Richard Wincor and Baroque Openings

Submitted by boilermaker1234 on Mon, 07/14/2008 at 3:20am.

Note: this article was previously published in The Chess Parrot, Issue 24.

An American in King Arthur’s Court

By Tim Sanders

Richard Wincor had strong ties to the U.K. A graduate of Harvard and Harvard School of Law (class of 1948), he moved to London to work for an American law firm. He specialized in copyright law and authored several well-respected books on that subject. He also dabbled in fiction, writing Sherlock Holmes in Tibet. In WWII he was a code-breaker for the U.S. Army. Richard died on March 14, 2003.

Richard Wincor, pictured above.

Wincor was also an accomplished amateur chess player. His book, Baroque Chess Openings (How to Play Your Betters at Chess and on Occasion, Win) was published in 1972 by Gambit, Incorporated. It can still be found occasionally at www.amazon.com .

Baroque Chess Openings is an interesting mix of humor, insight, philosophy, and chess. By “baroque”, he meant irregular, grotesque or ornate. He suggested that it is best for the average player to begin chess games with the purpose of leading the opponent to unfamiliar territory, where you stand a better chance of winning. His canons are:

1. Choose and opening that is unlikely to be forced into something else.

2. Make sure the forced alternatives are also Baroque.

3. Delay “fighting”.

4. Disguise your intentions until the last possible moment.

5. Hold back, mass forces on the center.

6. Attack in the middle-game, keeping closed positions until the last moment.

His chapters are: Personal Style in Chess, The Dutch Stonewall, Indian Formations, Black Systems, On the Virtues of Obstructing, and The Perfect Opening.

He quotes Sun Tzu, Tacitus, and Xenophon, comparing chess to Tai-chi. He includes many games. For instance, the following game is from the Dutch Stonewall chapter. It features a British Lady Champion, Rowena Bruce, and her husband, Ronald. The game begins in a Bird formation before transposing. Wincor says the game was taken from the BBC show, Chess Treasury on the Air.

Bruce,Rowena - Bruce,Ronald

England, 1960

1.f4 Nf6 2.e3 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.d4 0-0 5.Bd3 c5 6.c3 b6 7.0-0 Bb7 8.Nbd2 d6 9.h3 Nbd7 10.Qe1 Qc7 11.g4 e5 12.fxe5 dxe5 13.Qg3 Nd5 14.Ne4 Rae8 15.Bd2 Kh8 16.Qh4 N5f6 17.Nfg5 Bxe4 18.Bxe4 exd4 19.Bd5 dxe3 20.Rae1 exd2 21.Rxe8 Rxe8 22.Qxh7+ Nxh7 23.Nxf7+ Kg8 24.Ne5+ Kh8 25.Nxg6# 1-0

It seems White stumbles momentarily at 15.Bd2 but Black fails to capitalize. Again with 20.Rae1, White falters, but is it intentional? White’s plan becomes evident with 22.Qxh7+, and Black is doomed (see figure 1).

Figure 1. After 22.Qxh7+

The book also features games from Larsen, Petrosian, Pillsbury, Alapin, Sultan Khan, Rev. John Owen, and may others, including Wincor. The reader may be tempted to skip to the last chapter, The Perfect Opening. There you will find that he recommends the Mieses (1.d3) for White, and1.d6 for Black. He offers suggestions for steering these toward his Baroque concept.

I highly recommend this immensely readable and enjoyable book. It will entertain as well as teach. Wincor states his book is not for the GM, nor the beginner, but those in between. I suppose that fits the majority of us!

p.s The games are in descriptive notation, but I have a pgn file of them if anyone wants them, email me at tsanders12@yahoo.com

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