IMJohnCox wrote on 05/19/08 at 12:08:49:

Well imo that misses out a bit on the "school" which followed after WW2 with ie Bronstein and Boleslavsky focusing on dynamism. Ie their handling of the KID and sicilian, but also a chappy like Najdorf.

I understand what you mean John.  My own twopenneth regarding specific opening variations is along similar lines.

Whenever I think of 'great' opening ideas, I think of Piket-Kasparov, Tilburg 1989 and the move ...Bf8, which was a novelty in it's own right and introduced a whole new way of playing the position.

I would nominate the Sveshnikov Sicilian as the best ever invention, since Sveshnikov and Timoshenko alone brought the line from being a rubbish opening to being a very respectable opening and one of Black's main defences to 1.e4 - in fact, in 2003 the Sveshnikov was probably the most commonly played defence to 1.e4, at least at GM level.

Topalov's 12.Nf7 against Kramnik in Wijk Aan Zee 2008 was also a great idea, although I suspect that eventually Black players will find some way to beat back the attack using rigorous computer analysis.

I think the view that 1.d4 is just as strong as 1.e4 is perhaps the greatest opening idea of all, however - it was not until the 1890's or so that the top players realised that 1.d4 is no weaker than 1.e4, and without this discovery, nobody would have discovered hypermodern openings such as the Pirc and Alekhine, or at least not resuscitated it, and chess strategy would not have developed anywhere near as much.

Congrats, Christoph!!

Willempie, 

Tal may have won a couple of games in the Caro in 1961, but he won despite being beaten in opening preparation.  When he finally returned to 1.e4 and faced the Caro again, he played a different system.  Botvinnik clearly had his number in the Caro in 1961.

There's an interesting bit of symmetry in their lifetime scores against each other.  They each won 12 and drew 24 games.  (That's accoding to the stats I gathered in the Chess Stars publications, not chessbase.)

Smyslov_Fan wrote on 10/09/07 at 02:53:34:


I hate that damned variation. To me it looks like the opposite of chess. But yes, that's certainly a major contender, and possibly historically important for the reason you mention.  But what about the Rb1 Gruenfeld Exchange and oh, the Anti-Moscow Gambit. Not so long ago, 6.Bh4 was considered dubious. Oh, and what about the "Latvian Bayonet," which Watson attributes to Shabalov?

Edit: Good grief! Must every last "damn" be papered over here with "darn?" Sorry if anyone's eyes would be scalded out by a perfectly acceptable English word!   

Damn, damn, DAMN, DAAAAAMMMMMMNNNN!!!!

Why does Hell survive here and damnation perish?  But I sincerely wish that the authors of this editiorial practice be damned to Hell.

I'm going to make a bid for a really obscure game for a really good reason.

The game is Speelman-Short, London 1988 (match game 3).  The opening was a QGD:  1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 Be7 5.Bf4 0-0 6.e3 c5 7.dc5 Nc6 8.Qc2 Bc5 9.a3 Qa5 10.0-0-0!?

This move helped Speelman to win an important match, but that's not why I'm nominating it.

Speelman found a theoretical bombshell (his words) that had just been played by Mikhail Gurevich against Andrei Sokolov which had been published a day or so previously in Norway.

This marks probably the fastest transmission of an idea from one tournament in one country to another (up to that point).  The story is told by Speelman in his Best Games book.  

This presages today's age of instant information and as such deserves special mention.  

BTW, Speelman also mentions that Kasparov was probably the first to utilise computers extensively in analysing openings.  If we can figure out which was first (and again, I think it was probably the Seville Variation based on both Kasparov's and Karpov's notes to the opening), then that would rank as this generation's greatest opening innovation.

Markovich wrote on 10/08/07 at 19:43:50:


Ok. i'll rephrase - Tal had a disastrous time playing against the CK in the WCh against Botvinnik in 61.