Sunday 30 December 2012

Auctioning off openings

One of my little Olympiad jokes is to offer my opening choices to the highest bidder. I'm sure there is someone who has invented a pet opening or line who would be willing to see it played on board 66 of the 2014 Olympiad. This might solve the problem of the lack of Hammerschlag's or Sodium Attacks in chess databases, although there are ways to improve this situation.
In the old days, thematic tournaments were organised. These were normally double round robins where the players were required to start from a fixed position or opening. A number of tournaments to test the Rice Gambit were arranged in the late 19th century but such tournament are less common theses days (A Open Sicilian event in Argentina is the last I can recall). Such tournament still exists in Correspondence Chess these days, but even they shy away from anything completely outrageous.
One opening that could do with a few more games is the Tumbleweed (mentioned in passing here). In my database the line 1.e4 f5 2.exf5 Kf7 3.Qh5+ g6 4.fxg+ Kg7 only shows up 6 times but of those 6 games the score is 3 draws and 3 wins for Black! Is it the case that no one keeps track of the White wins, and only Black victories are savoured? Or that no one is really to 'take one in the name of science' and lose a few games for the sake of research results.
Maybe 2013 can be the year of the Tumbleweed, where a few brave souls gain a degree of immortality by increasing the number of 1.e4 f5 games on record.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I got to play a number of blitz games against an Indian GM once. He insisted on being black and kept playing the Tumbleweed, and crushing me of course.
AO