My openings in Titled Tuesdays: Old and Extreme!
One of the good things about Blitz is that you can try virtually anything in the openings. You don't have to be particularly afraid of your opponent playing the absolutely precise lines (although there are no guarantees of course).
In my case it means using "my own", now unpopular, openings and systems: The King's Indian and Sicilian Dragon as Black, the Fischer/Sozin Attack as White etc, rather than making nonsense moves at the very beginning of the game. (Well: I have even played the "Tony Miles" setup 1… Na6 ...c6 for Black or 1. Na3 for White in some games. It is perhaps the maximum crime against common sense that I can afford in a tournament.)
And in Titled Tuesdays I can play "my" openings, including well forgotten versions of them, against quite strong opponents.
Let’s begin with rather extreme examples...
In July I won against GM V.Pranav in the Sicilian Dragon Yugoslav/Rauzer Attack 9.Bc4 with the help of the line (Qa5, 13...b5), which I used in a long-control game 39 years ago (1984) and never since 1985.
In our December TT game, V.Pranav opted for 9.0-0-0, and I won, repeating my 1983 game, in the line (13...Be6, 14...Rb8), which I last used as Black in a serious game in 1987.
And yes, Pranav, born in 2006, rated 2611 as of now, must be a much better player than I am these days. And no, I will not advise my students to play these lines as Black - for objective reasons. So, I can only use it for myself. And also for you, if you are incidentally reading my chess blogs.
Sure, I’m not always playing such variations, which I consider to be objectively dubious. I hope to show different examples in my next blog(s); bye for now!
