Heh. My memory of that situation is that we had a few genuine hardcore St Georgians ... <Shr0pshire>, who had a database of 1...a6 corr games, and <mack>, who'll play anything. Some others may have been in it for a lark, true.

A minute before polls closed, 1...a6 and 1...c5 each had 12 votes, and 1...e5 had 11. I'd voted for 1...e6, which had one vote. And nobody knew the totals, as voting was hidden.

Maybe chess is changing. Well, of course it is ... but I think there are fewer absolute beginners in simuls these days. Either there are less of them around, or they improve more rapidly thanks to the net.

My only proper previous simuls were against Miles and Keene in the 1970s, and in both cases I remember people being mated inside ten moves. Last night, against Short, even the lower boards were pretty solid -- every game got to move 20 or so, and then suddenly the dominos began to fall.

Despite the semi-hierarchic board arrangement, his tougher games came from all quarters. The guy on the very last board put up a great fight, and only cracked just before me. And the draws were in the central zone.

I was worried about 15...Bxc6 16.Qxf7 d4 17.Qxe6+, which I thought simply gave too much away. But after 17...Kb8 Black's position is optically very promising, with all sorts of threats. I've only got an old copy of Fritz 8 running at the moment, but it evaluates this position as better for Black -- roughly -0.90, which is not entirely to be fneezed at.

click for larger view

White does have four connected passed pawns, of course. Meaning I would have had to kill him very dead indeed with the attack, lest they start rolling.

I think he'd probably have avoided the line. He didn't take on f7 at other stages, and would have seen the danger hidden in the e6 capture. So after 15...Bxc6, possibly ... hmm. What else is there? Maybe 16.Qxf7 but then *not* the tempting 17.Qxe6+?

Yes, that's what Fritz likes.
16...Bxc6 17.Qxf7 d4 and now maybe 18.Ng5 ... e6 will still fall, but the Black attack can also be countered.

Still looks better than what I played. Two missed opportunities, then. One (...Nxe5) which I'd analyzed into scary complications and ran out of time to go deeper, and this one - which I just failed to evaluate properly.

Most instructive. In an OTB game, I suspect I'd have played 14...Nxe5 after a suitably long think. But I don't think I'd have seen this one at all. On successive moves, as well. I suppose at least it means I got out of the opening in good shape, and only began to miss stuff and blunder when left to my own devices.

And it's more than my favorite opening: it's what I've been playing for 30 years. If I want a change of scene, I go to a different variation. Also, I've never played other defences to e4 particularly well, but I have some scalps with the French. It was good enough for a simul draw with Tony Miles, a long time ago.

Another game between 2000-ish players (Agustsson-Fant, Gausdal 2006) deviated with 14.Bxc6, but was a bit like Ohio's idea: 14.Bxc6 Bxc6 15.0-0 d4 16.Qd3 0-0-0 ...

Black is definitely better here, even though he managed to lose the actual game - and it has transposed into something like Ohio's idea. But if White had played 14.Bxc6 first I'd have had no problem taking back with the Bishop, as there's no danger yet to f7 and e6. Then White obligingly retreats with Qd3, making 0-0-0 possible. Much easier to play against than Nigel's move order.

Which, I suppose, is why Short is rated 2658 and Mr Agustsson was 1940.

But it's amazing to find a game going all the way to move 16 -- repeating my failure to play either 14...Nxe5 or 15...Bxc6.

<Ohio Units>, mebbe? Who do you call in math world to make these things official?

A correction: Kristjansson played 15...Bxc6. (It is from a Huge base I have).

[Event "Ch Iceland"]
[Site "Reykjavik (Iceland)"]
[Date "1981.??.??"]
[Round "10"]
[White "Arnason Jon L (ISL)"]
[Black "Kristjansson Bragi (ISL)"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2440"]
[BlackElo "2283"]
[ECO "C17"]
[PlyCount "68"]
[EventDate "1981.??.??"]

My idea, such as it is, is that 10...Nbc6 11.Nf3 Qxa5 is OK for Black. I've had one game myself (and I've seen a few others, possibly with Vaganian as Black) where the White a5 pawn was left untouched, and later caused some trouble by advancing to a6. It's not really one of those cases where 'the pawn isn't going anywhere' - it can still get up to mischief. And a5 isn't a bad spot for the Queen, even though it usually has to return to c7 anyway.

I tend to agree with Watson's ideas on the French -- especially on 'minor' and obscure lines, as in his Dangerous Weapons: French book. But my numero uno author on the opening as a whole has to be Psakhis -- I have five of his books on the French.

White won, by advancing kingside pawns, but I don't think Black played so well. In fact, I have a dim memory of seeing this game before. I remember Michael Rohde as a strong junior in the 1970s -- he was the USA entrant in the world junior championships around 1976.