It's the season...

Well, it's that time of year again. Maybe there won't be so many presents under the tree this year. Have you been good? Maybe so, maybe not, but either way I hope we can all have the chance to do better next year. Let's hope so.

Anyway, it that time of year again, time to trot out the little piece I wrote almost a quarter of a century ago, in defense of the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit:

Many years ago an eight-year old girl, Virginia O'Hanlon, wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Sun, looking for the truth about Santa Claus. The quick response by veteran newsman Francis P. Church, which was printed as an unsigned editorial on Sept. 21, 1897, has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial. Some ninety-plus years later, in BDG WORLD 37, November 1989, I imagined a letter from Virginia's twin brother, Boris, with similar doubts about the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit. I provided a parallel answer...

Here is the letter to Boris. Merry Christmas to all, even those who don't play the Blackmar-Diemer.

Emil Josef Diemer, RIP

Today is the 22nd anniversary of Diemer's death on 10 October 1990. After receiving the news of his passing I wrote a short tribute, which surveyed commentary in German newspapers and chess magazines. It originally appeared in the January 1991 issue of BDG World.

You can see the article here.

Running against the wind

Bob Seger and his Silver Bullet Band. I've always liked that. Or Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years--that's another one. Might have been before your time. Last month this old bod completed 76 revolutions around the sun. I tried for a BDG on my birthday, but I didn't have much time, and this first game was the best I could do. It's a trivial game, but it's the best I could do. Tonight I got in a reversed BDG, a Soller Gambit, as some of us old timers might say. It's the second game below.

Anyway, it's a post. I'm slowing down, so will not be posting that often here. I have other interests I want to concentrate my remaining years and energies on, but--always a but--I still have some of Diemer's papers and stuff that I want to put up here. So if you want to check back now and then, if you are a BDG fan, you might find something of interest.

How many times?

Tonight, while I had the Olympics telecast on in the background, I played a short BDG on the Internet. When it was over, I thought, "how many times?" How many times have I played this mating pattern at the end of a Blackmar-Diemer Gambit? The answer seems to be in the hundreds, although in actual fact it must be only in the tens. But I can't believe that anyone who plays the BDG with any regularity has not encountered this mating pattern time and time again. Have you?

Remembering Nikolajs Kampars

Today is the 40th anniversary of Nikolajs Kampars' death on 5 August 1972. Blackmar-Diemer Gambit fans of a certain age know (or certainly should know) that he did more than any other player to popularize the gambit in the United States.

This year also marked the 50th anniversary of another significant event for Kampars and the BDG. In February 1962 Kampars began his magazine Blackmar-Diemer Gambit. It originally appeared as a four page insert in the Latvian magazine, Chess World, and concentrated on the BDG (and closely related openings) almost exclusively. With the January 1964 issue, Kampars began to publish independently of Chess World. At the same time he expanded his magazine to include openings other than the BDG, and renamed it Opening Adventures. From then until failing health forced him to discontinue publication with the May 1967 issue, Kampars insured that this modest little magazine was true to its name. There were indeed delightful adventures in its pages: gambits of all sorts and sizes, and still plenty of BDGs, of course.

Four years ago I reprinted a short article on Kampars' life. You can see it here, and also play through a few of his games.

And lest you think Kampars was not a "serious" chess player, here is his draw with a young Bobby Fischer.

Pawns just wanna have fun

I've always enjoyed the lines in the Vienna Defense to the BDG where White flings his kingside pawns up the board, helter-skelter. It exemplifies the sheer madness of the opening. Makes you want to shout to the white king, "get some clothes on, for god's sake!" Here's a recent example.

Simplicity in the Gunderam Defense to the BDG

Simplicity is the bane of the gambit player. The more Black can trade down pieces in the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, the closer he comes to an endgame up a pawn. So it stands to reason that White usually prefers to keep the game complicated. I've lost too many BDGs to count where Black wins by that approach. So that would lead one not to play my sixth move in this game. But in this case it worked out.

Winning a BDG can do that

When Sveinung sent me this game with an IM last month he wrote "My analysis and annotations might not be the best though (I was pretty euphoric!)."

