Anything for laughs. Might as well play the horses. Or burn your time.

fcpanginen typically falls on d-pawn openings.

Great demonstration of how to turn a bad position to a good one, though I don't ever advise to play this opening.

nice game as white

way to eat your veggies

the point of this opening i think is to test ones skill of bringing his position from bad to good one

Thanks for the article! I've seen players use similar openings on Clubhouse Games for the DS. *sigh* They're either very very bad players or very very good. In any case, this is a good lecture on sound opening principles--and how to fight back should the player find themselves in a bad position.

So...Putrid Cabbage attack...where's the Sauerkraut attack? Or is that the counter? ;)

MAN AWESOME ARTICLE.

I agree that the cabbage attack is not a good opening for white. It was still an amusing article to read and those were some interesting games that FM_Eric_Schiller and fcpanginen played.

I think an FM should have his own assistant to rule out typos...

I  also entered the Thematic Cabbage Tournament, but without knowing what the Cabbage Attack was, so when I saw white's thematic opening position, I thought it was a joke:' Get out of this mess, Johnny!'   I had to go on holiday and , so I forfeited all my games, which gave me a size zero grade.

Next time I smell a cabbage it goes in the bin!

Any opening can be exploited with good play.

DavidRMerrikin - I would disagree with your statement "it does emphasize the importance of sound opening theory," on the grounds that the writer won both games - one with the awful opening and one with the good opening.

Doesn't prove so much, it really just says that if you're strong enough, you can beat a weaker opponent with an unsound opening.

Especially at other web sites in "meaningless" games, I play this kind of stuff. I open with 1. Na3 or advance a bunch of pawns one square for 4 or 5 moves. It's all nonsense moves, of course. But as my opponent develops normally and gets a clear advantage, I try to make more reasonable moves and fight back.

If nothing else, this kind of play, intentionally disadvantaging myself early on, preparare me for more serious games when I find myself a pawn down or in bad positions. I learn from those training games that even though I am losing, there is still a war left to fight. After all, it's not like ANY player is going to have a winning position every time he sits down at the board.

Now I can go into an endgame in a worse position and/or a pawn down and still make a game of it.

This is one the funniest things I've read in ages.

At a first glance, yes, pointless, stupid, and devoid of any instructional value, but as exagerated as this example may be, it does emphasize the importance of sound opening theory. I am not a master, so this has to be taken with a grain of salt, but I believe that even basic modern openings are not all equally as good. Why else would the Bogo-Indian flop (statistically) while the Nimzo-Indian is one of Black's Strongest defenses? I have been studying opening theory for four weeks and my Elo rating has jumped up atleast 250 points, and is still rising. These are just examples, but they really stress the importance of one's choice of opening. My point is this: Get the first three or four moves right, and exploit any way your opponent does not, and win the game.

I've had three good wins against fcpanginen, he's quite prone to blunders.

Pointless, stupid, and devoid of any instructional value.  Now this is my kind of chess article.  You chess.com contributors, we need more stuff like this.  No, I am not kidding.