Chess Opening Theory + (a chess joke)

Now we know why The Duck suddenly got married.


I drew that. I cannot draw feet so the people I draw are always in water.
Now looking at it I’m not very good at drawing hands either.....hang on.


That’s Better.

The Two Knight Defence (the 4.Ng5 variation)


In the section on the Fried Liver in my Batsford book by Yakov Estrin
The Fried Liver attack is 4...d5 5.exd5 Nxd5 6.Nxf7 Kxf7 7.Qf3+ Ke6


There is a brief note by Estrin after the first diagram saying Keres had analysed 4....Nxe4


Adding a line a showing a White plus with 5. Bxf7+ mentioning in passing that it is a
mistake by White to play 5.Nxf7. I have pencilled in ‘4...Nxe4 is worth a try. in blitz.’
Here I’ll add that 5. Nxe4 meets 5...d5 and Black is doing OK there. It must be equal.

Some RHP Stats up to Jan 2022 from here.

White to play.

5.Bxf7+ has been played 34 times.
5.Nxf7 has been played 60 times.
5.Nxe4 has been played 41 times.

It would appear players meeting 4...Nxe4 tend to opt for the two worse moves!
The move 5.Nxf7 is certainly tempting (and the stats prove it ) so let’s look at it.

It has a certain amount of shock value and with it being uncommon enough to
have been relegated to a footnote, this is a good place for the tacticians to fish.


Hopefully that will give you attacking ideas. Not just in this variation but games
where a similar set up (for both colours) is on the board. Now we look at 5.Bxf7+.

It’s not a pure cut and dry White win and White has lost a handful of games with 5. Bxf7+
Some of those losses will be White looking for the outright bust to 4.Nxe4 and getting
carried away (sac-happy) or crawling into a shell. In which case Black comes out of it OK.

(I’m beginning to sound like one of those guitar teachers you see on YouTube
that promise you fame, fortune and flunkies by playing 3 chords with one finger.)


You will never get all the opening answers from any bloke, blog or book. You have
to put in some work of you own (study as opposed to reading to nodding.) and you
must decide if you think it’s OK. I’m just having some fun tickling your imaginations.




I’ve never been to Gibraltar, I wonder what was happening there in 2010.

J. W. Arnott - M. Frey Gibraltar 2010 (Black to play)


Whilst you are thinking about that I’ll give wee a joke before the solution.




What Black should have done is;



The thread accompanying this blog is Thread 193244