Schnair – Wollkind 0-1

I went into this last round game for the January Metrowest Chess Club tournament with 3/3 points and a chance to win the section if I won this game. I’d been playing pretty good chess all month so I was hopeful. I was outrated, but not by so much that I was intimidated.

I had black again, for the third time in the tournament, and my black openings are just a disaster. I expected d4 so I looked over some lines the week prior, but what I didn’t expect was the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit.

For those of you who aren’t chess players or not familiar with the BDG, I’m going to quote at length from John Cox’s excellent book “Dealing with d4 Deviations”

The BDG is one of those things you have to be practical about. There’s no doubt it is objectively weak and that 4…exf3 is the best move. However, for some reason the BDG attracts the most fanatical followers of any opening, bar none. If you’ve ever felt that wounded tigresses can be a little overprotective of their cubs, hop over to one of the numerous BDG websites and venture the view that you’ve always wondered whether perhaps the gambit is unsound and that maybe the Catalan is a better bet for long-term pressure.

You aren’t going to face it more than once or twice in a chess lifetime, you are — unlike your opponent — hardly likely to have more than a dim recollection of the theory, and sod’s law dictates that this happy event will probably occur in the third Saturday game of a weekender, when few of us are at our sharpest tactically. In these circumstances, if you run into some knife-wielding maniac with a glint in his eye and a yard of BDG workbooks on his shelf at home, then by all means take his pawn, but don’t blame me if one slip sees you getting torched.

Who knew that chess writing could be so entertaining. At any rate, I was familiar with the initial moves of the gambit and knew that it probably wasn’t sound but also knew that the positions that arise can become dangerous quickly. What I couldn’t remember was what any of my books actually recommended that I do in this case, so I struck out on my own, aiming to get out of the main lines that he would likely know and perhaps into a less wide open swashbuckling game, because that’s really what my opponent was looking for. It worked out ok for me in the end, but I made a serious error towards the end of the game which was quickly countered by a more serious error on the part of my opponent.

So, a pretty good win, 4-0 for the month and a win of the Under 1700 section. Next month: adventures in Under 2000 land.