That's understandable. It has happened to most of us, I'd guess. What chessplayer can disagree with Dr. Tarrasch's often-quoted observation that "chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy?" And so if a player finds the BDG a bit special, then maybe he also finds a special kind of happiness in winning one.

Here's the game, played at a time control of G/20.

Born on the 4th of July

Born on the 4th of July. No, I wasn't, but my mother was. Even without that special significance, this date has always been a special holiday to me. But that's a story for another time.

This morning, before the day turned too hectic with all its celebrations, I played a little game on the net, hoping as always, to get in a special holiday BDG. It all worked out.

Tonight, after coming in from watching fireworks along the beach, I hurriedly put together this post. I rushed because I wanted it to be born on the 4th also.

Two Teichmanns in the Blackmar-Diemer

Or should I say, two Teichmen. Or two TeichMänner. Or...anyway, here are two games in the Teichmann Defense to the Blackmar Diemer Gambit, harvested from today's TWIC. White wins one, loses one. Chess imitates life, one more time.

Lemberger: love it, hate it

I hate the Lemberger Countergambit (I say Countergambit, you say Counter Gambit). I hate it, except I love to play it--if I have the black pieces. But I hate to play against it, and I especially hate the variation in this game. I'll even go so far as losing the game before I'd play 4.dxe5. But I'm just your run of the mill woodpusher, so what do I know. In this game White comes through.

I wouldn't dare try to add any notes.

The Diamond Jubilee and the BDG

I don't watch that much television, but I did catch a bit of the celebrations of Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee over the weekend. My, my, no one does this sort of thing better than our British friends, and I love them for it. I don't think I've enjoyed an occasion on television as much since watching the night the Berliners tore down that wall. It would have been a joy to have attended either event.

As it happened, I once had the pleasure of seeing Queen Elizabeth in Berlin. It was at the end of her visit there in May of 1965. I watched the short departure ceremony from my second floor office window at Tempelhof Central Airport, overlooking the Queen's airplane parked just outside.

So, watching the London celebrations and remembering that day in Berlin warmed the old man's heart, and then I turned to Monday's TWIC and found, what else, a Blackmar-Diemer played at the Diamond Jubilee Premier. It would have been grand if the BDG had carried the day, but we take what we can.

May God save the Queen, and the BDG.

That h7-h6 thing in the Euwe again

When our friend Sveinung Økland from Byrne, Norway sent us this sharp little Blackmar-Diemer the other day, he wrote, almost apologetically that " It's blitz chess, I know, and you might have seen these attacks lots of times, but anyway..." Well, yes, that's true. So? Blitz chess is chess, too. And what was that they played the other day to decide the World Championship? What kind of chess was that? To each his own. We can enjoy both, or either, or none, for that matter.

Sure we've seen the mating pattern before. So? The old movies are quite often better than the new ones.

Now I think I'll load up the late great Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard again. Get the popcorn.

Swamped in Sweden: The Vienna Defense

Today we have a brutal little BDG played last week at the Deltalift Open in Tylösand, Sweden. I did not know this place, so I looked it up. According to that most reliable of sources, Wikipedia, "Tylösand is famous for its 7 km long sand beach, its golf courses and 'Hotel Tylösand', a hotel owned by Roxette star Per Gessle and Björn Nordstrand. Tylösand earlier mostly consisted of small summer houses but is nowadays considered to be an expensive area, where the rich and famous have built luxury villas..."

I like beaches, have lived alongside a couple of them, one with a lovely view of the South China Sea, and in fact I live across the road from one now. Our beach has more than seven kilometers of bright white sand. Rich and famous and luxury villas, not so much.

Still, the thought of winning a Blackmar-Diemer in such a pleasant setting is, well, heartwarming.

Another BDG? Not Exactly

The other day I heard from Clyde Nakamura, who sent along "a recent game where I took down IM Ling-Fong (elo 2400) with the Kahiko Hula Gambit on the Internet Chess Club at game 15 minutes. Actually on the ICC you have the option of playing a computer program. IM Ling-Fong is a computer chess engine."

