Thursday, August 23, 2007

How bad can that opening be?

All of this stuff about openings, and specifically chessloser's game that he won recently against an 1. f3 opener reminded me of a story that had happened about 6 years ago on ICC.

It was prior to 9/11 and the world that we now know.  In that innocent time, when we didn't know just how big a prick Bobby Fischer was.  Just how good a computer program could be.  Many of us were still in the midst of the opening revolution, and we had not finally been in the space where most of us, all of us, maybe should be spending our time, our brain programming time, with tactics.  During this time, there was this "guest" that would show up on ICC.   And simply kick everyone's ass. There was a lot of rumor that this was Bobby Fisher come to life. That it couldn't be a program because it was at bullet chess speed. But, to date we still don't know. 

But in many of the games white opened f3, then let his king travel to f2, e3 and back to f2, essentially giving his opponent all sorts of time odds and ultimately saying openings just don't matter, I don't care if you are Nigel Short.

A sample game, look carefully at white's first six moves!!!!

(1) Guest71 - Beber (2827) [A00]
ICC 3 0 u Internet Chess Club, 2001

1.f3 d5 2.c3 Nf6 3.Kf2 e5 4.Ke3 Bc5+ 5.d4 Bb6 6.Kf2 0-0 7.e3 Nc6 8.a4 a5 9.Ne2 e4 10.Nf4 exf3 11.gxf3 Bf5 12.b3 Qd7 13.Bd3 Rfe8 14.Rg1 Ne7 15.c4 dxc4 16.bxc4 Bxd4 17.Bxf5 Nxf5 18.exd4 Nxd4 19.Nd5 Nxd5 20.Qxd4 g6 21.Bb2 f6 22.Qxd5+ Qxd5 23.cxd5 Rad8 24.Rc1 Rxd5 25.Rxc7 Rh5 26.Bxf6 Rxh2+ 27.Kg3 Ree2 28.Nc3 Rc2 29.Re1 1-0


This was the coverage in the day.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is particularly interesting in the sense that many people recommend blitz for testing openings but it seems they don't matter that much in fast time controls.

Great look back in time! I read the chessbase news article you linked to and found it very, well, amusing. It seems that chess players are really obsessed with Bobby Fischer. With some modern marketing this guy could probably still become rich if he wanted.

Glenn Wilson said...

I confess. It was me. (I wish I was that good).

Temposchlucker said...

There was a lot of rumor that this was Bobby Fisher come to life. That it couldn't be a program because it was at bullet chess speed. But, to date we still don't know.

I know this story. Finally they found out that they did it with two guys and Fritz. One did the fast moving of the mouse in the game, the other was calling out the moves from Fritz.

Blue Devil Knight said...

They knew about the tournament and player Fischer played? That's pretty impressive.

It's also amazing that Fritz destroys GMs in blitz games!

Pawn Shaman said...

You have most cordially been tagged by yours truly.

Anonymous said...

HI: IT is me i did it and I am back and doing it again! I am guest 71 and many other guest I trashed masters, IM,S and GM,S. BUT there were a couple of other chess comedians who put me in that room with short. I had nothing to do with that but I kicked his butt! computers in those days could not make 15 crazy unorthodox openings in a row as i did in some games. i am back and playing same openings black and white on many sites! the king of unorthodox chess