|
The connection may be strong, but it is far from obvious, some might
even say obscure. A couple of months ago I wrote about Anatoly Karpov's game against 'the world' played over the internet and his six-board clock simultaneous against the Finnish national team. My source provided an incorrect match result (I reported that Karpov won 4-2, when it was a 3-3 draw). The correction came over the internet, by email, from a Finnish student at London University. He had seen the column not in the newspaper but on the internet.
The internet connection is not finished (intentional!) yet. Jyrki's message pointed me in the direction of his own internet site, which contains everything you could possibly wish to know about the Diemer-Duhm Gambit (1 e2-e4 e7-e6 2 d2-d4 d7-d5 3 c2-c4, or 1 d2-d4 d7-d5 2 c2-c4 e7-e6 3 e2-e4).
That position, which arises after three very natural moves, can scarcely be discovered in any of the published works on the opening, yet it is great fun and, for the average player at least, quite playable. That just goes to show how fashion-conscious most books (and players) are. I have already played the gambit three times (once each with 1 e2-e4, 1 d2-d4 and 1 c2-c4), so why don't you try it and have some fun? Coming full circle, the position above comes from one of Jyrki's (rating 1890) best games with the opening.
A recent book which could also give you a lot of fun in the opening, albeit requiring better positional understanding than the direct tactics which tend to prevail in the Diemer-Duhm, is Batsford's A Complete Defence for Black, by Raymond Keene and Byron Jacobs. Priced at £12.99 this gives excellent coverage of the Nimzowitsch Defence (1 e2-e4 Nb8-c6) which may look odd to you, and it is certainly unfashionable, but is perfectly playable.
|
