Hennig Schara Gambit

Everyone has favourite systems, and we all try to defend openings that get a bashing. Even some pretty decent openings come in for a bashing every now and again. Take the King's Indian Defence, or the Sicilian Dragon. Then again, if you're going to play a fighting opening, then you will also have to fight to defend your opening's reputation.

The system that I have a soft spot for is the Hennig Schara Gambit. When I was a young player, Kasparov was not yet World Champion and was playing the Tarrasch Variation of the Queen's Gambit (among other fighting systems). It was back then in the mid 80's that I first really became aware of the Tarrasch and the amazing piece play that black can generate at the expense of pawn weaknesses. Certainly at club level a player who is good with active pieces should consider openings such as the Tarrasch which offer excellent play for the expense of a pawn.

Black immediately challenges the centre, and after 4.cxd5 exd5 we will have a position where white can give black an isolated queen's pawn. In fact, positions with an isolated queen's pawn for black were those championed by Kasparov on his way to the World Championship in 1984. He successfully used the defence against Beliavsky, Korchnoi and Smyslov, and even used it against Karpov in their first match in 1984. Here is (essentially) the deciding game in the 1983 Candidates Final. It left Kasparov 8-4 ahead against Smyslov, needing only a draw to progress which he duly scored in the next game.



It wasn't until the 1990's that I became aware of an interesting sideline of the Tarrasch, the Hennig Schara Gambit. Instead of accepting an isolated queen's pawn, black sacrifices a pawn again for great piece play. I didn't really take it too seriously at first as I can't really say I am that inspired by gambit openings generally. I'm more the sort of player who grabs poisoned pawns and tries to hold on to them! However, I was fully converted by 2 articles written by Irish correspondence GM Tim Harding. Harding has been writing a monthly column at chesscafe.com since the mid 1990's and many of his early columns were about odd openings that tend to crop up more often in correspondence play that over the board. His articles on the Hennig Schara (no 1, and no 2)were beautifully written and were good enough to make me believe in the opening. I've used it on a number of occasions, and have every intention of trying it out some more. As pawn sacrifices go, it is very enterprising, and there is no easy way for white to get anything out of the opening. The mainline goes 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5 4.cxd5 cxd4!? [The Gambit] 5.Qxd4 Nc6 [While white's queen grabs a central pawn, black is able to develop quickly and aggressively] 6.Qd1 exd5 7.Qxd5 [Now white will be a pawn up out of the opening, but with the centre wide open it's anybodys game] 7..Bd7 [Black can play a pawn down in a queenless position as well which is also interesting. 7..Be6!?] 8.Nf3 Nf6 9.Qd1

So here's the main tabiya. After 9..Bc5 black has excellent minor piece deployment, and to add a further random feature to the game, black most often castles queen side to whites king side castling. My own favourite game, a win against ex Australian Champion Doug Hamilton was in this opening, but rather than singing my own praises, take a look at this recent game where a 2600ish GM gets smashed by a 2300ish player. Enjoy :D

Opening Study

Ok, so I'm curious. How much opening study do you do? What percentage of your time is spent studying openings compared to looking at other aspects of chess? I will admit that as I've got older, it has become a less consuming part of my chess study and I now spend more time looking through games, working through tactical puzzles, and looking at endgames. I have some vague opening ideas that have been picked up over the years, but to be honest, I'm no expert on any opening.

Now I guess this brings some good and bad. On the plus side, it makes me quite flexible and imaginative. I'm not tied to theoretical systems, and am not trying to uphold the honour of certain variations. I play a number of different openings, all equally averagely, and just kind of find myself in a middlegame position all of a sudden, which I just start working on over the board. As FM Bill Jordan once said to me "you can only be out-theoried by one move" as when you make that move which your opponent doesn't recognise they are also on their own to some extent. Of course, this is a simplification of the issue, as studying opening systems should enable players to develop feel for typical positions as well as knowing the best theoretical lines. On the down side I don't get many cheap points in games and have to work hard at the board from fairly early on in games. While my general understanding of chess might not be that bad, my specific understanding of certain openings will be poor meaning that I am missing chances of getting the best start to games.

The Tarrasch

So the question is, 'am I bothered about it'? Well in some ways yes, but generally no. I am well past the stage in my life where I have that many goals to achieve in chess, and virtually none of my goals are to do with playing myself. However, as I've started playing less chess, and less seriously, I've found that I'm enjoying looking at theoretical works more. I have started playing games on chess.com using a time limit of 3 days per game, and have started studying openings through that, like I imagine correspondence players do, though I would never consider myself one of them! I've also been working with stronger kids than in the past, and I could really do with helping them with openings as well as other parts of their game.

Sicilian Najdorf

So I've decided, at the age of 46, I'm going to start looking at openings again (probably the first serious opening study I've done in the past 25 years!). I will share some ideas here, though of course, you'll have to be ready to accept the openings that I choose. And talking about choosing, the whole subject of openings is pretty massive, so finding a starting point is a pretty daunting prospect. So I'll even tell you where I'm going to start looking. I'm going to try to go in depth into the following openings:

- Tarrasch Variation of the Queen's Gambit
- Four Knight's Opening
- Sicilian, especially Najdorf (my great favourite as a junior).

I think these systems offer a wide range of styles of play, from opposite side castling to isolated queen pawns, gambits to near symmetrical systems, pawn minorities, pawn majorities, and broken pawn structures compensated by pieces. I find these imbalances, and I suppose balances, the main interest in the opening and where it leads us to in the middlegames. I'll be playing these systems a lot as well, so if you do play me in a tournament, or online, there's a good chance I'll play one of these openings, if allowed. I remember back in the 1970's or early 80's in the UK, IM Mike Basman announcing that he would be playing 1.b4 or 1.g4, and the same things in reverse when he played in tournaments, allowing players to prepare for him. I think that was a pretty amazing thing to do, so I'm basically doing the same thing. Well almost, as I get bored easily by openings, so I apologise in advance if you've prepared one of those systems against me and I come up with something completely different! Of course, you can be content that I won't know that opening better than any other system I play!!

Four Knight's Opening

I will gratefully accept any help and analysis on these openings, and once I start publishing some opening ideas, I'll gladly accept criticism of them. Watch this space, and let's get these openings understood!

Elementary Chess Endings

I was talking to a friend the other day about our favourite chess ending. We spoke about quite a few old classics and each had our particular favourite. Hopefully we will see some more over the next few weeks in London at the Candidates' tournament, and with some great endgame players, I can't imagine there not be a few classics.

But after my post last week, I thought I'd share my favourite classic endgame. I have always liked pawn endgames, and I prefer endgames that actually happened in games compared to composed studies. One of the first endgames I was shown is still one of my favourites, Lasker-Tarrasch St Petersburg 1914.

It looks bad for white. Black has a pawn majority on the queen side, his king is nearer to the queen side than white's king and is also able to easily stop white's pawn from advancing far. Yet Lasker managed to draw this position and it was black fighting for that draw in the end!

1.h4! This wins time against the advance of black's queen side as Tarrasch can't allow white to play 2.h5 1..Kg4 2.Kg6!! Again winning time as white now threatens 3.h5 so black's next is forced 2..Kxh4 3.Kf5 and now white's king "shoulders" black's king in the race to the queen side.

The game finished 3..Kg3 4.Ke4 Kf2 5.Kd5 Ke2 6.Kxc5 Kd2 7.Kxb5 Kc2 8.Kxa5 Kxb3 Draw.

Study of classic endgames is good for anyone. I hope to bring some more favourite classics to this blog :)