Less than 2 months ago as every year there was again a lot of tension at home. The Saint Nicholas-day was approaching so my children were writing their wish-list of things they like to get as presents. Next it is always necessary to temper the expectations as the demand is always bigger than the supply. However the chat with my 8 year old son didn't proceed this time as forecast.
- I: "Do you really need to get this? Wouldn't that be a better present for you?
- My son: "It is probably again too expensive for you?"
- I: "Mmm? For me?
- My son: "I meant for Saint Nicholas of course."
- I: "Do you know something more already about Saint Nicholas?"
- My son:"Well I saw my ante Ellen when she was hiding the chocolate-eggs when I was 5 years old. I saw mama putting the coin of the tooth-fairy under my pillow when I lost my first tooth. So I also have figured out a long time ago who is Saint Nicholas."
- I:"Oh and I hoped to keep enjoying for awhile your innocence. Why didn't you tell me earlier?"
- My son:"Ach I just played my role so I wouldn't miss any presents. Does this mean that I won't get any this year?
Of course I didn't deny him his presents. All children are dreaming about it and each culture has its own children-day. In Russia this is the 31st of December: Дед Мороз & Снегурочка (Grandfather frost and his granddaughter Snegoerotsjka). Like Saint Nicholas in Belgium you can meet him/them regularly in shopping-malls or even on the street. You can see them showing up in many advertisements. Even some gigantic statues are made of them whereby it is queuing to make a picture together with the children.
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| My 2 children posing next to the statues. |
Of course this means they can profit of some more presents. Grandpa and grandma (kortatei and nanei we call them conform their Tatar background) spoiled them with candy and a nice amount of pocket money to spend to whatever they liked.
We don't participate with our family at other children-days although I notice that Halloween becomes more and more popular in our country. In my childhood this day wasn't celebrated at all but today there are a lot of activities around Halloween. While being in Open Le Touquet there was a real trick or treating organized by the government see e.g twitter VilleduTouquet.
However it is not because I haven't experienced Halloween as a child that it is something new for me. Via chess I already got acquainted decades ago with Halloween. I am of course talking about the Halloween-gambit and this finally steers the story to the real subject of this article. I like not standard introductions.
The Halloween-gambit was originally called Muller-Schulze gambit or also Leipzig gambit (see wikipedia). Only after an article of Jakob Steffen was published in 1996 the new name became popular. Halloween-gambit sounds much better so the old names were quickly replaced. At amateur-level the gambit became somewhat popular thanks to the scary character of the resulting complications. An article on the site of Tim Krabbe: "A breeze in the sleepy Four knight's game" added some more fuel to the fire. However this also meant simultaneously the end of the gambit. The extra attention attracted some theoreticians and very quickly some anti-dotes were discovered. I still remember a less known anti-dote from that period which I still like to play online, see example below.
That is the disadvantage of many gambits. You can often return the piece and maintain a nice position. Nevertheless the gambit is still sometimes used as a surprise-weapon. Hereby also some new refined versions of the gambit were discovered which are less dubious. I refer to the Halloweengambit against the glek which is sometimes also called the reversed Halloween-gambit. Even some strong players have tried this system with some success.
Finally there is also something like the double reversed Halloween-gambit or should we call it the reversed Glek. Also in that version the gambit is perfectly playable. This was already demonstrated by a very young Magnus Carlsen. His fondness for off-beaten openings, is something he clearly got from childhood.
Maybe this history is something already known by the reader and this article just refreshed your memory. The double reversed Halloween-gambit was already covered by an article published in 2008 on the blog of Sverre Johnsen but I assume few are aware about that. However I did knew about it which was something my opponent in round 3 of the Open Leuven experienced. The surprise failed and I quickly got a comfortable position especially after white hallucinated.
I sometimes hear parents complain that their children lose games due to those kind of dubious gambits. They find it lame that some players try to win by using traps so preventing their children to play a full game of chess. However traps are also an important part of chess which you need to deal with. Or you adapt the repertoire to avoid those kind of gambits or you learn the anti-dotes often after a number of losses. Recently I was again criticized of not willing to let my son play some main-openings. This would be bad for this development. Personally I don't see what the benefit is of letting my son lose games in less than 20 moves due to some traps. Today it is more important to let him play long games. First priority for him should be to build up a solid position and how to proceed instead of learning a number of theoretical moves.
Brabo
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