Wednesday 28 July 2010

Openings that just get bashed

There are a couple of openings that seem to turn up on the wrong side of hacks more often than not. Certain lines of the French for example, or passive openings like the Philador. Of course this is an exercise in self selection (for me at any rate) as having decided an opening is bad I tend to notice evidence confirming this belief.
The Queens Gambit Accepted is another opening in this category. I can remember an old game (pre-1990!) where Hubner got snapped as Black taking the pawn, and I'm pretty sure I've seen a few others. Adding to that list is the following brilliancy that turned up in my latest copy of Chess Today. In a variation of the QGA that has a degree of historical provenance (Euwe, Alekhine and Najdorf have all been on the white side of it), Drozdovskij not only sacrifices his own queen, but allows his opponent to get an extra one as well. However this is all to no avail and the game is over in 21 moves.

Drozdovskij,Yuri (2624) - Ivanov,Jordan (2422) [D27]
15th Open Balaguer ESP (6), 24.07.2010

1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 e6 5.Bxc4 c5 6.0-0 a6 7.Bb3 Nc6 8.Nc3 b5 9.Qe2 Bb7 10.Rd1 Qc7 11.d5 exd5 12.e4 d4 13.Nd5 Qd8 14.Bf4 Rc8 15.a4 c4 16.axb5 d3 (D)
17.bxc6 dxe2 18.Nxf6+ Qxf6 19.cxb7 exd1Q+ 20.Rxd1 Qc6 21.Ba4 1-0

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