favourite opening

[Lobowolf]

No one else likes Scotch?

if i played like morphy did i probably wouldn't mind playing the scotch gambit... didn't fischer pretty much end the scotch? i might be thinking of something else

I suspect you're thinking of Fischer's article, "A Bust to The King's Gambit," which he wrote after losing his first game against Boris Spassky (at the Mar de Plata tournament in 1960, long before their world championship match).

 

Interestingly, it was the first time Fischer played against the king's gambit. Apparently, the article was convicing; it was also the last time he played against it. Of course, the vast majority of the time, he was responding to 1. e4 with 1...c5.

[luke warm]

No one else likes Scotch?

if i played like morphy did i probably wouldn't mind playing the scotch gambit... didn't fischer pretty much end the scotch? i might be thinking of something else

I suspect you're thinking of Fischer's article, "A Bust to The King's Gambit," which he wrote after losing his first game against Boris Spassky (at the Mar de Plata tournament in 1960, long before their world championship match).

 

Interestingly, it was the first time Fischer played against the king's gambit. Apparently, the article was convicing; it was also the last time he played against it. Of course, the vast majority of the time, he was responding to 1. e4 with 1...c5.

i think i remember that... wow, i'm really old... a lot of stuff from back in the day is coming back to me... i remember one book where the commentator (larsen? don't you love his first name?) said that in a game between fischer and tal, tal kept a condescending look on his face the entire game - but at the time he was the better player

[Rossoneri]

Well, I am a pretty weak player relatively (don't even think I ever hit 1500) so I was told by my coach to focus on classical openings and Scotch was a pretty good way to keep things simple in terms of memory load as compared to say, Ruy Lopez.

[helene_t]

(larsen? don't you love his first name?)

Bent? That's a common Danish boy's name, shorthand of Benedictus (meaning "blessed").

[rogerclee]

No one else likes Scotch?

With soda and ice.

LOL

[keylime]

I gotta admit....I am completely lost in the opening jargon. LOL

[Lobowolf]

No one else likes Scotch?

if i played like morphy did i probably wouldn't mind playing the scotch gambit... didn't fischer pretty much end the scotch? i might be thinking of something else

I suspect you're thinking of Fischer's article, "A Bust to The King's Gambit," which he wrote after losing his first game against Boris Spassky (at the Mar de Plata tournament in 1960, long before their world championship match).

 

Interestingly, it was the first time Fischer played against the king's gambit. Apparently, the article was convicing; it was also the last time he played against it. Of course, the vast majority of the time, he was responding to 1. e4 with 1...c5.

i think i remember that... wow, i'm really old... a lot of stuff from back in the day is coming back to me... i remember one book where the commentator (larsen? don't you love his first name?) said that in a game between fischer and tal, tal kept a condescending look on his face the entire game - but at the time he was the better player

Tal was one of the few GMs with a plus score against Fischer : 6.5-4.5 (+4 -2 =5), though all four of his wins were at the Bled-Zagreb candidates' tournament, a quadruple round-robin where he swept Fischer en route to a first place 20-8 finish. The 4-0 sweep of Fischer was an amazing result; Fischer was already U.S. Champion and a world-class grandmaster (in this event, he split with Keres, former world champion Smyslov, and Gligoric, and won his matches with Olafsson and Benko). Having said that, though, Fischer was still a 16 year old relatively new to international competition, and Tal was at the height of his powers - the next year (1960) he would win his match with Botvinnik and become the youngest world champion ever, a record that stood until Kasparov came around some 25 years later.

[luke warm]

(larsen? don't you love his first name?)

Bent? That's a common Danish boy's name, shorthand of Benedictus (meaning "blessed").

that's it... i always thought it was a great name

[Lobowolf]

Larsen was quite the character, too. If Fischer hadn't been in that candidates' cycle, Larsen would have been about an equal favorite with Petrosian to challenge Spassky. Outside of Fischer, he was the best of the non-Soviets for quite a while. Also a very original thinker. In a book on the openings, he noted that the open Sicilian (3. d4 by white) violated the general principle that pawns are more valuable the closer they are to the center files (by voluntarily exchanging his d-pawn for white's c-pawn). He noted that occasionally white gets some overwhelming kingside attacks, but pointed out that invariably, improvements in the defense are found afterward - he thereupon concluded that 3. d4 (by far white's most common continuation) is a "cheap trap."

[JLOGIC]

The first opening fournier taught me was the ruy lopez

[mike777]

y

 

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great gossip chess stories...more please....

 

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btw I think justin is old enough to write a bridge/gossip bridge book per other famous texas players.....

[jjbrr]

The first opening fournier taught me was the ruy lopez

heh. I have no idea what the Ruy Lopez is and I don't remember what I taught you. I assume it was e4 then knights and bishops and stuff. I of course could look it up, but I'm lazy.

