The Bongcloud Attack
chess.com
chess.com
http://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1401479151063.pdf
It is written in a completely deadpan style but is full of inside chess jokes, e.g.:
"Although both Botvinnik and Tal experimented with the opening, it was not until the Bobby Fischer took it up in the early 1960s that the opening found an exponent. Unfortunately, the Bongcloud in Fischer’s hands was so devastating that the games were short and unmemorable, and none are recorded in My 60 Memorable Games."
Bwahahaha ;)
> Nigel Short played against a strong player on Internet Chess Club who used the opening; Short suspected his opponent of being Bobby Fischer.
> English Grandmaster Nigel Short dubbed the opening an "insult to chess".
So...I wonder how the game against Fischer (?) went.
I like to believe that there's a mysterious and excellent human opponent on the other end. I find it difficult to believe an engine could have such a terrible opening, then go on to defeat a top blitz player. This is just my speculation.
It's more the other way around. Short was a world championship challenger. There is no human in the world who could beat him with such an opening, except for the possibility of a mysterious Fischer with expanded powers gathered during his time away from the mortal chess world. An engine could also do it, of course, and that's a far more likely explanation. A human operating the engine picks the opening, then lets the engine take over after a few moves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_6Zl1jNWYQ
But this is Magnus Carlsen we're talking about.
I mis-remembered the Bongcloud as: 1. f3 2. e5 Kf2 (i.e. “fianchettoing” the king :D), but that is apparently called the Hammerschlag.
https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._f3/1...
Brilliant
Also, arguably one of the most famous bong clouds of all time came from Magnus Carlsen to win a blitz tournament last year against Wesley So: https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/chess24-banter... . Carlsen turned a losing position into a stunning victory with a daring sacrifice.
I often play the bong cloud as a way to give a weaker opponent a handicap. It also works pretty well at psyching out a player who tries to stick to the book moves, but I've been consistently demolished when attempting the opening against anyone 1800+ on chess.com.
There is nothing impressive about beating Wesley So according to another chess meme that became popular last year:
> "w"esley "s"o is nobody for me, just a player who are crying every single time when loosing
https://en.chessbase.com/post/cheating-controversy-at-proche...
You can see the games related to the controversy here:
After the sixth move, by my count. And why would anyone play 2. Ke2 if they wanted to win?
> Why would anyone play 2. Ke2 if they wanted to win?
In order to have a fair (though whimsical) game from an unusual starting point; it would be interesting to see the game that develops from that position.
https://youtu.be/qATl41Ofjuo?t=1013 (Hikaru talks about the trolling)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gACRA8b8gTU (Base video where Magnus trolls the interviewers)
1. f3...
2. Kf2
It's not quite as bad as it looks, and at my level (~2000 lichess blitz/bullet) can generally serve its purpose to get people out of book and into novel middle games. (I also play blitz Chess 960 which is even better in this regard.)
In fact, the king isn't suicidally exposed, it's about as well defended as the king is during the Steinitz Gambit, which also involves an early king move under the main line.
I like playing the Steinitz too, but opponents rarely go along with it. Same with King's Gambit in general, people generally just play to defang it and trade trade trade down to something drawish. Yuck. I hate drawish chess.
I don't like the Bongcloud so much because it's even more cramped and I find it hard to play out of. But it could also be that it transposes into King's Indian / Queen's Indian lines I don't like so much, rather than Steinitz Gambit wildness.
It won! Such fun.
Of course you can also do this if you just castle on the opposite side from your opponent. But the point is that you can also use this technique with the Bongcloud.
I don't play crappy openings to win, though. I just want to play a wide variety of novel middle games, and if I have to sacrifice 100 rating points to get people out of book, that's a bargain. Because otherwise loss-aversion takes over and chess is all about playing for the draw.
One of the first things you learn as a beginner chess player is how to play against awful openings. It's not like good people have forgotten their opening principles.
If you measure exclusively against the metric of "how to max out your rating", then yeah, weird openings aren't very helpful. But if your metric is "how to dredge wild tactical games out of opponents, even if I lose more often", then weird openings are generally superior.
Of course the better way to neutralize opening prep and experience more wild games is just to play more Chess 960.
You are effectively putting the opponent in a clearly better position, but giving him the task of converting it before any pressure has been built up. That can throw people off.
i.e. 1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 Ke7 3. Qxe5#