And Clyde added: "Playing IM Ling-Fong is equivalent to playing an actual IM." Well, I haven't played on ICC for many years, and I'm not up to speed on their rating and title rules, but after playing through this game I admit to having some doubts about the validity of this computer's IM rating. Not about Clyde's report, but about how ICC does the calculations.

I know computer engines are notorious for pawn-grabbing, but this Ling-Fong character goes overboard, and  gets his its Queen discombobulated and sees its game go to pieces. Surely no real IM would do such a thing. So I hesitated posting the game--until I watched today's eighth game of the World Chess Championship, a disaster for Gelfand who resigned without making his 17th move, his Queen trapped at h1.

So this is not a BDG, but it is a gambit. Gambits are good for the soul. And I like this game, because just as in the BDG, White gets the open f-file, an open road to the Black king. The notes are Clyde's, except for my comment after White's third move.

Diemer's birthday: it's today!

Drawing by Rob Rittenhouse
for BDG World

Oh my. I almost forgot, even though I'd left a note on the wine cabinet to  write something about it.

Today is the 104th anniversary of E. J. Diemer's birth on 15 May 1908 in Bad Radolfzell. There's been a lot written about Diemer, the good and the bad. His friend Georg Studier wrote the definitive biography. Gunter Müller wrote a little summary for me years ago, which I posted here previously. You can see it here.

Whatever you think, Diemer was one of a kind. Kinda like the BDG.

Happy birthday, EJD. Next year I'll remember to bring flowers.

Kokholm Coldcocks Kallenbach in Copenhagen

Sorry about that title. Couldn't help myself. This game is so fresh there are no fruit flies yet. I found it in yesterday's TWIC. What a great resource that is. I tip my hat to Mark Crowther every Monday night, even when there are no BDGs in his presentation of the week's games.

This is a BDG with 5...c6, know in the BDG world as the Ziegler Defense, only because a fellow by that name lost a poorly played game with it to Diemer, who promptly attached his name to it. As Scheerer mentions in his introduction to this variation in his book, it would better be called the Gunderam Defense, considering all the work Gunderam did on it. But Gunderam's name is already attached to the 5...Bf5 defense, so we'll just leave things the way we found them.

Anyway, 5...c6 is really a very flexible answer to the BDG, and Black reserves numerous options while waiting to see how White is going to develop. Consequently, positions found in the Ziegler can also arise out of the other main BDG defenses, especially the Teichmann and the Euwe, and of course, the Gunderam.

Not so dumb Diemer-Duhm Gambit

This morning Clyde Nakamura sent me a dozen "recent blitz games on the Internet," as he put it. Among them are the two quick little Diemer-Duhm Gambits which I include below with my very light notes. Okay, I admit, my notes are almost always light.

While writing this post I stopped to check what Wikipedia had to say about the Diemer-Duhm. Not so much. "The Diemer-Duhm Gambit is also a variation of the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit declined with the move order 1.d4 d5 2.e4 e6 3.c4." That's what it says, but, well, it's not quite right. I'd call the D-D a close relative,  maybe a first-cousin, but a litter-mate, not really. We could help the Wikipedia page out, but it's too much trouble.

Anyway, there are better references to be googled. Although it appears he hasn't updated them in quite a while, Jyrki Heikkinen's Diemer-Duhm Gambit pages  (which Wikipedia does link to) are still probably the best source, including a large PGN database of games. Jyrki wrote several articles for my old BDG World, and has specialized in the line.

Give the Diemer-Duhm a try. It's almost like driving a BDG.

I never said it was easy

I didn't promise you a rose garden. Diemer said the BDG would make a new man of you, put hair on your chest, whatever. I'm not sure what he thought it would do for female chess players. Anyway, the BDG really doesn't win every time. We're adults here. I can say that.

Here's the latest example, straight from today's TWIC. Diemer used to call this variation with 5...Bf5 the Tartakower Defense. He loved to attach GM names to BDG defenses, even when the connections were somewhat tenuous. And I love Tartakower, one of my favorite GMs. But Gunderam did a lot of grunt work on the Bf5 lines, and really deserves the credit, for what it's worth. He was a thorn in Diemer's side, or perhaps some other anatomical spot, until the end. God bless them both, and this wonderful, foolish game we call chess.

