Saturday, November 30, 2019

Trash Talk

In this video, international master Miodrag Perunovic calls the Philidor Counter Gambit "complete trash."  

He adds to the litany of other such negative comments about the PCG including "absolutely unsound", "busted", "junk", "execrable", "dilapidated", "unprincipled", "coffeehouse", and (my personal favorite) "wild West chess."

Instead of, after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 f5 4.Bc4 Nc6 5.Ng5 Nh6 6.d5 playing the move 6...Ne7, Steinitz gave 6...Nb8 7.Nc3 fxe4 8.Ncxe4 Bf5=.

Fabiano Caruana improved on 7.Nc3 with 7.f4.

So Black should interpolate 6...f4 7.h4 before 7...Nb8.