grandmasters, 5 of them ranked among the world’s top 40 players. The festival offered special prizes for women, and ...
Posted by doctor_knight beck-web.com 8/21/2008 19:59:14 Play online chess	Message: wow. I'll have to look into those. I think I'm talking more about the type of middlegame positions that come about due to certain openings. ——— Lines from Linares — The 27th edition of the Linares tournament is underway in the Andalucian town but the chess event has been affected by the economic slowdown. It was no surprise that the planned tie up with Dubai fell through and the organisers responded to budgetary pressures by reducing the size of the field. The chess tournament will be a six-player double round all play all and I am delighted to see that Francisco Vallejo, one of the strongest players Spain has ever produced, has been invited back. Veselin Topalov will be aiming to recapture the number one spot from Magnus Carlsen while Alexander Grischuk the Russian chess champion returns as winner of ...
Posted by doctor_knight beck-web.com 8/25/2008 22:56:07 Play online chess	Message: sorry for double posting, but I don't think I started the topic right or really gave it quite the right title. What I really wanted was to discuss how to be elusive in chess. Whether in the endgame, the middlegame, or the opening. So I suppose my title was wrong then :) ——— Moscow hordes — Luke McShane has braved the Moscow winter, the hordes of seriously under-rated Russian GMs and is the first English chess player to enter the Aeroflot Open for many a year. As well as under-rated chess players there are also 14 of the world’s top 100 competing. After two rounds McShane has 1.5/2. The prize fund this year is € 180,000 and there are some qualifying places available in the World Blitz Chess Championship which will take place straight after the event. The Botvinnik Variation is a very sharp line which seems to defy all logic. Black loses a pawn, his kingside is wrecked and his king forced to run to the queenside. Despite this the second player often wins as ...
Posted by lighttotheright beck-web.com 8/26/2008 00:40:41 Play online chess	Message: The problem with trying to play elusive in chess is that the answer is always laid bare within the position. Your opponent only needs to look deep enough. When you are prepared, playing elusive might work against an opponent you know well. You can play an opening where he is weak and where you have an advantage. If your opponent is unfamiliar with an opening that you play well, then your chances at some sort of successful deception grow considerably. This especially works best when there is less time for your opponent to think the position through. Faster time controls usually give the person with more experience an advantage. ——— Chess Grand Prix to end in May — The World Chess Federation (FIDE) has announced that the final Grand Prix tournament will begin May 5 in Astrakhan, Russia. The six-tournament series was supposed to conclude in 2009, but three of the six cities that promised to host tournaments backed out. FIDE deserves credit for finding replacements, despite the delay in the schedule. The Grand Prix offers a total of 300,000 Euros (about $410,000) to the top 10 cumulative scorers. Levon Aronian of Armenia, who won two tournaments and tied for second in another, has already clinched the first prize of 75,000 Euros (about $102,000). More than half of the 14 chess players in Astrakhan retain ...
Posted by doctor_knight beck-web.com 8/29/2008 09:51:15 Play online chess	Message: yeah, that makes sense. Of course in most other things, like war for example, the only thing the enemy doesn't have theoretical access to is the plans in the opponent's head. Theoretically, satellites, spies, planes, UAVs, and scouts can reveal anything physical. However, there is a matter of practicality. Like you said, the opponent only has to look deep enough, but is that practical? You only have so much time and there are so many possibilities to explore. In warfare, there's so much territory to cover and so many aspects of the enemy to explore but a limited amount of resources. In correspondence, it's easier, but we are still not machines (and hopefully don't use them). There's perhaps one example that may help. I've never played the hedgehog defense, but I've heard that it is deceptively docile. I don't know how true this is because no one has played it against me, but it seems to be kind of what I'm talking about. Another thing that I was thinking about is feinting. Is there such a thing as feinting in chess? I'm sure there is. I'm mainly speaking of intentionally drawing the opponent's attention in one direction to open up another weakness. I guess one example could have to do with the over-worked piece that must defend several targets, but that is a tactical matter and is not necessarily a feint in my book (it is a legitimate attack). What about strategically feinting? Would this be more of a matter of the opening with transpositions? Can you feint by maneuvering? Is this more possible in closed positions or open positions?
Posted by lighttotheright beck-web.com 8/31/2008 11:06:37 Play online chess	Message: The principle of double attack is well established, tactical and strategy wise. I would not call that feinting. The best description of a feint strategy is using something that is normally considered weak to prompt your opponent to let down his guard or perhaps even over extend himself with what are usually considered strong responses. If you as White played 1. e3, that would be considered a feint. Although it is generally considered a weak move on White's part, 1. e3 e5 2. d4 and it turns out that it is not so bad after all (Amsterdam Attack). Alekhine's Defense is another classical example of a feinting strategy in the opening.