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Chessville
Advertise to Single insert:
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The name is Bland. James Bland. I find the 3.ed ed French Defense... bracing. Carl Schlecter's face looks down upon me from a poster in my cubicle. Beneath it lies a placard: "A half point saved is a half point earned." Words to live by. My mind reels and my palms sweat at the excitements of... the exchange Slav Defense. At night I dream of being alone with Halle Berry... playing the Petroff. You must realize that I have absolutely no need for Jeroen Bosch's new book, Secrets of Opening Surprises Volume 6. As far as I am concerned, the so-called openings his authors have put together deserve to remain forever -- buried, sequestered, secret. They are too raw. Too brutal. (Deep breath. Let it out slowly. Another one. There now.) The book reads like a nightmare, a Reader's Digest of fever dreams. It is bad enough that there is notation and fulsome explanation in each chapter – there are horrid little diagrams, as well! I ask you, would you expose the developing minds of the next drawing Master to any of these? (Where are my nitro pills??):
And the things the authors say! There's a chapter offering "Triple Trouble for the Grünfeld" -- the position with 4.Bg5 used to be so safe, sensible and sane, until now. Then there's the outrageous "Making Short Work of the Najdorf", answering 5...a6 with 6.a3. What are we to make of the blasphemous "Bishops First Please!", offering a repertoire of 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4. It goes on. "The Tarzan Attack." "The Chigorin Attack" (and it's really a defense: 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3, Bg4). "A Spanish SOS". (9...Rb8 in the venerable Ruy Lopez! Sacrilege!) Two chapters on the "Queen's Grünfeld" -- trying to play a Queen's Indian after amputating ...e6. Why not go all the way and call it a "Franken-Indian Defense"?? Things are going dim around me. I am light-headed. There is a glow I see in the distance. But for full disclosure, I must continue: "The French Advance with 5...a6"; "Scandinavian with 3...Qd6"; the oxymoronic "Slav Surprise" and the redundant "Caro-Kann with a Slav Touch." These are masters and openings experts advocating and playing these monsters! And WINNING with them. I shudder. The horror. The humanity! There is even a contest -- a contest! -- with a reward of 250 Euro to the player who submits the best game using one of the opening concoctions in this book. No doubt it will fill the next volume's "The S.O.S. Files" chapter, as a past prize winner fills this one. For the love of chess, Montresor! Alexander Ivanov, how could you!? My exertions have done me in. My brain can only send out: S.O.S.... S.O.S......S.O.S! Volume 6... Volume 6... Volume 6! Ah, yes. 666.
The sign of the Beast. All is now revealed.
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