Funny, something reminded me of Wallace Stevens too. Heh, I just *knew* it was pastiche. It usually is.

One day, somebody scrawled a common four-letter word starting with 'f' on the blackboard. As schoolboys do.

He didn't bat an eyelid. He just told us, sadly, that English - with its small and tawdry vocabulary of vulgar words - was an impoverished language for swearing in. He then gave us other examples such as Gaelic, where 'buineach ort' is a *proper* curse.

OK, I admit I've been taking a closer look at this opening. Playing through various games and seeing how they go. A few things struck me:

(1) The typical middlegames aren't that different to, say, the King's Indian or the English Opening. Few exchanges, two slowly interlocking pawn structures, and positional jockeying for space. These are things I'm comfortable with, and are not typical of some e4 openings.

(2) While some mainlines follow theory to move 25 or 30, at a lower level there are many plausible deviations for both sides. As long as White doesn't rush into playing d4, and can stop Black's ...d5, the game is likely to stay positional.

(3) These deviations may lead to a slight disadvantage between GMs, but few amateur players have the skill, knowledge and experience to deal with them. I don't mean such sharp lines as 3...f5 for Black - just variations where both players make reasonable moves, while drifting away from the main theoretical battlegrounds. A lot of games between 2200s are like this.

(4) If I *did* essay 1.e4 again, I'd be happy with a King's Indian Attack against the French, and maybe a Grand Prix vs the Sicilian. The problem would be 1...e5 -- I've toyed around with the Scotch and the Ponziani before, and have even played a couple of Italian Games. But all of these lead to *less* positional struggles than the Spanish.

(5) I'll havta lose my virginity *sometime*, won't I?

That said, I haven't even played the Spanish in practice games with engines, so I'm deeply ignorant of the topic.

Hear, hear! That is *so* very true.

(Incidentally, one of the reasons I've found <Crescent Moon>'s translation a bit stilted is that the translator just couldn't come up with convincing translations for all the wonderfully juicy Hungarian swearing in it...) ;s

I'd say Strine is the best English dialect as juiciness goes. :D

<He then gave us other examples such as Gaelic, where 'buineach ort' is a *proper* curse.

Putting it delicately, it means "May you have laxity of the bowels".>

OK, I admit I've been taking a closer look at this opening.>>

:) :) :)

Back to your line, 1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nc3 e5 ... I remember posting a game here which I won quickly, by playing g3/Bg2/Rb1/a3/b4, while Black over-extended with ...f5, ...d6, ...Be6. By move 12 or so White's pressure on c6/b7, from the Rb1 and Bg2, was lethal.

Sometimes Black will play ...c5, ...e5, and ...a5, accepting multiple holes in order to discourage pawn breaks. Though even here White can usually build up to b4.

The main alternative, I suppose, is 1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.d4, preventing ...e5 for the time being. Black gets good play in this line, though. I was surprised to see Richard Palliser write, in 'Dangerous Weapons: Flank Openings', that "An early d4 causes problems for a number of Symmetrical English players [as Black]. Club players rarely face it, unlike those lines with an early g3 which can be met with a Botvinnik set-up (3.g3 e5 4.Nc3 g6 5.Bg2 Bg7)."

A surprise, because 3.d4 was my main line for years, and I never realized it was unusual. But Palliser goes on to suggest a sharp line for Black -- 1.c4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5!? 5.Nb5 a6!? which may not be to everyone's taste. After 6.Nd6+ Bxd6 7.Qxd6 Qf6, it's similar to a Lowenthal Sicilian:

click for larger view

Unlike the quieter fianchetto lines, you have to know what you're doing in a variation like this. One amusing line given by Palliser is 8.Qc7 Nge7 9.Nc3 Nd4?? 10.Ne4 Qe6 11.Nd6+ Kf8 12.Qd8#.

One other option is to play d4 at once, even on move 2: 1.Nf3 c5 2.d4 ... or prepare it with 2.c3 if you don't want a piece recapturing on d4. But this approach tends to lead to something like a Reversed Slav or Reversed Grunfeld. It can also suddenly become a Sicilian if White lobs in e4.

2.b3 is actually quite good against 1...c5, I think. If Black plays 2...d5, then 3.e3 is the classic Nimzo-Larsen Attack formation, with Bb2 and Bb5 planned, plus control of e5. A reversed Nimzo/Queen's Indian with an extra tempo. I play this sometimes.

But I persist in my addiction to abstract themes and hidden patterns that almost nobody sees a point to.

(OK, to which almost nobody sees a point ...)

you get a first in all these years to even get a good go at 'm' =]

I opened my first game with 1.e3 and won in 12 moves. This went to my head, and I proceeded to lose 3 out of 7.

To compound matters, they then changed the rating minimum for the championship to 2200 plus qualifiers, and I didn't actually get to play in one until 2008.

But I haven't used 1.e3 much since. My final opponent in '77, the tournament winner and a future FM, grinned when he saw my 1.e3, said "I thought you might do that", and whipped out his preparation -- 1...g6. It rules out Nimzo-Larsen stuff with b3 - the main plan after 1.e3 - and turns into a King's Indian or Leningrad Dutch with the dubious move e3 played.

I prefer 1. (or 2.) a3!, actually.

I spent a while looking at this recently - the Bird is on my list of 'occasional' openings, but I don't have a good record with it.

Thats a good tip about g3! I love opening with g3, but i've never really thought about it in a transposed bird type of way...maybe i have been subconciously doing it.

If that isn't a quote from the foreword to Pynchon's "Slow Learner" it's awfully close.