Submarines, Popes, Blogs and a New Opening.

I’ve always liked submarines.
Each weekend during the war Dad used to come home
with a bit of a his submarine and hide it in the garden shed.

He plan was to nick a piece every week and eventually
end up with his own submarine.

The look on his face when the war ended was one of complete dismay.
He reckoned if the war had lasted 55 years he would have done it.

And that links nicely onto….

The Torpedo Opening.

Apparently some bloke in Salt Lake City, who had converted his
basement into a chess den bought Rybka 2, switched it on and
then dropped dead.

So RB2 was sitting there thinking and thinking and thinking for
3 years till the new owners went down into the basement and
saw on the screen…



At first people thought it was the opening moves of the Boomerang Opening.

1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Ng8.

But no the screen clearly indicated 1.e5!

Enter the experts.

A hippy type person appeared who said it looked cool.














The Military appeared and wanted to bomb the whole house.















A cute alien landed, ate all the popcorn, and left.













They called on the chess guys.
Fishy Anand, Magnet Carlsen and Gary Crispacket consulted
the FIDE rule book and they came to the conclusion that although
the rules tell you what you CAN do with pawns.

Nothing tells what you CANNOT do with pawns.

1.e5 stands and The Torpedo is running.



And then I saw the Pope.

He was visiting Edinburgh and his parade passed by where I work
so I nipped out and took a picture.


















He rolled the window and shouted;

“Nice Blog Greenpawn.”

So the Blog has been blessed by the Pope.















This week it’s from DivGradCurl
Whose thread Thread 133903 pointed us in the direction of

http://www.onlinemasters.org/50-great-blogs-to-improve-your-chess-game

Where this lad has listed his top 50 blogs.

You have to admire that lad for coming up with a different
description for each of the chosen 50 blogs.

Two or three I recognise when I went off searching the net for Corner ideas.

In my opinion, though these are not strictly blogs, the best two chess sites
are Edwards Winter's Chess Notes.

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/

Anything you want to know about the history of the game no matter
how obscure, then go here. Don't ask anyone else because the chances
are they will get it wrong. Simply go here.

For chess stuff revolving around the classic e4 e5 openings then
Tim Harding (The Kibitzer ) at Chess cafe.

http://www.chesscafe.com/Tim/kibb.htm

Last time I looked you can still get all the archived stuff.
There are at least 5 good chess books amongst this lot.

Harding's stuff is good. You must know your classics and all the bagful
of tricks that come with them. The patterns pop up time and time again.

Look here for a basic example. (this is the instructive bit )

I did a quick run over DivGradCurl's games.
A nice challenge this. I reckon I can find something instructive or
something worth commenting on in any game played on RHP.

But first we go back in time to Spain and the year 1561.
Here we meet the monk Ruy Lopez scribbling away writing
his first chess book.

He advises that the best move after 1.e4 e5 2,Nf3 is 2…d6.



Do not play 2…Nc6 because 3.Bb5….



…..is good for White as he threatens Bxc6 and Nxe5.

So he advises we play 2…d6 and Philidor gets the opening named after him,
don’t play 2…Nc6 because of 3.Bb5 and we call this the Ruy Lopez.

But after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc5 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.Nxe5



Black can play 5...Qd4 or 5...Qg5 and winning back the pawn with an easy game.
I would like to have seen Ruy’s face when this was pointed out to him in 1562.

So this pattern, undefended Knight on e5 and double attacks on e4 & e5
or on e5 & g2 was known 440 years ago.

Yet in July 2010 we see this position Game 7569163 with Black to play.
(no mistake in the diagram, this was the actual position)



Right away you should see 8...Qg5 [b]double attack (it's what the Queen does best)
and White is in a spot of bother.

Black played 8...Qd5? to protect the c-pawn.
(This what the Queen does worse. She does not defend pawns.)

Not an awful move, White follows it up with a developing plan he had
in mind when playing 8…Qd5. But I had hazard a guess that White saw
8…Qg5 and dismissed it because to justify it he would have to go pawn
stealing with the Queen whilst leaving the rest of his team undeveloped.

Usually a good enough reason to reject a move, but the word ‘usually’
is usually the reason why good moves do not get played.

Rules of thumb and opening principles are excellent guide lines but
they can be challenged if the circumstances are right.

White is not well developed himself and that pawn on e4 can do things.



After 8...Qg5 the c-pawn cannot be taken.



So a quick look at the better 9.d4 Qxg2 10 Rf1.



10..Bh3 wins the exchange by force. We can squeeze the position a bit with
10…Bb4+ 11.c3 Ba6



When White is in all kinds of bother. Much more than what happened in the
opening of the actual game.

In that line 10…Bb4+ 11.Bd2 is better though Black is still winning after 11…Bh3
when he is infact now threatening mate with Qxf1.

11.Ke2 fails to the Bishop sac. 11…Bg4+ 12.Nxg4 Qf3 mate.



I do like that pawn on e4.

So today’s instructive bit is:

Do not try to steal a submarine piece by piece if
you think the war is not going to last 55 years.