Steinitz stumbles in BDG bog

It happened near the end of the 19th century, a long time ago. The great Wilhelm Steinitz, having lost his "first undisputed" world championship to Emanuel Lasker a couple of years earlier, ran afoul of a Blackmar-Diemer Gambit in a Moscow simultaneous in February 1896. Steinitz failed miserably in a return match against Lasker in Moscow later that year, and died in New York City on 12 August 1900.

This game, which purists might want to call the von Popiel attack in/or rather than the Ryder Gambit has been around the web for years, but it came up again in a note I received recently from Clyde Nakamura, who wrote that he recently retired (from work, not chess) and plans to revive his column at Chessville called The Search for Dragons & Mythical Chess Openings. That's good news for all of us fans of unorthodox openings and enterprising chess.

So here's the game:

Yes, yes, but was it a BDG?

 "Taxi drivers played chess as their cars lined a street during a strike Monday over tariffs for journeys to and from a new Berlin airport. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)"

Gotta love those Berliners. My wife and I lived a wonderful three+ years there in the 1960s. A fabulous, dynamic town. But you do have to wonder. Would this be happening if they'd not closed Tempelhof?

Just kidding, just kidding.

From Susan Polgar Chess Daily News and Information: Taxi chess

A favorite move of the weaker amateur

Bad idea: h7-h6 in the Euwe Defense

No, no, no! I absolutely do not mean 4.f3!

Over at his entertaining blog on the Jerome Gambit, which I often read while enjoying my first cup of morning coffee, Rick Kennedy discusses an interesting observation from Max Euwe on an early h7-h6. (JeromeGambit: A Jerome Look At The Semi-Italian Opening (Part 1)):

"On this blog I refer to 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 h6 as the Semi-Italian Opening, a name given to it in Chess Master Vs Chess Amateur(1963), by Max Euwe and Walter Meiden. Here is what the authors say about Black's third move (I have changed the notation from English descriptive to algebraic.)

This is a favorite move of the weaker amateur. He fears some future attack by the White QB (Bg5, for instance) or by the White KN (Ng5), and, before the White QB is even able to move, he plays the precautionary 3...h6. In certain positions, such a precautionary move is occasionally necessary, but in this position, not only is it not necessary, but it consumes valuable time. This puts Black one move behind White in the type of opening where tempi are of greatest importance. Instead of meeting the enemy's rapidly mobilizing forces with armed soldiers (i.e., by bringing out his pieces), Black only loses time and force, and, without realizing it, even weakens his defensive wall..."

This reminded me that in the first year of BDG World (1983) I wrote an article on this general theme, in which I quoted Diemer (from the 2 January 1956 issue of Schach) on the move h7-h6:

"All instruction books warn of too many pawn moves in the opening. In this category is the move h6--enthusiastically played mostly by beginners, but often enough also by experienced players."

After noting that h6 is not "of itself" bad, Diemer goes on to enumerate its drawbacks:

1) It loses time and neglects development.

2) It weakens (often decisively) the field g6.

3) After Black castles Kingside, it offers White the opportunity to tear open the position through a g2-g5 pawn storm, or through a sacrifice on h6.

In the article I noted that h7-h6 appears frequently in the Euwe Defense to the BDG, a natural reaction to White’s placing his Bishop on g5.

I previously put up a couple of posts based on that article. You can see them here:

• The Euwe Defense and the move h7-h6
• More on the Euwe Defense and h7-h6

These posts also have links to a few illustrative games with javascript replay.

You call it madness...

My buddy Peter Atzerpay, WKPI,SACP (well-known private investigator and strong amateur chessplayer) called me earlier tonight. "What do you call this," he said. He was in his cups, I think. "Call what," I said. "Call this," he said, and he began to spit out the moves of a game.

"I'd call that the Elephant Gambit," I said, after pushing out a few moves.

