Friday 9 October 2015

The Troll-iest opening ever

Today at the ACT Juniors I saw what might be the 'troll-iest' opening line ever. The game started normally with 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Then Black unleashed 4. ... Ng4?!? Now before you mock this move too much I'd like to point out my database has 8 games with this move and a score of +1=3-4 for White! The obvious intent is to provoke h3, and then meet it with h5! If White takes Black is just winning after hxg4, while leaving the knight on g4 helps black play moves like Bc5 etc. The game in question went 5.h3 h5 6.Nc3 Bc5 7.d3 d6 8.Bxc6 bxc6 9.Bg5 Nf6 10.d4 exd 11.Nxd4 Bb7 when 12.Nf5 is very strong. Unfortunately White chose 12.Nf3 instead and Black eventually won after using the open b file to grab some pawns.
As I don't have the full game score to hand, I'll instead show you an earlier game, also played in Australia. White decides not to go in for the h3 line, but Black still tosses in h5 and after playing Qh4 is winning up until the end.


Rigo,Bernard (1720) - Goldsmith,Alan (2130) [C65]
Adelaide Interclub Adelaide (2), 2004


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