Hi,
No need to offer an excuse for asking a question.
Steinits like to experiment with openings and often employed
'come and get me tactics'. He was very good at repulsing premature
attacks so openly invited them (sometime he went too far and lost).
I have a Steinitz quote:
"I have never in my life played the French Defense, which is the
dullest of all openings."
It may have been just him showing his contempt for this opening
by giving away the tempo.
It fits Steinitz'z persona.
If Black tries something silly and is carried away with his extra tempo
and centre pawn then Steinitz was the lad to sort him out.
Another quote:
"Believing religiously in the defensive properties of his cramped, but
unweakened positions, Steinitz considered it his duty to refute
gambits and he would often deliberately provoke an attack against
his king." Kasparov
Don't try this Steinitz 'come and get me' ploy on purpose,
it usually ends in misery if you are in an inexperienced player.
Re the question about defending the e-pawn post a diagram to
make it clear what you mean.
i mean comparing this two:
and
[Event "Hastings"]
[Site "Hastings"]
[Date "1895.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Pollock, William Henry Kraus"]
[Black "Tarrasch, Siegbert"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo ""]
[BlackElo ""]
[ECO "C00"]
1.e4 e6 2.e5 f6 3.d4 c5 4.Bd3 f5 5.g4 cxd4 6.gxf5 Qa5+ 7.c3 Qxe5+ 8.Ne2 Nc6
9.O-O Bc5 10.Re1 Qf6 11.Nd2 exf5 12.cxd4 Be7 13.Nf3 Kd8 14.Bg5 Qf7 15.Bxe7+ Ngxe7
16.Qd2 h6 17.Ne5 Nxe5 18.dxe5 b6 19.Nf4 Bb7 20.Bb5 Nc6 21.e6 Qe7 22.Ng6 Qg5+
23.Qxg5+ hxg5 24.Nxh8 Nd4 25.e7+ 1-0
i thought that moving d5 leads to fxe5 and d-pawn is wasted but pollock chose to play itfor some reason. i dont know why should f4 be any good either.
Hi
3...f6 was a valid way of challenging the e-pawn back then.
Remember positional chess thinking was just coming to to be
accepted. They knew that having a 2 v 1 advantage of centre pawns
meant you have good prospects so Black trying to exchange an f-pawn
for an e-pawn would have suited this 'new' way of thinking.
I don't like it. it would be great if White played 3.exf6 but he won't.
I'm not keen on f4 either. I'd play 3.d4 because I know I will
have to and then no more pawn moves till I'm castled or am forced to.
But then protecting a centre pawn with a flank pawn f4 would seem OK.
(it's is OK I guess, but not for me).
A 2 v 1 centre majority is still good but it took time and development
by the old masters to judge when it was OK to accept such positions.
The strength of the Sicilian (swapping a c-pawn for a d-pawn) was
just being investigated.
Players dabbled with it before then but mainly to avoid the 'book.'
A lot of Black players lost a lot of games before it was fashioned
into the weapon it is today.
White's lead in development lead to some pretty quick wins, but
that was only after the Old Masters had decided that the lead in
development justified the trading of d-pawn for the c-pawn.
This argument still goes on today, except now we discuss positions
16-20 moves deep, not 8 or 9 as then.
Don't look too deeply at what the old masters were doing in the
openings. They were pioneers.
It's their rich Middle Game ideas where the knowledge is.
500 Master Games by Tartakower & Du Mont has the best of
these games with wonderful instuctive notes.
Originally posted by greenpawn34This is very accurate. Learned alot from that book, in fact I'd say
500 Master Games by Tartakower & Du Mont has the best of
these games with wonderful instuctive notes.
I learned more from that one book, than any combonation of
any writers books has ever taught me.
Laslo Polgar is close, Irving Chernev is very near,
honorable mentions; Nimzo, Lasker, Kramnik
Love your advice in this post GP, you get a Rec for excellence.
Another very good book, I think its hard to find, but very very
good for beginners is Fred Reinfield Chess for Amateurs. Its a very
unique book, I'd recommend it to just about anybody.
-GIN
Originally posted by philidor positionI never denied white loses a tempo really I just stated that his position isn't that bad. I have played this opening countless times and black almost always needs to put his bishop on another square in the opening. So why don't you go babble where you're needed and not quite as ignorant if such a place exists.
well, when you "point something out," it doesn't mean it's a fact. you're wrong. white loses tempo in this opening.
Hi,
It's not too bad considering how I spent my Saturday night...ahem.
I gibber a bit but then I always do.
Should have mention Paulsen's work on the Sicilian in the mid 1800's.
A variation of the Sicilian still bears his name.
The trouble was a lot of players who played it where not Paulsen
so the defence suffered some pretty and dramatic losses.
The few magazines and columns in those days thrived on sparkling
games so the Sicilian got a bad press till the 'Thinkers' came along.
500 games is a very good book covering the games of that period,
but one day someone will translate Tarrasch's Die Moderne Schachpartie .
Edit 1: Nowakowski get rid of that silly flashing avatar is annoys me.
After reading your posts which I always find interesting, I discover
that I retain the flashing image for about 20 seconds.
How many hours of wasted creativty did you spend on that thing anyway.
If you spent that time studying tactics you might stop falling for the
Boogaloo Trap.
Originally posted by AudreyxSophieThis isn't the advanced variation, dummy.
I like that bishop on d6, so, why moving it again ? Quite well placed. Aiming at h2 where the white king will be near. Normally, in the advance variation, white caslte kingside and attack kingside.