"Not Queen's pawn counter gambit?" Pete said.

"An Elephant," I said.

"Not Mittelgambit im Nachzug?" Pete said.

"An Elephant," I said.

"Not a ...," Pete started.

"An Elephant," I said.

"I call it madness," Pete said.

Who am I to argue.

By any means necessary: a BDG

Updated 15 Apr 2012 to add the note at move 19. Thanks, Richard.

It seems that many players--well, at least some-- who are quick to disparage the Blackmar-Diemer are at the same time prone to go to some lengths to avoid playing into one, although the late GM Larry Evans once wrote that the best way to refute a gambit is to accept it.

However, I can understand this attitude. It makes perfect sense. Why waste time studying defenses when the gambit is so bad? And why take even the marginal chance of suffering the embarrassment, the ignominy,  of losing to it?

Consequently, BDG lovers often go to extremes to sneak in a BDG. And others probably slip into one perhaps without even realizing it. I have no way of knowing which was the case with this recent game. I've posted several times earlier about this. After you play through this game you can check those posts here.

Pete's Elephant

My buddy Peter Atzerpay called the other night. "Saw that old Elephant by that old man Diemer you posted the other day," he said. "I played one of those last night and thought you might get a kick out of it."

"Send it on," I said.

"It's short," he said. "I'll give it to you over the phone." And he set off before I could say anything. But I stopped him after he gave me White's second move."

"Bc4 sounds like the Bishop's Opening to me," I said.

"Just write it down," Pete said. "It'll come to you in a minute."

I wrote it down.

Brazen moves?

" It was one of the most brazen moves in the chess world since the Najdorf Sicilian Defense, perhaps even the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit."
   One of my agents sent that quote to me today and I couldn't imagine what they were talking about. Forget the Najdorf, but more brazen than than the BDG? Gotta be the Jerome Gambit, I guessed.
   Nope, turns out it was another story about Susan Polgar moving her gang from Texas Tech to Webster. You can see the story in the link at the end of this.
    All I can say is it's about time. Colleges have been buying big time sports championships for decades now, and it's time for chess to get in on the action. Sure, it'll make it harder for the real amateurs, students, you know, to complete.
   The only way I got to play tennis at Auburn centuries ago--well decades anyway--was that in those days all the scholarships had to go to the big moneymaking sports. The few colleges that gave tennis scholarships, Florida for one, I recall, bought up the good players, and the other schools made do with the second-raters, like myself.
   So no money, no scholarships was good for me. Tulane was still in the SEC in those days, and one year I got to spend the week of the conference tournament in New Orleans. Compensation for getting knocked out early by one of the moneyed players was freedom to spend the rest of the week crawling the city--Bourbon Street mainly.
   Still, I'm okay with buying the best players you can. I just hope it just doesn't go so far as offering bounties for knocking players out of the game. Somebody told me they do that sort of thing in big money football.


Bold Move In The Small World Of College Chess

Not so much an opening...

It's still the first day of April as I write this, at least where I live. A beautiful day it is, too. Early this morning I enjoyed reading several blog posts with April Fools' pranks and jokes in them. I don't have any pranks, but was reminded that quite some years ago a couple of noted chess authors described the Elephant Gambit as "not so much an opening as a joke."


That phrase tickled me; it still does. So, in honor of the day, I represent an old game of Diemer's played in 1983 when he was about the age I am now. (Diemer was born in 1908).


I hope you enjoy it. Really, I'm not kidding. But even if I were, the game shows that the joke is on White.

Sexism in Chess?

This blog is just a little lighthearted silliness about a silly little game, so I try to stay away from my sometimes dark thoughts on religion and politics, even chess politics. But sometimes some trivial item that is so...so...well, silly, shows up that one tiny comment is hard to resist. So this time I won't.

What is it with all the different rules for how women and men play chess?

A rule for how many buttons of a female player's blouse can be left unbuttoned? A big hullabaloo about that recently. Are you serious? And this morning I'm reading about the European Senior Teams Chess Championship, now underway in Rogaska Slatina, Slovenia.

