Saturday 3 May 2008

Correspondence Thematics

For all the sneering that CC receives from some OTB players, a significant amount of opening theory is developed in Correspondence Thematic events. These are events where all the games start with a specific opening, either at an early stage, or in some cases, a theoretically crucial position.
However, the most common thematics usually involve openings that are avoided at the top levels of OTB chess, although these openings may still be popular at the club level. Probably the two openings most closely associated with CC Thematics are the Blackmar-Diemar Gambit (BDG) for White, and the Latvian Gambit for Black.
Now the BDG is one of those openings where the players who use it are so passionate about it that the wins for white tend to be over publicised, at the expense of the games where Black hangs on to the pawn and frustrates White's attacking plans. So just to redress the balance here is a game where Black launches the big attack, and cleans White's clock in pretty short order.

Christensen,J (2069) - Hauser,J (2126)
WSTT/3/07/2 - Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, D ICCF, 15.06.2007

1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.f3 exf3 5.Nxf3 c6 6.Bc4 Bf5 7.Ne5 e6 8.0-0 Bg6 9.Bf4 Nbd7 10.Nxg6N Turns out the open file is worth more than the 2 bishops. [ RR 10.Rf2 Nxe5 11.Bxe5 h5 12.h3 h4 13.Bd3 Bh5 14.Qe1 Nd7 15.Bf4 g5 16.Be5 Rg8 17.Bh7 Nxe5 18.Bxg8 Qxd4 19.Ne4 0-0-0 20.Kh1 Bb4 21.c3 Nd3 22.cxd4 Bxe1 23.Rf1 Rxg8 24.Nf6 Bf2 ETC_Chess-Peze/www.playchess.de 2003/Aftermega Pt.1/0-1 (45)] 10...hxg6 11.Be2 Qb6 12.Bg3 0-0-0 Already Black has a better position, even discounting the extra pawn. 13.Na4 Qa5 14.c3 Ne4 15.b4 Qg5 16.Bf4 Bd6!! 17.Bxd6 [ 17.Bxg5 Bxh2+ 18.Kh1 Ng3#] 17...Qe3+ 18.Kh1 e5 19.Bxe5 Nxe5 20.Bg4+ Kc7 21.Bh3 Nd3 22.Qf3 Ndf2+ 0-1

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