Tyler Cowen points to this interesting article by Vasik Rajlich and Frederic Friedel. I find these sorts of things fun to read, but the horrible thing is that I just get worse and worse as a player. I seem to have lost the ability to automatically filter out the worst moves. Not that I was ever any good, but now I can’t seem to go five moves without making a major blunder. I’m seriously thinking about never leaving any pieces unprotected even for a single move, just so I don’t have to worry about forgetting about them.
P.S. Further details here.
Chess is not so easily solved; that was an April Fool’s! The King’s Gambit is not a very good opening, but it is hardly a forced loss for White. But I was highly amused that the Be2 variation was featured (Tartakower’s “little bishop gambit”, the joke being that he was too tired to push the bishop all the way to c4).
Aaahh, I’m such a sucker! I blame Cowen for posting the link on a day other than Apr 1.
In any case, the King’s Gambit is probably a bad opening for someone like me who keeps forgetting which pieces are protected. Coincidentally, I just tried it today and lost to a 5-year-old. Admittedly, he was being helped by an 8-year-old and I was in a hurry, but still . . .
“Solving” the openings (the article mentions the Bg5 Najdorf, which includes the infamous Poisoned Pawn variation, as the next [April fool?] target), is humor, but endgames have been solved, sometimes mysteriously so. I once entered a knight against two bishops ending (no pawns) to secure a draw in a crucial game. At the time, this ending was “known” to be a draw. That judgment was later reversed by a program, in the sense that it could always win with the bishops, but of course there was no explanation offered for us mortals. There is no concept, just a bewildering forest of variations. In a game between humans, at least the ones who take care not to drop their pieces, it will still be a draw.
I was totally suckered into blogging about this as well. Alas, it was too good to be true.
Actually, aside from Grandmaster level opponents, the King’s Gambit does give fairly good practical chances. It tends to lead to unbalanced positions where there are many opportunities for the opponent to go wrong, particularly if they become overconfident.
The interesting thing is that Fischer’s “refutation”, 3. …d6 after N-f3, turns out to be a key line.
Robert:
Yeah, but that doesn’t work for me if I’m the one who makes lots of mistakes!
The famous American grandmaster Yasser Seirawan wrote a nice section in one of his books (I forget which but it shouldn’t be too hard to find. I think it was in the ‘play winning chess’ series) in which he talked about the “Barcza opening”(/English opening / Reti opening), which rekindled his love for chess because, to a large extent, it takes all the opening theory and memorization out of the game. It tends to lead to positions where positional and strategic planning help you a lot more, and making mistakes won’t totally kill you. Other openings, like King’s Gambit, or some variations of Sicilian Defense, can be extremely theoretical and if you don’t know the latest spewing of recommended moves from Fritz or Rybka, then almost any slight mistake is deadly.
Perhaps you’ll enjoy playing more if you start playing the Barcza opening?
“Perhaps you’ll enjoy playing more if you start playing the Barcza opening?”
I didn’t recognize the name. I know this by KIA — King’s Indian Attack. I’m a mediocre chess player, and found this system very useful is avoiding mistakes in the opening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcza_Opening Plus, you don’t memorize a set of moves so much as desired position after a few moves (i.e. you just need to keep a visualization in your head).
“…, to a large extent, it takes all the opening theory and memorization out of the game.”
Then just play Fisherrandom (chess960) chess! :-)
Justin
In addition to being posted on April Fools, one could hardly imagine Watson being donated for months to this project. And, if it was, the IBM PR machine would have been first out of the gate.