Being a certified senior citizen myself, I thought I'd check this out. Turns out my man Viktor Korchnoi is on top board for Switzerland, Wolfgang Uhlmann likewise for Germany. Sounds like my age group. Heck, with about 600 more ELO points, a Swiss chalet, and a better back I might qualify. So I checked. I couldn't believe the age restrictions.

"Entitled to participate are men from the ECU Chess Federations who shall have reached the age of 60 and women who shall have reached the age of 50 years, by December 31st of the year in which the tournament will commence."

Last time I checked the stats, males have shorter life expectancies than females. But there must be some rational explanation for this age discrimination. Could it be that, perhaps as in the case of the blouse buttons rule, allowances are being made for differences in upper body strengths?

I need another cup of coffee.

Maybe I'm jealous

Updated 26 March 2012 to correct the name of this variation from Pietrowsky to Pöhlmann. (Thanks, Jack) More later.

I try not to be, but maybe I am a little jealous. I'm talking about all those Jerome Gambiteers over at Rick Kennedy's blog. All those quick little knockouts. Sure some of them are Black wins, but still...
Worse yet, the BDG looks to be on its way to losing its title as the most disrespected opening in chess. But all we can do is fight on.

You made me do it...

Actually, I was kinda hoping for a good old-fashioned Evans Gambit, but you forced me into a Blackmar-Diemer.

You call it a Caro Kann...

Yeah, you call it a Caro Kann, but I call it a BDG. Fresh from yesterday’s TWIC, for your dining pleasure:


Sorry, I almost forgot the dinner music:

I don't worry about a thing

Long ago and far away I sat one day in an architectural history class, anticipating another dull lecture from another dull professor. Was I in for a surprise. This new prof walks in, flips off the lights, cranks up a slide show of historic buildings, and starts the music. "Sit back and soak it up," says he.


I did. It was my introduction to Mose Allison. I was, as they used to say, gobsmacked. In the more than five decades since that intro I can no longer remember what that album was, but I believe it must have been his first, Back Country Suite, released in 1957.


Later, when I began to play a little chess, I considered adopting this number as my theme song.

I believe it was this game that convinced me...  

Meine Schülerin

In Vom ersten Zug an auf Matt Diemer refers to “meine Schülerin, Frau Oesterle.” The noun would normally translate as the feminine form of student, or pupil, but in Diemer’s case I would imagine that he intended it more in the sense of “my disciple.” Still, he was not too proud to include this miniature in his book:

 

Decades later, not long before her death, Elisabeth Oesterle spoke of Diemer as he was in those days:

Her husband operated a little cheese dairy in Biesenberg. Diemer often visited her. He was very poor and she gave him to eat and to drink. Once she presented him with a coat (I believe a winter coat). Some days later she heard that he had sold it--probably to finance his worldwide correspondence. She was deeply saddened by this.

Related post: You don't bring me flowers...

You don’t bring me flowers...

Happy St. Valentine's Day to all, and in special memory of this lady who is no longer with us. Many thanks to Günter Brunold for the photograph (but blame me for the pink border).

A related post is here.

What happened to 2011?

Seems like it was here just yesterday. And suddenly you look around and it’s February 2012.

The last thing I remember is standing on a mountaintop overlooking my hometown in Tennessee. The next morning I awoke in the intensive care unit in a Chattanooga hospital. Turns out I had the good luck to collapse with an EMT standing nearby. He, my sister, and some visiting cousins got me into an ambulance and then in a helicopter airlift to the hospital.

I’m not sure what happened, but I’m recovering nicely (but slowly), thanks. Unfortunately we’ve had other family emergencies over the past couple of months. Things like that happen to all of us, but they seem to gang up on old folks. (My hat’s off to Korchnoi, still ticking at 80, to make 81 next month.)

But I’m back now and hope to get in a few posts each month. And I apologize to readers—if any of you are still out there—for not getting some sort of notice up before this.

I’ll start back with an easy game. It appeared in a recent TWIC. Shades of Milner-Barry and George Thomas.

And yet another rook sac on the knight at f6 brings a quick knockout. The patent on this expired years ago.