“E4 is a Forced Win!” An Intermediateclass (Part 1: Perfecting Chess)

Written August 2022--Revised April 2023

The book White to Play and Win, by Weaver Adams, introduces a very interesting chess puzzle--in the starting position of the game, white has a winning move. Can you find it?

Weaver W. Adams was one of the most controversial figures in chess. He declared many times, although his reasoning changed, that the King's Pawn Opening should always lead to a win for white; however, even when playing what he decided were all of the best moves, he rarely managed to prove his theory against other masters. His legacy still endures as players continue to score brilliancies with his suggestions, including the Vienna Game, the Bishop's Opening, the Adams Attack and, most importantly, the King's Pawn. In this series I will try to explain all of the many e4 openings championed by dozens of masters--the human and the superhuman.

To start out, I want to first take a look at the openings of Adams himself. Against e5, the standard reply to e4, he suggested first the Bishop's Opening, then the Vienna Game. He was an early pioneer in both, but the Vienna is gaining more prominence from the promotion of Levy Rozman (aka Gothamchess). 

Adams declared that 1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 was the way to go in a couple years after he first published White to Play and WIn in 1939, which advocated Bc4 instead. However, his legacy lives on in the second weapon he deployed. Here is his game against E. T. McCormick in 1947--it serves a testament to his brilliance yet also shows how his opening preparation slowly falls apart when the middlegame begins.

Somehow, through this game, his mistakes are the justification of his theory--white will win only if they play perfectly. He could never be disproven, because no one can play chess perfectly. Unless, of course, an entity arose that could claim to play chess as close to perfection as possible... 

PART II: Stockfish vs. Adams