 

Does the following defense have a name?

 

e4 e5

Nf3 Nf6

[Lobowolf]

The first opening fournier taught me was the ruy lopez

heh. I have no idea what the Ruy Lopez is and I don't remember what I taught you. I assume it was d4 then knights and bishops and stuff. I of course could look it up, but I'm lazy.

Editing because I dont know notation ldo

Ruy Lopez:

1. e4 e5

2. Nf3 Nc6

3. Bb5

 

Ruy Lopez (late 16th century) also advised setting up the table so that the light was in your opponent's eyes. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice! Dude was a priest, too.

 

I don't think there's a name for d4...d5 Nc3...Nc6. In the d4 openings, white usually plays either c4 to help fight for the center (challenging the opponent's d-pawn), or c3, to support his own d-pawn. So it would be very unusual to voluntarily block the c-pawn with 2. Nc3

[jjbrr]

The first opening fournier taught me was the ruy lopez

heh. I have no idea what the Ruy Lopez is and I don't remember what I taught you. I assume it was d4 then knights and bishops and stuff. I of course could look it up, but I'm lazy.

Editing because I dont know notation ldo

Ruy Lopez:

1. e4 e5

2. Nf3 Nc6

3. Bb5

 

Ruy Lopez (late 16th century) also advised setting up the table so that the light was in your opponent's eyes. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice! Dude was a priest, too.

 

I don't think there's a name for d4...d5 Nc3...Nc6. In the d4 openings, white usually plays either c4 to help fight for the center (challenging the opponent's d-pawn), or c3, to support his own d-pawn. So it would be very unusual to voluntarily block the c-pawn with 2. Nc3

I edited because I don't know notation lol. Actually I just played black so much when I played a lot of blitz back in the day that I thought the King was always on the left.

 

Does e4 e5 Nf3 Nf6 have a name?

[Lobowolf]

y

 

----

 

 

 

great gossip chess stories...more please....

 

------

 

 

btw I think justin is old enough to write a bridge/gossip bridge book per other famous texas players.....

Speaking of players from Texas and chess stories...

 

One of the strongest tournaments ever held in the USA was in San Antonio in 1972. Along with the grandmasters and international masters who were invited, they invited Ken Smith, a local senior master/FIDE Master who was a very good players by American standards, but not the world class player that most of his opponents were.

 

The Smith-Morra Gambit in the Sicilian (e4...c5; d4...cxd4; c3) was 1/2-named for Smith, and he played it all the time against c5, very enthusiastically. He was pretty much getting his head handed to him just about every round (no fault of his own; he was just badly overmatched), and playing e4 ever game, and responding to the Sicilian with the Smith-Morra. In one of the rounds, his opponent played, I believe, the French Defense (maybe the Caro Kann). I can't remember who annotated the game, but in the tournament book, it looks like this (translated to algebraic notation):

 

1. e4....e6?

Better is 1...c5, which wins a pawn (Smith invariably plays the Morra Gambit, in this tournament with disastrous results).

 

 

 

Smith did go on to draw Paul Keres, one of the very best to never win the world championship (and a few lesser players), and also got a win in the tournament, I believe against IM Tony Saidy.

[Lobowolf]

The first opening fournier taught me was the ruy lopez

heh. I have no idea what the Ruy Lopez is and I don't remember what I taught you. I assume it was d4 then knights and bishops and stuff. I of course could look it up, but I'm lazy.

Editing because I dont know notation ldo

Ruy Lopez:

1. e4 e5

2. Nf3 Nc6

3. Bb5

 

Ruy Lopez (late 16th century) also advised setting up the table so that the light was in your opponent's eyes. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice! Dude was a priest, too.

 

I don't think there's a name for d4...d5 Nc3...Nc6. In the d4 openings, white usually plays either c4 to help fight for the center (challenging the opponent's d-pawn), or c3, to support his own d-pawn. So it would be very unusual to voluntarily block the c-pawn with 2. Nc3

I edited because I don't know notation lol. Actually I just played black so much when I played a lot of blitz back in the day that I thought the King was always on the left.

 

Does e4 e5 Nf3 Nf6 have a name?

1. e4 e5

2. Nf3 Nf6

is the Petroff, or the Russian Defense.

[jjbrr]

Thanks.

[jjbrr]

Oh i haven't voted in this poll yet.

 

KI def was what I played most when I played blitz. It was really good because you only move the pieces one square at a time for the first several moves, so I could generally open up without losing any time at all from the clock. EZ game.

 

Danish gambit is so baller for white. It tilts me when the opponent doesnt cooperate by taking my pawns. Or worse they take like one pawn and then don't take the others. Such a tease.

[luke warm]

1. e4....e6?

Better is 1...c5, which wins a pawn (Smith invariably plays the Morra Gambit, in this tournament with disastrous results).

now that's funny