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[what is this?]

Alekhine plays the English with the White Pieces The greatest player of all time scores heavily with the greatest opening of all time 22 games, 1911-1945 English Opening against 3...Bc5 You don't normally see <3.Bc5>? against the English Opening at top levels, though if you are a club player like me you may actually run in to it often. That is- after 1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.g3 Bc5? White has a fine positional refutation of this move involving an early <e3> that functions well to block the Black DSB from influencing the senstive <f2> square and ultimately proves that Black's <3...Bc5?> is essentially a wasted tempo. That is, after Black plays 3...Bc5, White has the luxury of playing 4.Bg2 O-O 5.<e3>! Re8 6.Nge2 Nc6 7.O-O, leading to this exceedingly pleasant position for White: click for larger view Now, let's see how the Masters show us how to gain a winning continuation from here: (note that this position can also be reached by a slightly different move order) 9 games, 1905-2008 Fawn Pawns This Collection is dedicated to the <FAWN PAWN> A <FAWN PAWN> is a pawn on the 6th rank blockaded by an enemy pawn on the 7th rank, but which cannot be captured by any enemy pawn Example: click for larger view What I find fascinating about the <Fawn Pawn> is that it gives you a positional advantage with immense latent tactical power. Often, this power is not seen until the end game. Meaning that if you manage to establish a <Fawn Pawn> in the Middle game, your opponent can never, ever, forget about it. Psychologically, I think the positional trump of a <Fawn Pawn> exerts a baleful influence on your opponent. Here is a spectacular example of the tactical power of a <Fawn Pawn> coming to life in a beautiful mating combination by CG.com's own <Benzol> (P. Morten): P Morten vs B Rider, 2003 click for larger view White to play and win by force: Here is the mating attack which hinges on creating a <Fawn Pawn> on the <f6> square- 35.Rd8+ Kg7 36.Qf6+ Qxf6 37.exf6# The creation of a <Fawn Pawn>, of course, is rarely as spectacular as in this game, where the creation of the <Fawn Pawn> also creates <CHECKMATE> If you browse through this collection, you will see that the <Fawn Pawn> exerts a wide variety of different kinds of baleful influence and force on the enemy position. These games were actually harvested by <Crawfb5>, <SwitchingQuylthulg>, <phony benoni>, <Benzol>, <Shams>, and <hms123> "Naming Notes"- Some refer to this as a <Pawn Nail>, or a <Thorn Pawn>. The noted youtube chess video annotator Tryfon Gavriel- known as <Kingscrusher>- calls them <Thorn Pawns>. However, Tryfon has a heavy English accent, so we thought he was saying <Fawn Pawns>. heh... So we've been calling them <Fawn Pawns> all year. 27 games, 1889-2009 Fischer and Kasparov play the KID Here are some of my favorite KID wins by two of the greatest ever to play this opening. I have now improved this collection, acting on the advice of <2008 "Best Analyst" Winner Eyal Segal>. Here are some of Eyal's comments: "The other KID win over Korchnoi (Korchnoi vs Fischer, 1970 - is a blitz game, but still on a very high level, and a sort of general rehearsal for Larsen vs Fischer, 1971; one of the knights also moves there 6 times as well!); and the two superb wins over Larsen from the 60s (Larsen vs Fischer, 1966 and Larsen vs Fischer, 1967)" 17 games, 1956-1995 Fischer Brilliancies Appraised by Eyal Segal Eyal Segal is the 2008 winner of the Chessgames.com "CAISSAR AWARD" for Best Analyst. Here are 21 of his favorite brilliancies by Bobby Fischer. On almost all of these game pages, Eyal provides a good deal of excellent analysis and historical anecdotes that will delight and instruct Fischer fans of all ages and chess playing strength: Enjoy and learn!! 21 games, 1956-1972 Staunton plays the English Opening Staunton enjoyed mixed success playing the English with the white pieces against three of his arch-rivals, St. Amant, E. Williams, and Horwitz. Staunton's use of this opening is often characterized either by an early <e3>- supporting a <d4> pawn thrust and also vacating the <e2> square for the King Knight-- OR by an early <e4>, experimenting with an early version of the <Maroczy Bind>. Both systems remain of historical, theoretical, and practical interest to the modern player. 10 games, 1843-1851