I'm sorry to hear this. My condolences.

Michael Ayton speaks for me as well.

I would like to make some comments about our nomination but sometimes in life very bad things happen. My coach was playing in the Acropolis Open, the most historical and strong tournament held in Greece and he passed away during his game just two moves before he forces the resignation from his opponent......

This sad event has socked the chess community in Greece! My coach has been mentioned many many times by me in my posts. He has helped us many times to discover ideas. Especially in the KID section i have posted many wonderfull ideas of his that has caused the admiration of many of the members of this forum....I wish i could show him the position of the competition. He would solve the case in just a second. Im sure....

GM Grivas is one of his childhood friends and he had a reaally bad time when he was waiting in the hospital to hear some good news...but at the end these good news were not coming and he almost had a heart attack himself for losing one of his best friends.....Sorry i writte these things here, but i am in a complete sock. My coach Nikos Karapanos was like my big brother, my best friend, my mentor and many other things.

This is what GM Grivas writtes about the incident
http://tournaments.chessdom.com/acropolis-2009

Four Days to go and we´ve just three nominations!

Wake up, get up, stand up community this is far too less!

One can argue, but maybe Mr. Bücker it was a mistake to overflood the members with so many variations so they werent motivated to find minor novelties only. From a scientific standpoint it is for sure the right approach, but obviously it didnt work. 

So far just my nomination was discussed by other forum members and @linksspringer suggested the surprising 10.Bc1!? I still think black has nothing to fear, but this move was the only one, which really surprised me, which leads me to the unavoidable question, is this is enough for a competition and do you expect more?

gewgew

Stefan Buecker wrote on 07/28/09 at 11:48:05:


Although I don't believe in the Moller Attack I'm surprised at the -/+.  I always thought that after 9.d5 Bf6 (9...Ne5 is probably = to =+ with best play) 10.Re1 Ne7 11.Rxe4 d6 12.Bg5 Bxg5 13.Nxg5 h6, 14.Qe2 hxg5 15.Re1 Be6 16.dxe6 f6 and 14.Bb5+ Bd7 15.Qe2 Bxb5 16.Qxb5+ Qd7 17.Qxb7 (17.Qe2? Kf8!) 17...0-0 both led to =+.   

Will be interested to see Ametanoitos and Luzin's line against 7.Nbd2 as to my eye the line is looking fairly promising for White (from the perspective of being satisfied with dynamic equality) at the moment.

I have contacted Luzin and we are about to make a nomination about the line he has recomended. We are working the details at present. So.....

Ametanoitos wrote on 07/25/09 at 13:14:08:

Oh no, that's untrue! My analysis is full of mistakes, as always. 

What I did was to check whether 7.Nbd2 is ridiculous or playable. In my opinion, it is the latter. But I still can't say whether it's +=, = or =+. Maybe this thread contains too many of my war-cries that White isn't worse. Obviously I had feared that a few loud claims of the gambit's incorrectness would deter too many who otherwise might be interested to compete. But now we have seen that the system cannot easily be refuted, thus I now step aside and won't comment anymore on nominated ideas until the competition ends. 

You really shouldn't trust my analyses. Remember what Eric Schiller and Joel Benjamin wrote (Unorthodox Openings, London 1987, p. 126): "As usual with Bücker, however, his exhaustive analysis of the early stages of the game is quite good, but deteriorates as he moves deeper into the game and the number of candidate move dwindles. So [...] we follow the path of the main line a bit and then turn off when greener pastures are spotted."

This thread already uncovered my knack for b7-b6, a strange move also favoured by Rybka... (Never heard that name.) Another thread had the following:

Bibs wrote on 06/26/09 at 12:57:48:

That's the picture! Poor Bücker, desparately searching for the members' advice.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Bc5 5.c3 d6 6.cxd4 transposes to a variation of the Italian: 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 d6 5.d4 exd4 6.cxd4.
The right approach is this. What do you play against the Italian proper? That will determine your choice against the Scotch Gambit.

Another example is 3.Bc4 d6 4.d4 exd4. This is probably not as good as 4...Bg4. At the other hand 5.c3 can be answered with Ne5! White's best is to head for the Hungarian with 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 d6 5.Nxd4 Nf6 6.Nc3 Be7. This is usually assessed as comfortably +=.

In my opinion Black should either play the Italian Giuoco Piano (3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d4 exd4) or the Two Knights (3...Nf6). Both can be reached via the Scottish Gambit. So why should Black pose him/herself an extra problem?

At the other hand this means that everyone considering the Pomtow-Attack also should consider the transposition via the Scotch Gambit. The main disadvantage is 4.Ng5 vs. the Two Knights not being available.