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Hi! I'm Jos Heesen and playing with chess pieces and computers are my favourite pastimes. I'll try to combine the two while maintaining these pages.
The Schliemann-Jaenisch is a line in the Spanish opening; indexed by the Encyclopaedia of Openings as C63.
The first time I studied this line was when I checked the list of upcoming ICCF Thematic tournaments. The position after the fixed moves for the thematic tournament (see diagram below) kept me analysing for a while, so I joined in to see if my analysis was any good.
(Looking back, I can say that it was not too bad, because it brought me in the finals, and I managed to win a game of the (then future) World champion Schliemann-Jaenisch!)
The fixed moves were : 1. e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5 4.Nc3 fe4 5.Ne4 d5 6.Ne5 de4 7.Nc6 … so in each game black would start (in a thematic tournament you play at the same time two games against each competitor : one with black, the other with white).
Using my adventures and those of my fellow competitors in the preliminaries, half-finals and finals as a guide line, I would like to introduce you to the history of, and the different lines within, the Schliemann Jaenisch.
The standings in the group of finalists of this thematic tournament were:
Do you have any games played with the Schliemann-Jaenisch (from the position in the diagram below)? Or do you have any ideas, suggestions or analysis on this line? Please let me know, so I can incorporate them in these pages and add your name to my list of sources.
I used the following sources to prepare these pages:
The move 3.f5… in the Spanish Opening was analysed and published for the first time by Karl Andreyevich Jaenisch in 1847 in the French periodical Le Palamede. He wrote : … this counter gambit has never been mentioned, nor played. It is an interesting possibility for black because in most lines he gets fine chances …
In Staunton's Chronicle Jaenisch published the position after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5 as a puzzle: "Find the refutation..."
The counter gambit made it's first appearance on tournament level in London 1853 (in the 19th match game Harrwitz - Loewenthal).
Adding the name Schliemann to the gambit is, in fact, a historical error. In all known games Schliemann only played …f5 after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Bc5 4.0-0... However in some articles in the 1860's Dr. Adolph Schliemann contributed some ideas to the theory of the Jaenisch Gambit. Nowadays 3...f5 is called Schliemann Defense in English-speaking countries and Jaenisch Gambit in the rest of the world. Here we like to call it the Schliemann-Jaenisch!
Only at the beginning of the twentieth century players started playing and studying this line. World champion Lasker published some analysis (after the game Gossip-Lasker in New York 1893) and Marshall played it in his match with Capablanca (1909). On several occasions you can find Tarrasch, Bernstein, Spielmann, Breyer or Reti playing the black side of the Schliemann-Jaenisch.
The line became popular among correspondence players when the main lines of the Spanish Opening were analysed ‘to death’ and playing 1… e5 against 1.e4… meant you were ready for a Spanish torture. No player would do that voluntarily, so the search for new (or old and forgotten) ideas started.
The modern line with 4.Nc3... which is our main course, was a contribution of the well-known correspondence player Dr. Dyckhoff.
I did some statistics on the games in my Schliemann-Jaenisch database, which consists (last count in August 2000) of 1399 games.
In 41% of the games white won, in 34% of the games black won, so 25% of the games ended in a draw.
From the diagrammed position below, black played the following moves:
So, according to the statistics black's best is 7... bc6, and worst is 7... Qg5. But the funny thing is that 7... Qg5 is black's favourite, according to the number of games where it appeared.
What does theory say about the starting position of our thematic tournament ?
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(Position after : 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5 4.Nc3 fe4 5.Ne4 d5 6.Ne5 de4 7.Nc6...)
Black has to do something to save his queen. Theory (as well as our database) give the following 3 possibilities :
We disregard the games that started with 7... Qd6 and 7... Qh4.
The game with 7... Qd6 continued: 8.Qh5 g6 9.Qe5 Qe5 10.Ne5 c6 11.Bc4 Nf6 12.O-O Bg7 13.Re1 Rf8 14.d3 Bf5 15.g4 b5 16.Bb3 Bg4 17.Ng4 Ng4 18.Re4 Ne5 19.f4 Kd7 20.fe5 Kc7 21.Be3 a5 22.Bc5 (1-0 Staf-Boons 1991).
The game with 7... Qh4 continued: 8.Qe2 Nf6 9.Na7 Bd7 10.Bd7 Nd7 11.Nb5 O-O-O 12.Nc3 Nf6 13.h3 Bd6 14.Nd1 Rhe8 15.b3 Kb8 16.Bb2 e3 17.Ne3 Ne4 18.O-O Nd2 19.Rfd1 Ne4 20.Nf5 Nf2 21.Qf2 Qf2 22.Kf2 Rf8 (and black won, Schulz-Pokorny 1933).