Beating marc esserman with his own opening

In reality Esserman let them win because he wants the Smith-Morra to get more recognition. He knows if he lets the person win forum posts will be made like "I just beat an IM with the Smith-Morra, it must be the best."

You see, this person playing white was a d4 player because they were scared of the Sicilian, but now after this game they'll play e4 hoping for a Sicilian so they can use the Smith-Morra, and Esserman has accomplished his goal of getting more recognition for the gambit.

AdorableMogwai wrote:

In reality Esserman let them win because he wants the Smith-Morra to get more recognition. He knows if he lets the person win forum posts will be made like "I just beat an IM with the Smith-Morra, it must be the best."

You see, this person playing white was a d4 player because they were scared of the Sicilian, but now after this game they'll play e4 hoping for a Sicilian so they can use the Smith-Morra, and Esserman has accomplished his goal of getting more recognition for the gambit.

_______________________________________________________________________________

There was another strong player who tried to promote the Smith-Morra Gambit. His name was Ken

Smith. Part of the opening bears his name. He tried it at the Church's Fried Chicken international

Tournament in San Antonio, Texas in 1972. He received a shellacking at the hands of GM Donald Byrne,

GM Larry Evans, GM Enrique Mecking. After that tournament the Smith-Morra Gambit was not seen in international tournaments for decades. That is until recently when Marc Esserman decided to resurrect

this dead horse. As with all gambits, you can accept the gambit or you can decline it. Either way any player with a rating of 2000 or higher knows how to decline the gambit with 2...Nf6, and accepting it leaves White with insufficient compensation (1 maybe 2 tempi for a central pawn) for the correct defense with the theme of 6...a6.

Because he wrote a book on it, the more recognition the gambit gets, the more people will buy the book.

Anyway I was just kidding. I don't really think Esserman lost on purpose, but the loss does have that silver lining of making the gambit look good.

 I'm a Sicilian player myself and I used to think the Smith-Morra was bad. I always used the defensive set up of a6, e6, nc6, etc. In my games, usually white wouldn't be able to make anything of their development lead and initiative. But then when I actually went back and did computer analysis of those games, I found in almost every single one of my wins there was some big tactical shot white had missed at some point. The gambit wasn't bad, it was that my opponents weren't skilled enough tactically to use it. I imagine most black players accepting the gambit would find the same thing in their own games with missed opportunities by white.

The gambit is not easy to play for white, it requires good tactical vision. Almost always there's going to be an opportunity for white but the challenge for them is to spot it. White also has to know a lot of theory since there's about 20 different defenses black can use. (Taylor, Chicago, Finegold, Larsen, Classical mainlines, Siberian Trap, Nge7 lines, etc.)

I had heard the story of Ken Smith at the Texas tournament before. I just think it's funny that average chess players so readily copy the opening trends of grandmasters. I think it was Larry Evans who made fun of Ken Smith saying "playing 1...c5 against this player gives an unfair advantage because it wins a pawn, hurr hurr", and then all the average chess players read it and think "oh the Smith-Morra sucks because Ken Smith couldn't beat Grandmasters with it" It's funny too that the Taylor defense became the most popular defense because that's what those three GMs used in that tournament. People just copy whatever the GMs do. I think the defense I've started to use now (after experimenting with various defenses and many involving a6) is better, the Kingside fianchetto variation, which has become obscure I think partly because the Taylor defense has overshadowed the other variations. That's good for me because the less people who use it, the less familiar white will be with it. People just copy whatever the GMs do and play the Taylor.

Now my opinion of the gambit has changed. I think it's a good and exciting opening, I use it myself as white sometimes and I respect white players who use it against me, because they're going for the win and trying to play exciting chess.

@AdorableMogwai

After 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 Nf6 the Morra gambit has been declined. White has a very poor record against 3...Nf6

You make some very good points.

I think the longer the time limit, the less chance the Morra has. I hate losing to this opening. I always feel I've gone down to a sucker punch from a drunken bar room brawler.

Within the league I play in the time limit is 30 in 1hr 15 mins 20 per hour with adjournments or preagreed quickplay finishes. From the black point of view you may have to defend all evening and may  run out of playing time to exploit the extra pawn. The Nf6 to the c3 Sicilian is objectively inferior (but still good), BUT it does allow you to knock the bar room brawler on his arse on the night rather than wait for the next session.

In white's favour also, as you mention it's not as common as it might be for club players, so black doesn't get so much practice against it. The white player has to ask himself if playing an opening based on waiting to exploit black's tactical  weakness has long term potential as he improves (hopefully)

I've been doing some homework after losing to a cheap tactical shot in a rapid play game. I like black plan of e6,a6,b5,Ne7 to g6,Nc6,Be7, early castling with a view to f5, prefaced by Kh8 . Not bothered in the short term about pawn on d7, B on c8

@Yaroslavl Declining with nf6 seems like a good option too, but I wonder how much the statistics of grandmaster games can apply to us.

@Ziggy, I used to use the Nge7 lines too, then I found the more obscure and better Kingside Fianchetto variation, which is a lot easier to play and much more comfortable. In the Kingside Fianchetto there's no e6 so the bishop on c8 isn't blocked, nor is there a backwards pawn on the d-file. Finally, white can't play normally against this variation, they must know the main lines which is an early e5 push before castling, if they don't know this (which no one in the 20 or so games I've played with it has) then black will just get a Sicilian Dragon set-up with white missing a c-pawn and white will have no compensation for the pawn. You can find the lines here http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kibitz134.pdf on page 6. This is the only information I've been able to find about it online by the way, though I'm sure it's covered in books on the Smith-Morra.

3...Nf6 always seemed like a question of preparation. You will have to play the c3 sicilian regardless so why not just transpose? I mean if Black wants to try and refute the Morra then that's fine but I'm personally not in the position to be refuting anything.

It may not be so bad from White's view though since it's probably less work than the open sicilian anyway.

Much appreciated, thanks. Will look at today

Why would you take an Alapin game when you can have a Smith-Morra game? The Smith-Morra games I've played (from both sides) have been some of the funnest games I've played in chess. Accepting it as black you then hunker down and try to survive the onslaught of zombies (chess pieces), hopefully emerging into an endgame a pawn up. Playing it as white is fun for obvious reasons, then you're directing the army of zombies!

Plus with the Kingside Fianchetto defense for black (unless white knows what they're doing) black gets a Sicilian Dragon anyway with white missing their c-pawn.

I avoided it just to keep theory low. I played 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cd 3.c3 g6 4.cd d5 which can be used on the Alapin as well. 

LOL