Lessons from the archive: The world's scariest move ever – 0-0-0

When was the last time you played 0-0-0? Judging by the excellent DHLC Slow Chess league games database, maybe you never did! The double-edged move occurs in less than every six games in our archive. Lets have a look at a few games where the long castling played a role, small or large, in winning the match.

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I am just an amateur player, but I do find there is a certain romance to the triple 0. It's brave almost to the point of suicidal, and it invites the opponent to charge forward in a hunt for a mate – in the confidence that his own king is not exposed. And it can be brilliant, beautiful art.

When reading Simon William's Attacking chess: The French recently, I was charmed by the great games he included that contained brilliant attacks that included triple 0. Surely, us mortals with ratings in the lower 1000 could muster something of the same?

Here's three examples of players succeeding with triple 0 at various levels. They are all in the downloadable archive.

I have not provided variations, as I am not an expert player my analysis can be somewhat flawed! Besides, the point here isn't to analyze the games to death, but to highlight some aspects. Commentary is therefore limited, but hopefully pointed.

Game 1: DHCL Slow Swiss #2 - Eris_Discordia (1473) vs dgross9 (1270) 0-1 

Game 2: DHLC Slow Swiss #5 - game_of_chess (2066) vs Samsch (1430) 1-0

Game 3: DHLC Bonus Pairings - Dr_Cris_Angel (951) vs Hogan9600 (1011) 1-0

I hope you enjoyed some of this. 

This blog takes material from the excellentDan Heisman Learning Centre's game archive, brilliantly put together by SirIvanhoe and now Farnel.