Texan: Whoo! That is one crazy get-up, mister... Are you in the show?
Austin Powers: No, actually, I'm English.
Texan: Oh... sorry.
A10: English Opening: Unusual Replies for Black
This is a game that I played at the
Pete and I work together at a large company in
Pete's blitz style is totally different than his over the board style.
In blitz he can be quite aggressive. He normally plays 1. e4 and will
always grab a pawn if offered one. I often play gambits and unusual
lines as both white and black, and we often get into some interesting positions.
However over the board Pete is a die hard English player. Interestingly
he rarely ever plays the English against me, or anybody else, at work.
Playing against the English is tough. First of all it is not very common.
So it is not worth spending a lot of time preparing for it as black.
I do not have any prepared lines against it. I have responded to 1.
c4 in the past as black with c5, Nf6, e6, e5, and even b6. Second of
all most of the moves are pretty straightforward - so the white player does
not have to spend a lot of time calculating moves early in the game.
It seems like white can get a draw almost anytime that he wants to.
This was the second time that I had played against Pete in a USCF rated
G/90. The first time he also had white and played the English.
In that game I responded with, 1. ..b6!?, which Pete refers to as the Anti-English.
That game ended in a draw, where I never really had any advantage, and possibly
messed up an endgame.
I remember very well playing this game in the downstairs "museum".
We were in the back row away from the bar, with Pete facing the open room,
and I was facing the wall. Pete put in his earplugs, and proceeded to
play his usual:
The English!!
Texan: Whoo! That is one crazy get-up, mister... Are you in the show?
Austin Powers: No, actually, I'm English.
Texan: Oh... sorry.
g5 !!?
My thinking was that I wanted to come up with the most evil move possible!
Bobby Fischer once said something like, "I do not believe in chess psychology - I believe in good moves". I am sort of the opposite - I believe in chess psychology - and I believe in bad moves!
I put the position after 1. c4 into Fritz 8, and asked it to analyze all moves. This is a neat feature where Fritz will rank all possible moves on the board, and tell you in a few words what it thinks about them in English. Fritz ranked g5 as the second to worst move possible after 1. c4! The only move that Fritz considered to be worse was 1. ..b5?!, which I have actually played in blitz a few times. In my opinion g5 is playable.
Typically a move like this is going to cause some sort of immediate reaction in an opponent. Either:
A) he is going to feel really confident.
He will think "This idiot does not know how to play chess! This game
will be a piece of cake! I smell a miniature coming on!" or
B) he will shit his pants! "Oh my God!? What the heck is this?
I have read every book on this opening every written, and have never seen
this move in my life! Is this home preparation? What will I do?!"
Either
one of these is good for me. In the movie the Color of Money, the
Paul Neumann character said "Money won is twice as sweet as money earned."
I feel the same way about unusual openings. A game won with an unusual
opening is twice as sweet!
I am not sure what Pete's thoughts were, but I do not imagine that he
liked this move.
This is a logical follow up response.
Ivana: Do you know how we keep warm in
Ivana: We play chess.
3.d3 [ 3.g3 c5 4.Bg2 Nc6 5.d3 g4 6.h3 h5 7.e3 d6 8.Nd5 Nf6 9.hxg4 hxg4 10.Rxh8+ Bxh8 11.Nxf6+ Bxf6 12.Ne2 Bd7 13.Nf4 Bg5 14.Bd2 Bxf4 15.gxf4 e5 16.Bxc6 bxc6 17.fxe5 dxe5 Sinanovic,M-Palos,O/Tuzla 1991/EXT 97/1-0 (64); 3.d4 c5 4.e3 h6 5.g3 Nc6 6.Nge2 Qb6 7.Nd5 Qa5+ 8.Bd2 Qd8 9.Bc3 b6 10.Bg2 Rb8 11.dxc5 Bxc3+ 12.Ndxc3 Bb7 13.Nd4 Rc8 14.Nxc6 Bxc6 15.Qd4 Nf6 16.Bxc6 Rxc6 17.cxb6 axb6 Fossum,A-Skrondal,I/Lysaker 2002/CBM 87 ext/1-0 (42)]
I need to protect my g5 pawn. I am not sure what the name of this
opening is. I looked up in Eric Schiller's Unorthodox Openings book
to see if I could find it. The closest I could find was something called
the Meyers Defense, with 1. c4 g5 2. d4 Bg7 where black gambits the g5 pawn.
Schiller (not surprisingly) did not recommend this opening for Black.
I do not want to gambit this pawn. In the grob, with white, I might,
but not with the black pieces. If it doesn't have a name already I will
call it the Dr. Evil attack! It might be crazy enough to work against
the English, and only a madman would try it!
Pete is going for this thematic
Botvinnik setup. The only thing that I don't like about this (from
white's point of view) is that the d3 pawn is now backwards, and there is
a hole on d4. But he has good control of d5
I do not really care about d5 though, because I can always play e6 if he decided to plop a knight in there. c5 increases my control of d4, and is similar to many grob openings. In the grob you often play g4, Bg2 and c5. I am doing the same thing here with black.
5.Nge2N [ 5.h4 gxh4 6.Rxh4 Nc6 7.Nge2 d6 8.Ng3 Bd4 9.Rh1 Nf6 10.Be2 Qa5 11.Bd2 Qb6 12.Nd5 Nxd5 13.exd5 Ne5 14.Rb1 Qa6 15.a4 Bd7 16.b3 0-0-0 17.Qc2 Bg4 18.Bc3 Bxe2 19.Nxe2 Rdg8 Fuchs,H-Benend,A/Baden 2000/EXT 2002/0-1 (36)]
Ironically Pete plays the games first Theoretical Novelty!
