It's guilty confession time. When I was too young to know better I bought a book with the wonderful title of "Black to play and win with 1...g6" by Andrew Soltis. The cover is a strange sort of pinky colour, now faded with age (I have owned it for more than 20 years). And on the cover it proclaims itself as "A complete defensive system"

Now I ask you, what more could a callow youth ask for? Not only the chance to win with black, but a complete defensive system that can be played against almost anything that white plays.

And so, for years, my black repertoire was 1...g6, 2...Bg7 and 3...c6 - the so-called Gurgenidze system.

And I lost. I lost loads. With white I was just fine, but black was a horror story. I would end up in these weird passive positions, with about as much joy, passion and energy as my first marriage.

Because few chessplayers would look good in lycra. Mind you, Canadian truck-drivers don't either so maybe that's not such an issue.

Because your chess-playing performance cannot be noticeably enhanced by drugs.

Because we wouldn't need to build expensive stadia to play chess, and where's the fun in an Olympics if it doesn't involve bankrupting a country to build stuff that will never be fully used again?

Because curling only got included cos the winter olympics ran out of other decent sports to include. I mean, how much can you do with snow and ice, apart from exploiting its low mu (low friction) characteristics - in other words, games that involving sliding around a lot?

Why, that would be like inventing a competition for a sport that hardly anyone else plays and calling it the World Series. Or denying the existence of extra-terrestial intelligent life by holding a Mr Universe competition.

<Once> upon a time, I played the Alekhine in a serious team4545 game. It was against an 1800 player, and I thought I had equalized. Suddenly it occured to me that only 2 pieces ever made it past th 3rd rank. Then it occured to me that I was going to lose a pawn. Then it occured to me that I was totally lost, and I better find another defense to 1.e4 I think I might (gasp) play the Caro-Kann. And play 1.d4. And play the Catalan. And play the Nimzo-Indian. And play the Queen's Indian. And be a dry, boring, scientific player, but hey! Thse guys tend to win a lot.

Now for the actual game.
<Ladies and Gentlemen <Drumroll> Boys and Girls> I present to you pawn grabbing. Another name is a gorp. What is a gorp you ask? Well I just made it up, but it's the scientific term for a useless plan. A neglection of the pieces. An obsession, really. Sometimes they don't know you have the gorp, sometimes you don't know you have gorp. The only thing is the what you play. A gorp tends to happen with one piece. The Queen. You see the queen is greedy, and she can never stay at home. The blood of many is upon her hands, yet she thirsts for more. Pawns charge in to battle to merely be killed by this monster. She doesn't move on her own. You must move her/it. The greed is within you.

<Once .... chess at Summer Olympics> I think you answered the question. Let us imagine Vishy, Vlad, Topo etc in swimming outfits? No, on reflection let's not.

I think the idea is to play flexibly as Black to try and get White to commit to a certain opening. The other idea is to tempt White to overextend his center and then to attack it as a weakness. These ideas may work against lesser players but stronger players know better and can take advantage of the space granted. Point is that Black can't just sit back forever and expect White to make a big mistake. Black should plan on striking SOMEWHERE in the center within the first 10 moves. In this opening this would probably be ..c5 or ..e5 after preparation.