‘Winning in the Chess Opening’

I picked up this book by Nikolay Kalinichenko in a charity shop for a few quid.


Printed in 2018 it was translated from a Russian book by Kirill Kuznetsov.
‘700 Ways To Ambush Your Ambush Your Opponent.’ Huh! I opened it and...


A spider leapt out and bite my nose. I turned a page...


...and ‘Whack!’ I fell for the old mousetrap trick. I turned another page....


‘BOOM!’ The exploding page trap. I decided to get someone else to turn a page.

Whenever I changed an electric plug in the house to make sure I have done it
correctly I get one of the kids to plug it in. But none of them were about so I
got the cat (Kato) and standing well clear I got her to turn over the next page.


And why not, apparently they have nine lives. Nothing Happened. Huh!

A mixture of both ancient (there is a game from Greco 1620 in there) and modern
opening traps and blunders. A number of them appear in Chernev’s 1000 Short
Games ( printed 1957) or other game collections of the same ilk. If you do not have
such a collection or need some off beat ideas or inspiration then this book is O.K.

I’ll use three games from the book for this weeks puzzles.


Kuznetsov has four of his games in his book. We will start off with one of his.

No.1 D. Kroll - K. Kuznetsov, Moscow 2014 (Black to play)



Reveal Hidden Content

I’ll slip in this from an RHP game as a reserve.

No.1a swahn - juanro RHP 2020 (Black to play)



Reveal Hidden Content

No 2. M. Cebalo - E. Vasiukov, Croatia,.2014 (White to play)


Reveal Hidden Content

No.3 We will play into this next puzzle. R. Akesson - M. Heidenfeld, Croatia 1997.

That is the game the author uses and does mention correctly it is a typical blunder.
I have found many OTB games with it and 7 Red hot pawn games. But first I’ll
show a well known sister trap which may be one of the reasons Black slips on this
banana skin. It is possible the player of the Black pieces knows this infamous trap
in the Sicilian Dragon and because the setting is slightly different they fall for it.


Funnily enough this blunder does not get a mention in the Kalinichenko book.
Levy in his book on the Dragon mentions it one page one in his introduction.

So the theory is many players know of it but do not recognise the pitfall pattern.
With that game in mind we now move onto No.3. R. Akesson - M. Heidenfeld.



OOPS! I’ve gone right past puzzle No. 3. Here it is (er...White to play)



Reveal Hidden Content

ACME Chess Supplies are selling chess sets for £10.99.

They are also selling Freestyle Chess Sets; ‘Play over Carlsen’s Freestyle Games!!’
For £14.99. This set is exactly the same as the £10.99 set but because it has the word
‘Freestyle’ on the box you have to pay an extra £4.00 They are selling like hot cakes.


Back to the book. Nikolay Kalinichenko also has one his games inside and it is
another well know trap with many victims and is similar to the two previous games.
.
N. Kalinichenko - V. Chekhov. Moscow, 1971


The thread accompanying this blog is Thread 202678