This is a logical follow-up move
after c5. I like to have my c pawn in front of my knights if possible.
6.a3 Controls
b4
I am not sure what this is.
It might be a waiting move to see what I am going to do. Maybe white
is not sure about castling on the king side because I have already started
a pawn storm there. Pete plays moves like a3 and a6 a lot in blitz games,
early in the game. He likes to follow it up with b4 and b5.
I give added support to c5, and
give a possible development square to my bishop. This might have been
a waste of time though.
So far I think that Pete is probably
happy with his position. He has been able to achieve the sort of formation
that he wants.
"Yeah Baby Yeah!"
Things
are going ok for me so far, but in the past I have never really been able
to beat Pete's English.
Dr. Evil :"As
you know, every diabolical scheme that I have hatched has been thwarted by
Austin Powers. And why is that, ladies and gentlemen?"
I decide to come up with a plan!
Pete gets his king to apparent safety. Is it a safe cozy position?
Or is he surrounded by killer fembots?!
Pete gives my bishop the boot.
Dr. Evil: ...and the best part of this plan is...no one can stop
me. Not even...Austin Powers.
[All laugh maliciously]
Austin Powers: Not so fast. You're surrounded, Doctor Evil.
Dr. Evil: Shit
"Come Mr. Bigglesworth." Dr. Evil
Listen
to this clip from the movie
Pete decides to push the pawns in front of his king. This seems sort of dangerous to me. But then again Danger is Austin's middle name!
gxf4 12.Bxf4 [ 12.gxf4 Bg7+/= ]
12...Qc8
I start to assemble my army!
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my underground lair. I have gathered here before me the world's deadliest assassins, and yet, each of you has failed to kill Austin Powers. That makes me angry and when Dr. Evil gets angry, Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset and when Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset, people die!"
Listen to this clip from the movie
Pete's knight jumps into action
Nh7 [ 15...Nxd5 16.cxd5 h5 17.b4= ]
I do not want to give up my knight. I would rather reposition it, and kick out Pete's knight with e6.
16.g4 [ 16.Qh5 Nf8+/= ]
16...e6 17.Ne3 Qc7 18.b4
Pete attacks my C pawn, but see if I care.
Ng5 19.bxc5 [ 19.Nh5!?= ]
19...dxc5=/+
[ 19...Qxc5? 20.d4 Qa5 21.dxe5 Qxe5 22.Qd3+- ]
Fritz says that I am winning at this point, with a slight advantage. Now I have an half open d file, where I can go to work on the backwards d3 pawn.
I will not attack the d3 pawn - for ONE MILLION DOLLARS!
20.Nh5 [
20.h4 Nh7=/+ ]
20...0-0-0-/+
A tip for all the young players that might be watching and learning from home: Remember to always castle early and often!
Now my king is nice and safe in my evil lair!
21.Qc2 [
21.a4 Bc6 22.Ra3 Nxe4-/+ ]
21...Bc6 22.Rad1 Rd4
Now I start to slowly build up pressure
against the d3 pawn!
23.Rd2 [
23.h4!? Nh7 24.Nf4-/+ ]
Pete adds a defender to the d3 pawn.
23...Qd6-+
I attack the backwards d3 pawn for
a third time, while it is only defended twice. Fritz now says that
Mr. Evil is flat out winning
24.h4 [ >=24.Nf6-+ ]
One of Pete's favorite expressions when we are playing blitz is to tell me to "Shit or get off the pot". Here he is telling my knight that it is not welcome on g5, and to please disperse. There is nothing to look at. He probably thought that this would be a good "in between move". I would have to retreat my knight back to a poor square like h7. Then he is free to move his rook on f7. Right now it is helping to defend the weak g3 square. However the tactical possibilities say that I do not have to get off the pot!
24...Nxe4! forces
the win
I recently purchased Fritz 8. One of the main reasons that I purchased it was because it tends to give a person a lot more exclamation points in its examination of the game than my old version Fritz 5.32 did. I discovered this when Pete would show me some of his games, and the output from Fritz. One game he had two double exclam moves in a row! With Fritz 5.32 I only got one !! move - ever!!
This move is a perfect example of how the software has changed! In my old version Fritz did not give this move any exclamation point at all. In Fritz 8, it did! I think that they did a good job fixing this bug!
This position is interesting because of the pin. The d3 pawn cannot move to capture the knight on e4, otherwise the rook on d2 will be double attacked by the evil rook and queen battery.25.Bxe4 [ 25.dxe4 Exploits the pin 25...Rxd2 ]
Fritz 5.32 gave this move a double question mark, but did not give 24. ..Nxe4 an exclam. It also wrote the comment
terrible, but what else could White do to save the game?
Personally I would rather have an exclam for me than a double ?? for my opponent. It makes me feel like I won because of my good move, not because of my opponent's blunder. Fritz 8 did not even give it a single ? Maybe it is a new age type of thinking where "everyone is a winner" and it doesn't want to hurt people's feelings. In fact Fritz did not give Pete one single ? in the annotation. Fritz 5.32 was a little more harsh. Probably I would give this move a "?".
25...Bxe4 26.dxe4 [ 26.Qb2-+ a last effort
to resist the inevitable]
26...Rxd2
"This sweater doesn't fit. I'd like an exchange." - I made this expression up once during a blitz game against Pete in his office. Materially black is up a pawn and an exchange.
27.Qa4 Nf3+! Clearance to
allow d6-h2
28.Rxf3 Qh2+ The nicest combinations
are those leading to mate [ 28...Qh2+ 29.Kf1 Qh1#
] 0-1