Catching up with Klaus Nickl

Back in the 1980s Austria’s Klaus Nickl was a formidable opponent in Blackmar-Diemer thematic correspondence tournaments. After I included several of his Lemberger Countergambits in my last post I decided to see what sort of chess he’d been up to recently. No straight BDGs turned up, although Nickl seems to still be quite active over the board. As he approaches his 70th birthday (he was born in 1942) his ELO has fallen a bit from a high of just over 2250 some years ago.

He had a very successful outing this past July in the 9th International Senior Tournament in Ramsau am Dachstein, Austria, finishing clear first, with 6 points in 7 rounds, ahead of several FIDE Masters. I have no games from that event, but found an interesting one from the European Seniors this past April. It’s a Veresov. It’s also a BDG by transposition. You can try, but you can’t get away from the BDG.

The old swimming hole at f6

We know about the fishing pole, dangling a piece on the g-file, tempting your opponent to capture it with his h-pawn, and thereby opening a line to his castled king. But how about diving into the old swimming hole, that deep, dark space at f6? What a special joy to jump into that clean, clear, unoccupied pool, as smooth as glass. Horses love to jump in there, and even elephants do it now and then—a chess friend just sent me an old game where Kurt Richter led one of his rooks in there.

For now, however, here’s a game played in England a couple of weeks ago, a rarer breed, an O’Kelly Defense. Don’t stand too close—the horse makes a big splash on move 17.

Breaking News: Stronger Players Win

This week's TWIC yielded several Blackmar-Diemers, the first crop of the season, I suppose. No great surprises here--in each game the higher rated player won. In two of the three games that was black.

(Pull down the player names to select the other games).

New Books, Real and Imagined

I've about given up hope for the long promised new book on the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit from Everyman Chess. Since I first wrote about it here almost a year and a half ago  it's been delayed again and again. Some time ago I wrote the publishers, asking about the status, but received no reply.

So much for imagined.

Now for the real. Guido De Bouver, from Belgium, has produced Attack with the Blackmar Diemer, A Computer Analysis of the Teichmann, Gunderam, O'Kelly and Vienna lines in the Blackmar Diemer gambit. The book is in English, 160 pages, with figurine algebraic notation.  From the author's description:

This is the first book in a series of volumes on the Blackmar Diemer gambit. Their purpose is to provide in-depth analysis of the various lines. Since Diemer's gambit most often leads to wild open positions, the systematic use of a silicon monster (all analysis in this book was performed using Rybka 3 32-bit using the free Arena GUI) will provide essential insight in the evaluation of the resulting unbalanced positions.

The reader will note that the book does not provide a systematic overview of all white's options. Instead, I choose a number of lines that particularly fit in with Diemer's ideas and that provide complications that will help the gambiteer in the over the board play.

The book is available now from the author, in either a hard copy or a protected PDF version. Details are available at http://www.humbeekseschaakclub.be/overzicht.pdf, where you may view a table of contents, several extracts, and ordering information.

Computer analysis, don't you just love it? More to say on that coming up.

The O'Kelly Defense Again

A recent game from the Brazil Open in Rio de Janeiro transformed into a line in the O'Kelly Defense to the BDG (1. d4 d5 2. e4 dxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6 4. f3 c6), reaching a position from a game well known to BDG players.

Nick Kampars introduced that game, Dahlen-Botvinnik, in the October 1965 issue of his Opening Adventures:

BOTVINNIK MEETS THE B.D.G.

On January 26, 1962 the World Champion, M. Botvinnik, possibly for the first time in his career, met the B.D.G. in a simultaneous exhibition in Stockholm, Sweden. The Champion chose the so-called 0'Kelly Defense (4. P-B3, P-B3) in response to the gambit. It is interesting to note that the Champion could only draw against our favorite gambit.

Here are the two games:

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H

Batista, Andre Kemper Unrated - Kubrusly, J. 2226

0-1 (Brazil Open) 2/19/2010

[#] 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.f3 e5 6.dxe5 Qxd1+ 7.Kxd1 exf3 8.gxf3

[8.Nxf3 Ng4 9.Ke2 Nd7 10.Bf4 Nb6 11.Bb3 Be6 12.Bxe6 fxe6 13.Ng5 Nd5 14.Nxd5 exd5 15.Rhf1 h6 16.Ne6 Kd7 17.Nxf8+ Rhxf8 18.h3 Nxe5 19.Bxe5 Rfe8 20.Rf7+ Ke6 21.Rxg7 Kxe5 22.Kd3 Rg8 23.Re7+ Kd6 1/2-1/2 T. Dahlen-GM Michail Botvinnik/Stockholm 1962]

8...Nfd7 9.f4 Nb6 10.Be2 Bf5 11.Nf3 N8d7 12.Nd4 Bh3 13.Ke1 O-O-O 14.Nb3 g5 15.Rg1 gxf4 16.Bxf4 Bb4 17.Rg3 Be6 18.Bg5 Rde8 19.Nd4 Rhg8 20.Nxe6 Rxe6 21.Bd2 Rxg3 22.hxg3 Nxe5 23.Kf2 Nbc4 24.Be1 Bc5+ [0-1]

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