I DREAMED of a completely NEW opening in chess
This Tuesday I was dreaming that I was playing an over the board game against an opponent I know quite well who is also a fide master. We were playing the game in OSS which is a chess club in Oslo. I happen to remember the first moves of our game and in fact this opening happens to be a novelty. I lost the game in my dreams unfortunately.
*OSS chess club in a photo from their website
I went 1.e4 and my opponent replied with the pirc going 1...d6. So far everything is normal, but then I played 2.Bb5+. This move initially appears to be rather illogical and I strongly doubt I would play it in any game when I was awake! The thing is that black gets to play 2...c6 with a tempi which they would like to do regardless to increase the central control (controlling the d5 square) and slide a queen over to c7. Furthermore, c6 supports a potential b5 grabbing space. However, when I was about to fall asleep and was lying in bed the night after I suddenly began analyzing this opening and found an alluring idea which I will shortly share with you. 3.Ba4 I played in my dreams. Here the move 3...e5 or 3…Nf6 are typical. I will later reveal the surprising move my opponent played which the engine actually appreciates.
After these moves the plan I came up with in bed is either 4.c3 or 4.c4 followed by Bc2 and a further d4 grabbing the center. It turns out that upon completion of the strange maneuver white´s bishop on c2 is not too badly placed at all defending the pawn on e4. One thing to keep in mind as that after the move 3...Nf6 black is not in time to play c3, c4 right away because the pawn on e4 is hanging. Therefore I would recommend going 4.Qe2 4.d3 is also possible, but then the pawn break d3,d4 would be executed in two moves so this move I believe to be inferior to Qe2.
My opponent played 3...d5! You might be thinking what, he is moving his d-pawn twice in the opening! This is exactly what I thought in my dreams as well. I also felt a sense of surprise here. Surprisingly as aforementioned this move is not hated too much by the computer at all.
It turns out that if white plays Bb3 giving away the e4 pawn in this position, we get the hillbilly attack which Hikaru was playing in a stream when he was showing off different gambits.
*Hillbilly attack in an image from New in chess
In my dreams I played 4.exd and my opponent recaptured 4...Qxd5. Suddenly as lightning from a clear sky I began to feel cold sweat running down my spine. I remember I was really uncomfortable here in my dreams. I realized my opponent was attacking on g2 and was also scared that my bishop on a4 might be lost. In my bed the day after, I was first analyzing 5.Nf3 after which I thought 5...Bg4 followed by Bxf3 giving me doubled f-pawns. These pawns would become weak as they would be isolated and hence difficult to defend; this would not be exactly the same however if we could change the d-pawn to an e-pawn. Then the e-pawn would be able to defend the doubled f-pawns and they would not be as easy to target. Another thing to mention here is that after 6.Nc3 I concluded lying in my bed half-conscious, half-asleep that black should still go 6....Bxf3 7.Nxd5 Bxd1 8.Nc7+ Kd8 9. Nxa8 captured the rook. However after 9… Bg4 or Bh5 the knight on a8 in the corner in the board which is referred to as a Donkey by Viktor Bologan is likely going to be lost as it is trapped in the corner. However as my twitch chat pointed out, there is simply 5...Qe4+! After 5.Nf3 winning the undefended bishop on a4 after the king moves or Qe2. This explains why I was scared that my bishop on a4 might be lost after 4...Qxd5! However white has 5.Qf3 and now Qe4+ is now longer possible of course as the queen would simply be taken. In fact white is threatening Qxd5 because black can not take back with the c-pawn as the bishop on a4 is pinning it. Hence 5...Nf6 developing a piece and defending the queen. In a partly conscious state I thought white´s alternatives here are 6.Nc3, Bb3 and 6.Qxd5. Here I thought that after 6.Nc3 black takes on f3, 7.Nxf3 and has the interesting move Na6 with the idea of Nc5 trapping the bishop. After d4, preventing this plan black can play Bf5 with the idea of Nb4, so perhaps a3 is the best move. Here black would play for the plan e6, Be7, castle either king-side or queen-side and then play Nc7-d5. I was contemplating whether the plan with Na6-c5 is appropriate after 6.Bb3 Qxf3 and Nxf3 is appropriate as well. The computer thinks it is ok, but recommends the move Bf5 instead of Na6. After my final idea as white of playing Qxd5 followed by c3 attempting to build a strong pawn chain with d4. However, after Qxd5 Nxd5 it runs into Nf4 which is a double attack on the g2 pawn and on planting the knight on d3 square. The knight would be a bone in white´s throat from here.
It is interesting to note that the engine prefers 4.e5 giving black the option to go 4...Bf5 and then after 5.d4 this becomes really similar to a caro-kann position. An argument for having the bishop on a4 is that the typical pawn break with c5 is harder to execute as the c-pawn is pinned to the king by this bishop. However, black might be able to play b5 kicking away the bishop and then play c5. All in all it is not that apparent that white actually has an advantage after 4.e5 and the computer might be preferring whites position simply because white has more space in the center and the computer is programmed to count this space as an advantage.
Feel free to take a look at a brief analysis of the opening and a video where I talk about the opening and why I think I dreamed of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TFhA8nz2h4
In all honesty I do not remember what happened later in the game of my dreams.
Now to the interesting question of why I dreamed up a new opening; I believe I attempted to replicate a past experience. I wanted to play an opening I had looked at previously. In 2018 at a Russian chess camp my coach and numerous students were analyzing An interesting line against the Najdorf. 1.e4 c5 2. Bb5+ Nd7 3.c4 a6 4.Ba4 and here white´s idea is Bc2 to have the bishop support the center from here. Looks familiar? Indeed, this is the idea I believe I attempted to repeat in my dreams. Another part of the equation is that the last few days I have been training chess in a completely revolutionary way which I saw was recommended by Praggnanandhaa´s coach in his stream on twitch and have started to dream of chess nearly daily after it. He recommends that you only solve difficult studies taking between 20 and 30 minutes for each one for 3-4 hours each day. Here is the deal though, you do not have to train any other chess than this 3-4 hour session. If you do this for a duration of a week you improve your calculation significantly according to him.
Alright, I hope you enjoyed me briefly analyzing the opening which came to me during my sleep and then later talking about what I believe caused me to start dreaming about chess nearly every day. To dream of chess often might be beneficial due to something called the Mozart effect. When you think of something subconsciously when not directly doing it. This is rather abstract so let me give you some examples. It is said that Mozart became so great at playing instruments because he was picturing notes playing out in his mind even when not playing music. Something similar has been said to happen to Magnus Carlsen that he thinks of chess even when not playing chess.
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