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Chessville
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The Elephant Gambit for Black – 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d5!? Amar Opening: The Krazy Kat System – 1. Nh3 e5 2. f3 d5 3. Nf2!? and assorted Opening Monographs Reviewed by Rick Kennedy
The Internet can be a jungle. Luckily, on my last visit I had a guide. I spotted an elephant, a krazy kat, an orangutan, some birds, and, yes, even a monkey’s bum. Ebay.com, in particular, is a lot like that eatery Arlo Guthrie sang about: “You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant…” In my case, as always, I was looking for chess books, preferably ones about the openings, especially unusual ones. That is how I encountered David Robert Lonsdale’s series of monographs – and, through an exchange of emails, the author himself. Whose unorthodox-opening-seeking-eyes wouldn’t get caught by the following list? Alapin’s Opening –
1.e4 e5 2.Ne2!? As for Mr. Lonsdale, he proved pleasant, self-effacing and follower of the chess-is-fun school of thought:
Just the kind of author and publisher that we here at Chessville often find ourselves interested in, of course! As I discovered, this “ordinary guy” has been the captain of a Canadian correspondence team in at least one international match, and a few years ago had an ICCF rating of 2157. As for the books themselves, they contain games, organized by variation and illustrated with diagrams. Except for an introduction, they do not have text or evaluations. In that way they are similar, as Mr. Lonsdale points out, to Kapitaniak's Latvian Gambit and Bloodgood's Tactical Grob booklets. Or the SCHAAK! series by Jaap van der Kooij.
Some of the chess monographs – including The Elephant Gambit for Black – were written in response to CHECK! readers’ requests. Three were the direct results of the author’s correspondence games: Caro-Kann: Ulysses Gambit Accepted, 4.Ne5 Variation; Amar Opening: The Krazy Kat System; and Saragossa Opening: The 2.Qc2 System. The two most popular titles have been the Caro-Kann: Ulysses Gambit and Blackmar-Diemer Gambit: Fritz Attack – 1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.Bc4!? I had the opportunity to review two titles, in their PDF file format. (You might want to contact the author and see if other titles are available that way; he’s been selling printed copies of the monographs.) They are well-organized, double-columned and easy to read, with helpful diagrams throughout. The Elephant Gambit for Black – 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d5!? covers the lines: 3.d4 exd4; 3.exd5 Qxd5; 3.Nxe5 Qe7; 3.Nc3 d4; 3.d3 dxe4; and 3.c3 dxe4; in 90 complete chess games. In this regard it moves away from more recent coverage of the defense – Winning with the Elephant Gambit by Jonathan Rogers (1994) and Elephant Gambit – Hitting Back with 2…d5!? by Peter Tart (2007) – which focuses on answering 3.exd5 and 3.Nxe5 with 3…Bd6, to cover lines more touched upon by Niels Jørgen Jensen, Tom Purser and Rasmus Pape in the earlier Elephant Gambit (1988). Lonsdale’s book includes games ranging from 1844 to 2005. White wins as many times as Black wins and draws, suggesting that the Petroff Defense is not yet an endangered species, but the author’s “for Black” in the title reflects that he chose “the best or unorthodox third moves for Black to play against all the possible third moves by the White player.” The Elephant Gambit for Black – 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d5!? will be enjoyed by regular fans of the author’s works, as well as those who would like to take a sip or dip* into an unorthodox opening which remains surprisingly popular at the club level. Elephant players might want to snap up the monograph as well, for new ideas and games that are in neither Rogers’ nor Jensen et. al.’s books (nor my own database with several thousand entries, come to think of it.) [It is not possible for me to mention the Elephant Gambit without noting the extensive coverage it has received in Stephan Bücker’s magnificent Kaissiber magazine, especially on the “Komfortable Verteidigung” 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 in the October – December 1998 issue. Lonsdale’s book has eight games with the line.] Amar Opening: The Krazy Kat System – 1. Nh3 e5 2. f3 d5 3. Nf2!? is a whole ‘nother beast. Amar was a Parisian chess player who liked to open his games with 1.Nh3, and whose name was attached to the opening by Tartakower. The Krazy Kat was developed by E. B. Adams – not E. Z. Adams, the guy who had that fantastical Queen sacrifice game against Carlos Torre, or the E. B. Adams you’re thinking of, Edward Beckley Adams; it was a different E. B. Adams, Edward Bradford Adams – and is sometimes considered a relative of the Hippopotamus opening. Lonsdale’s monograph has 82 of his correspondence games with the Krazy Kat – 78 wins, 3 draws, and a solitary loss. He prefers to develop his King’s Bishop on the a6-f1 diagonal, where Amar liked to fianchetto it to g2. His devotion to exploration sometimes left him out on a limb, as in 1.Nh3 d5 2.f3 (2.g3!? and then 3.f3 followed by Nh3-f2 looks safer) Bxh3 3.gxh3 e5 4.Bg2, but his enthusiasm cannot be doubted. Quite frankly, Amar Opening: The Krazy Kat System – 1. Nh3 e5 2. f3 d5 3. Nf2!? is the only full book out there on the line, at least until Gary Gifford comes out with his promised Hippopotamus, Krazy Kat and Paris treatment. Sure you can catch some snippets here and there, as in Hugh Myers’ Exploring the Chess Openings (1978) and A Chess Explorer (2002), as well as in different places in the Myers Openings Bulletin (1979-1996). Eric Schiller has probably touched on the opening in his books on unorthodoxy or gambits, and there’s always the leviathan Unorthodox Chess Unconventional Opening Strategy for the Modern Chess Enthusiast (2005) by the irrepressible Some Loser... For those who would like to explore whole games in the 1.Nh3 e5 2.f3 d5 3.Nf2 vein, it is now possible, as Lonsdale has let the Kat out of the bag. Lovers of unorthodox chess openings, be of good cheer! There may well be something in all of this for you. Check out the website. Email the author. Snail mail him at David Robert Lonsdale, 61 Boem Avenue, Scarborough, Ontario, CANADA M1R 3T4. And if you’ve got
some interesting games of your own, a computer, access to a print shop, and
boundless energy, why not share your enthusiasms, as Mr. Lonsdale has? * Chess is a sea in which a gnat may drink and an elephant may bathe – Indian proverb
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