Author: Heinz van Kempen
Date: 22:17:05 02/06/06
Hi all, after more thoughts I find the idea to run the CEGT Championships 40/120 as theme tournaments (like proposed by Joseph and Dann) in order to see if engines will "write" new chess theory for example quite fascinating. Dann proposed 1.b4, a rather uncommon but not bad line also called Orang Utan, Sokolsky or Polish opening, so the first double round robin could be with this one. Here is something about the history taken from this site: http://www.angelfire.com/home/bstjean/sokolsky/ The origin of this spectacular opening is more or less well known. Tartakower played it at the beginning of this century and supposedly had the idea of the "b" climbing pawn after observing apes at the zoo. But Tartakower never took this opening seriously. Bugayev, a Russian master, also played it in matches and in a simultaneous game against Steinitz. Also, Englisch and Schlechter played the Orangutan in games before Tartakower even dreamed of it! All these players had opened a door that was to be entered by a young Russian master... It is only after many excellent (but sadly many lost) analysis by Sokolsky and many of his correspondence trials (and even OTB games!) that this opening really got serious treatment. Sokolsky (and later Katalimov) produced the first serious study of this fantastic debut and even played it! Nowadays, top players at the international level (OTB) almost never play it (except for Ljubojevic and Larsen in their early days) and the Orang Utan is usually used for its element of surprise. The only known exception that I know is Gilles Mirallès (France champion) who played it for most of its career. Besides these few trials in OTB games, the Orang Utan opening is mostly used in correspondence chess. There is also a magazine and books dealing with this: http://www.angelfire.com/home/bstjean/sokolsky/pages/magazine.html So my question to Dann would be: Do you have a special interesting subvariation (line) in mind? Joseph mentions the Kan variation. Any concrete line here? Please restrict it then to a maximum of 12 moves (24 plies) we will give before the engines start to calculate. Proposals for variatios are highly welcome. Best Regards Heinz http://www.husvankempen.de/nunn/
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