Thoughts On Daventry

IT can be argued there are two types of chess book - those that should be studied, and those that can be consumed using the read-and-nod method.

The latter is a disparaging description of how many club players treat every chess book they buy.

Instead of trying to improve with the help of hard graft, we have a tendency to hope the contents of a book can somehow be absorbed through a process akin to osmosis.

I cannot recall where I first came across the term "read-and-nod," but there are some chess books that it is OK not to study too seriously.

One is Andrew Soltis's Transpo Tricks In Chess (Batsford, 2007).

The book is optimistically subtitled Finesse Your Chess And Win

The blurb on the back cover explains: "A transposition is a known position reached by a different move-order than usual. There are transpositional tricks in all openings, but this is the first book devoted to them." 

I was able to use a 'transpo trick' in my round-one game of the Four Nations Chess League's Easter Congress, where I had black against Phil Watkinson (1682 ECF/1717 Fide).

He did not have many published games, but from what I could find I came to the following conclusions.

A) He always opens1.d4, and nearly always follows up with 2.c4.

B) If I play my normal stuff, the game would begin 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 - the Exchange Variation of the Queen's Gambit.

C) In the Exchange he likes to develop the king's knight at e2, which is generally regarded as more dangerous for Black than developing it at f3.

D) There was a possibility that if I varied by, for example, playing 1...Nf6, he might vary in turn with the Trompowsky (2.Bg5), although, to be fair, both games in which he played 2.Bg5 were when Black opened with 1...f5.

The game began, as expected, with 1.d4, to which I replied 1...e6.

I reasoned that the chances of a confirmed 1.d4 player continuing with 2.e4 were small, and that anyway he would not have been familiar with the resulting French Defence positions (I should have checked before the game to see if PW played the French as Black, but omitted to do that).

There was a possibility he would avoid 2.c4 in favour of some anti-Dutch idea as 1.d4 e6 2.c4 is a move-order often played by blacks wanting a Dutch, which would come with 2...f5, while avoiding the Staunton Gambit (1.d4 f5 2.e4) and the fashionable 1.d4 f5 2.Bg5.

However, PW stuck to his guns with 2.c4, when I could have got back into my normal repertoire with 2...d5, after which there might well have come 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5.

Instead I played 2...Nf6, 'threatening' a Nimzo-Indian Defence. If 3.Nc3 had appeared, I would almost certainly have replied 3...d5, having gained nothing from my move-order.

But instead PW played 3.Nf3, perhaps expecting a Queen's Indian (3...b6) or Bogo-Indian (3...Bb4+).

However, I continued 3...d5, when 4.cxd5 would have been a QGD Exchange, but one in which White had already committed the king's knight to f3.

Instead he played 4.Nc3, when 4...Be7, 4...c6 and 4...Nbd7 can all lead to main lines of the Queen's Gambit Declined, while 4...Bb4 is a Ragozin.

I chose arguably Black's sharpest continuation, 4...c5, and met the mainline 5.cxd5 with 5...cxd4!?, which is less common, but sharper, than 5...exd5 and 5...Nxd5.

It is possible PW knew the line as he played 6.Qa4+!? quite quickly, and met 6...Bd7 more-or-less immediately with the admittedly forced 7.Qxd4.

White, at least temporarily, is a pawn up after 7.Qxd4

*****

*****

*****

*****

*****

However, I suspect he was in unchartered waters as, after 7...exd5, he took quite some time before eventually regaining the pawn-plus with 8.Nxd5, the point being Black then has 8...Qa5+ 9.Nc3 Nc6, with decent compensation, and I went on to win, helped, I am sure, by my greater familiarity with the resulting positions.

Now, it could be argued that, outrating my opponent by almost 200 Fide, and comfortably more than 200 ECF, I had no need to use a 'transpo trick' to help win the game.

Then again, I have my fair share of losses to players rated much lower than PW, and, at least on this occasion, the strategy worked.