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Chessville
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Emil Josef Diemer 1908-1990 A Life Devoted to Chess Reviewed by Rick Kennedy
Alan Dommett lives in Bournemouth, in the south of England, on Poole Bay and the English Channel. He writes a weekly chess column for The Daily Echo, and edits Newsknight, a local chess magazine. Above all, the author prizes Diemer’s fighting spirit, his attacking style, and the beauty of his combinational play:
Emil Josef Diemer 1908-1990 A Life Devoted to Chess is hardbound, with an attractive dust cover. Inside, the print is clear and well laid out, with effective use of fonts, bolding and white space. Diagrams appear two or three to the page. While most games feature the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, accepted and declined, there are also examples of the Huebsch Gambit (1.d4 Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 3.e4 Nxe4 4.Nxe4 de), the Lemberger Countergambit (1.d4 d5 2.e4 de 3.Nc3 e5), the Diemer-Duhm Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.e4 e6 3.c4) and the Alapin-Diemer Gambit (1.d4 e6 2.e4 d5 3.Be3) The games are presented chronologically, although there is a helpful variations Index at the back of the book. Here is a game from the book, with notes by Dommett:
Readers should realize that if they take to Dommett’s little gem of a book (and they should!), challenges will come at them from all four corners of the chessboard. Despite the title, for example, the book is not a biography of Emil Josef Diemer. (An example of this kind of criticism can be found in Taylor Kingston’s review at http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review391.pdf.) Some historical information is given, and there are notes and references to particular times or events in Diemer’s life, with a small amount of annotation; but this is a book that largely lets the games “speak for themselves.” That is how Dommett would like it to be. For the record, the most complete story of Diemer – and the details are not always pretty – is Georg Studier’s Emil Joseph Diemer: Ein Leben für das Schach im Spiegel seiner Zeit (1996). A snapshot of Diemer’s life, by Hans Ree, can be found at http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hans07.txt
Battle-scarred Blackmar-Diemer Gambit veterans might also hasten to point out that what analysis the author provides misses various nuances in this-or-that line, overlooks the revolutionary re-evaluations in such-and-such a defense… even as they remember, with a smile and a sense of nostalgia, their own first delightful forays into playing for mate from the first move (Diemer’s philosophy, and the title of his 1957 book). Of course, this updating dilemma is always with the chessplayer, and was admitted directly in Anders Tejler’s Discover the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit (1971), where we find Ken Smith’s words:
Sic transit gloria.
The annotations are light in Emil Josef Diemer 1908-1990 A Life Devoted to Chess, and intentionally so. The book is consistent with Dr. Björkqvist’s recommendation to play over the games, enjoy them, do your own analysis, and avoid “parrot learning” (rote memorizing). Those who would, nonetheless, like to dive further into the Blackmar Diemer Gambit analyses are encouraged to return to the mini-bibliography I provided in my Romantic D-Pawns review, or go directly to Tom Purser’s BDG web pages to look around: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/4902/.
Skeptics will scoff at such a bold and reckless opening and middle game play in the first place. Shouldn’t one be learning, say, the Catalan, instead? Dommett himself tells a humorous story from a time before he came to appreciate the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit. Sitting down against Arthur Hall, a notorious BDGer, he tried the verbal gambit, “You don’t play this rubbish, do you?” and was subsequently “soundly thrashed for my discourtesy” (over-the-board, we must assume).
Tactical rumbles sometimes have “holes” in the attacker’s line of play, errors that later analysis will uncover – as will attest Tal, or even Kasparov. The club player should appreciate Diemer’s characterization of his own opening as a “high school for tactics” and learn accordingly – the game may be a test, but there is still plenty of work to do beforehand, and homework to do afterward.* Remember, too, that defense is often more difficult than attack: Diemer was known to play aggressive, pressing, pressuring moves, finally growling out loud “That is precisely the blunder I had been expecting!” when his opponent misplayed and caved in.
Of course, one “complaint” that may come from those who read, play over, and thoroughly enjoy the book’s contents is – they want more Diemer games! The author could then sit back and smile, having accomplished his aim…
(Dany Sénéchaud’s Emil Joseph Diemer: missionnaire des échecs acrobatiques -3rd Ed, 2003- contains 226 games, with Diemer playing various openings and defences. Readers might also be interested in Tom Purser and Anders Tejler’s Blackmar, Diemer & Gedult, which presents over 200 BDG games played by David Gedult, coffeehouse player extraordinaire.)
* Returning to Diemer vs Anonymous (Simultaneous Display, Germany 1938)
1) Dommett recommends 16…Kc7! for Black, instead of 16…Qxg5?, after which White’s best bet seems to me to be to go aggressively for a draw by repetition with 17.Rxf6 Nxf6 18.Bf4+ Kb6 19.Be3+ Kc7 20.Bf4+ etc. How un-Diemer-like!
2) The sacrifice Dommett points out, 16.Rxd7+ (instead of 16.Bg5!?) can be worked out, with a little persistence, to a forced mate: 16…Nxd7 17.Rd1 Bd6 18.Rxd6 Qc7 19.Rd1! a6 (nothing helps) 20.Bxc7+ Kxc7 21.Rxd7+ Kb8 22.Qd6+ Ka7 23.Qxc6 Rab8 24.Qc5+ Ka8 25.Nb5 axb5 26.Qa3 mate. A shame Diemer missed it.
3) Black does not escape with15...Kc8, instead of 15…Bb4, as White can continue to throw pieces forward, making use of pins and open lines: 16.Ne4 Qd8 17.Rd6! Ne8 18.Rd4! Nc7 (looking like a boxer desperately trying to cover up) 19.Bxc7 Qe7 20.Qb3 Kxc7 21.Rf7 x-ray attack, and White has the advantage with a queen for a rook and a piece – plus continued pressure against the Black king.
4) With 14...Be7, planning to castle and just give the piece back, Black seems to calm the waters: 15.Bd6 0–0–0 16.Bxe7 Rde8 17.Rae1. White has compensation for his pawn in terms of development, but the king-hunt has stalled.
5)
Black had the choice of a
somewhat-less-wayward queen shift at move 11: …Qc5. If he focuses on
exchanging queens to quell the attack, what might follow is 12.Qb3 Qb4
13.Bxe6! Qxb3 14.Bxb3. White seems to have full compensation for his two
sacrificed pawns – he will probably win one back, and Black’s king remains
in danger.
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