Friday 17 January 2014

Have we just run out of chess openings?

I've commented in the past that modern chessplayers utilise a much broader set of openings than their predecessors. And While I generally think this is a good thing, even I have my limits. At the current Tata Steel tournament, the Budapest Gambit hit the tables not once but twice in the early rounds of the A and B tournaments. Even more amazingly it won both times, with Richard Rapport beating Boris Gelfand in round 2 of the A event, and Baadur Jobava beating Radoslaw Wojtaszek in round 5 of the B tournament.
I suspect the net effect of this will be (a) a sudden renewal of interest in the Budapest Gambit in the form of magazine articles and books and (b) a lot of 'I told you it was a good opening' from that strange guy at the club who claims he can beat GM's with 2. ... e5!!, if only he got to play them.
Of course it could just turn out to be a 9 day wonder, especially if third time doesn't prove the charm, and it gets blown up by a well prepared player of the white pieces.


Wojtaszek,Radoslaw (2711) - Jobava,Baadur (2710) [A52]
Tata Steel Challengers Wijk aan Zee NED (5.6), 16.01.2014


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The creative genius never runs out of chess openings.