tafl wrote on 12/09/12 at 21:14:38:


It is surely a bit ironic that we have people who have mistakenly ascribed the Barry Attack to Sir Stuart Milner-Barry,  whilst many ignore his real and important contribution to Nimzo-Indian theory: 4 Qc2 Nc6 with the plan of ...d6 and ...e5. As I wrote in another thread:

IMHO Zurich variation is a misnomer and 4 Qc2 Nc6 (4 Qb3 Nc6 often transposes) should be attributed to the English player Milner-Barry who, according to the Oxford Companion, first played it at Hastings 1928-9 (Premier Reserves). For the next two decades it was one of the most popular lines against 4 Qc2, and featured frequently in the games of many of the best players of the time, such as Alekhine, Keres, Reshevsky, and Najdorf, as well as Milner- Barry's friend and long-time sparring partner Hugh Alexander, who used it to draw with Fine and to beat Euwe (who was probably the greatest apostle of 4 Qc2 in the 1930s-50s).

Milner-Barry certainly was one of the Bletchley Park code breakers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_associated_with_Bletchley_Park.

That would be just before Hebden took it up I think! The survey title was probably reflecting the Murshed game where he hammered somone with the h4-h5 business. Rogers picked it up himself also for a bit.

Paddy - the Capablanca-Yates game is a great game by Capa but (not surprisingly) Whites opening play doesn't stand up to modern day standards. A pity, because Capablancas concept was nice.

TN - yes Murshed played one of the famous games but never really heard of it being called after him. In all fairness given the amount of games Mark Hebden has played over the years against patzers and GM's alike, it really deserves to be named after him, and perhaps will be in the future when we're all dead and gone and sensible people come along to rename the openings.

Keano wrote on 12/03/12 at 16:28:45:


I seem to recall that in an article in the British Chess Magazine some years ago Graham Burgess called this opening the "Hebden-Hodgson Attack".

The opening is also mentioned in Shereshevsky's legendary "The Soviet Chess Conveyer" (1994) in his chapter on "One-Game Openings" (i.e. surprise weapons, suitable for employing perhaps once per tournament!). He wrote that his interest in this line was aroused by the famous game Capablanca-Yates from New York 1924.

In his book "Chess Secrets" (1952) Edward Lasker mentions how uncertain even strong players were in the 1920s about how best to deal with the new ideas on opening strategy coming out of Europe. In his first round game at New York 1924, as White vs Maroczy, Lasker opted for 1 d4 Nf6 2 Nf3 g6 3 Nc3, and in later rounds he was  imitated by Capablanca and Marshall. The line continued to be played through the 1920s but was eclipsed by the c4, g3 system advocated by Alekhine.

However, as with many lines of this type, it seems that Tartakower might well have been the pioneer (vs Wahltuch, London BCF 1922).

Yes, the name Barry Attack I never liked - it would be OK if people actually knew what "Barry" meant but even most native English speakers would not have a clue.

A more appropriate name would be "Hebden Pseudo-London Attack" or something along those lines.

I hope I didn't give the impression that my list of notables who played the Barry was comprehensive.

Yes, I was familiar with GM Suetin's play.  There are quite a few others I didn't mention.  Pace to those I offended by omitting their contributions!

The anger and disappointment has already left my body... 
U are forgiven!

Smyslov_Fan wrote on 07/04/06 at 09:28:18:


What makes u think TJ has two personalities....

TalJechin wrote on 07/04/06 at 07:24:27:


Andrew Martin wrote this back in 1999(?):

"B) The Barry (bullshit for outside UK) Attack"

Source:
http://www.internetchess.com/columns/amartin/150barry.shtml]http://web.archive.o...[/url]

A little research has produced the following:

The "Barry Attack" (D00): 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bf4 Bg7 5.e3 0-0 6.Be2 was played at least as early as 1931 by Soloviev against Kasparian.

The list of people who took up the Black side is really impressive, including Kasparov.

Here's a short list of famous people who lost as Black before 1990. (I chose that date because according to Goeller, the opening was first played in the 1980s.)

Dvoretsky, Gufeld, Vladimirov, Zsuzsa Polgar, Mark Hebden and quite a few others.

Polgar and Hebden later went on to play the position from the White side and still lost!  
Ok, they also won some.

Some of the "heroes" of the Barry, that is famous players who tried it more than once before 1990 include:

Sorokin, Kholmov, Pirc, Ian Rogers, Balashov, Antoshin, David Norwood, Julian Hodgson, Mark Hebden, Susan Polgar, and Prybil.  

One notable game was a victory by Kasparov as Black against Hort in 1988.  I guess by then the opening was known by the people Goeller cites.

DISCLAIMER:

As a fan of Smyslov, I recognise this general set-up from some of Smyslov's games (as White) in Zurich, 1953.  However, I would not consider this an attempt to win as White, and probably consider it a good way to lose!

Alumbrado, 

There must be some reason that there are openings attributed to Barry and yet very few games.  At least Rauzer backed up his openings with memorable games.  (Or is it just that I am sorely uneducated in the greatness of the founder of these "attacks"?)

Yes indeed, and without any exceptions! 

There was also published some time ago an article written by Ukrainian IM Vladimir Okhotnik in Polish chess magazine "Panorama Szachowa". The author is an avid advocate of this line, and is using it mainly in rapidplay and blitz tournaments.

I have posted a bibliography on the Barry Attack:
http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/kenilworthian/2005/11/barry-attack-bibliograp...

Thanks for the suggestions in this forum (before they vanished!)

Any further suggestions -- especially to online sources -- are most welcome.