Thank you for sharing this game David, I always like to look at the games of
the experts, as I can find interesting moves.
I cannot see the point why black declined the white's offer on move 36, Qe7,
can you?
Or maybe just the black's blunder.
Nene
From: David Rosenkoetter
Sent: 23 March 2021 16:38
To: usbca_chess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [usbca_chess] Re: Double bongcloud: why grandmasters are playing the
worst move in chess
Hi, everyone.
And here's one of the games mentioned in the article played by
Nakamura. I remember playing through this at the time and simply
yelling from the solitude of my study, "What the....?"
The game score follows my signature. Enjoy! It's Naka after all.
David
[Event "St. Louis Rapid & Blitz"]
[Site "lichess.org INT"]
[Date "2020.09.19"]
[EventDate "2020.09.18"]
[Round "18.5"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Hikaru Nakamura"]
[Black "Jeffery Xiong"]
[ECO "C20"]
[WhiteElo "2736"]
[BlackElo "2709"]
[PlyCount "103"]
1. e4 e5 2. Ke2 Nf6 3. d3 d5 4. Nd2 Nc6 5. c3 b6 6. Qc2 Bb7
7. Ngf3 Qd7 8. b4 O-O-O 9. a3 Kb8 10. Bb2 g6 11. Ke1 Bh6
12. Rd1 Rhe8 13. Be2 Nh5 14. b5 Na5 15. c4 Nf4 16. Bf1 dxc4
17. dxc4 f5 18. c5 fxe4 19. c6 Nxc6 20. bxc6 Bxc6 21. Nxe5
Nd3+ 22. Bxd3 exd3 23. Qc4 Bxg2 24. Rg1 Bb7 25. Qh4 Qf5
26. Qxh6 Rxe5+ 27. Bxe5 Qxe5+ 28. Qe3 Qxh2 29. Kf1 Qh5 30. f3
Bc6 31. Qg5 Qh3+ 32. Kf2 Qh2+ 33. Rg2 Qd6 34. Re1 Rf8 35. Kg1
Rf5 36. Qe7 Qf4 37. Qd8+ Kb7 38. Qxd3 Rd5 39. Qe3 Qh4 40. Qf2
Qa4 41. Re3 Qd1+ 42. Qe1 Qa4 43. Rc3 Rh5 44. Rg4 Qa5 45. Qc1
Qe5 46. Nf1 Qe6 47. Rgc4 Bb5 48. Rxc7+ Ka6 49. a4 Be2 50. Re3
Rg5+ 51. Kf2 Qh3 52. Kxe2 1-0
On 3/23/21, JT <hazelnutt2001@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Before reading this article, I’d never heard of the “Bongcloud” opening,
proving that I do not spend enough time studying and keeping up with what’s
going on in chess. In my defense, though, I will say that this article does
support something I, and many others, have said: “If you do your homework
and study an opening or defense to the extremity of your ability, you can
play almost any opening or defense with some degree of success. Would I try
it today? Not even at gunpoint! Might I try it in the privacy and secrecy of
my own home and against Shredder? Maybe—but only for the purposes of
expanding my understanding of tactics and positional play.
Enjoy! And Many Thanks to Jim Slagle for sharing this. IT came to me from
Jim Slagle’s chess@freelists List.
From: chess-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:chess-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Jim Slagle (Redacted sender "jamesrslagle" for DMARC)
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2021 9:05 AM
Bryan Armen Graham
<https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/mar/18/bongcloud-meme-opening-carlsen-nakamura>
Double bongcloud: why grandmasters are playing the worst move in chess
An otherwise meaningless game during Monday’s preliminary stage of the
$200,000 <https://www.theguardian.com/sport/magnus-carlsen> Magnus Carlsen
Invitational left a pair of grandmasters in stitches while thrusting one of
chess’s most bizarre and least effective openings into the mainstream.
Norway’s Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura of the United States had already
qualified for the knockout stage of the competition with one game left to
play between them. Carlsen, the world’s top-ranked player and
<https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2018/nov/28/magnus-carlsen-v-fabiano-caruana-world-chess-championship-tie-breakers-live>
reigning world champion, started the dead rubber typically enough by moving
his king’s pawn with the common 1 e4. Nakamura, the five-time US champion
and current world No 18, mirrored it with 1 … e5. And then all hell broke
loose.
Carlsen inched his king one space forward to the rank where his pawn had
started. The self-destructive opening (2 Ke2) is known as the bongcloud for
a simple reason: you’d have to be stoned to the gills to think it was a good
idea.
The wink-wink move immediately sent Nakamura, who’s been a visible champion
of the bongcloud in recent years, into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
Naturally, the American played along with 2 … Ke7, which marked the
<https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2029671> first double
bongcloud ever played in a major tournament and its official entry to chess
theory (namely, the Bongcloud Counter-Gambit: Hotbox Variation).
“Don’t do this!” cried the Hungarian grandmaster Peter Leko from the
commentary booth, looking on in disbelief as the friendly rivals quickly
settled for a draw by repetition after six moves. “Is this, uh, called
bongcloud? Yeah? It was something like of a bongcloud business. This Ke2-Ke7
stuff. Please definitely don’t try it at home. Guys, just forget about it.”
The double bongcloud enters chess theory.
Why is the bongcloud so bad? For one, it manages to break practically all of
the principles you’re taught about chess openings from day one: it doesn’t
fight for the center, it leaves the king exposed and it wastes time, all
while eliminating the possibility of castling and managing to impede the
development of the bishop and queen. Even the worst openings tend to have
some redeeming quality. The bongcloud, not so much.
What makes it funny (well, <https://youtu.be/HbO7PYDY0rU> not to everyone)
is the idea that two of the best players on the planet would use an opening
so pure in its defiance of conventional wisdom.
This bongcloud has been a cult favorite in chess circles since the dawn of
the internet, a popularity only fueled by Bobby Fischer’s
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B9p2PrsKWY> rumored deployment of the
opening in his
<https://web.archive.org/web/20051128165909/http:/news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/09/nchess09.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/09/09/ixhome.html>
alleged series of games with Nigel Short on the Internet Chess Club back in
2000. But its origins as a
<https://www.reddit.com/r/AnarchyChess/search?q=bongcloud&restrict_sr=on&include_over_18=on>
meme can be traced to Andrew Fabbro’s underground book
<https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Bongcloud-Andrew-Fabbro-ebook/dp/B0849S1LJ3>
Winning with the Bongcloud, a pitch-perfect parody of chess opening manuals
and the purple, ponderous language that fills their pages.
That’s not to say, like, say, Michael Chang’s underhand serve against Ivan
Lendl in the 1989 French Open, there’s no place for it at the elite level.
Carlsen
<http://theguardian.com/sport/2020/oct/02/chess-carlsen-wins-with-1-f3-as-play-magnus-raises-42m-in-oslo-listing>
used it last October in the first game of a speed chess final win over the
American grandmaster Wesley So, who confessed to its psychological effects
in the aftermath: “It’s hard to forget the game when someone plays f3 and
Kf2 and just crushes you. That’s so humiliating.”
Then later: “If you lose a game against 1 f3 and 2 Kf2 it’s just very
psychologically draining.”
Of course it’s Nakamura who has become the player most associated with the
bongcloud. The 33-year-old most recently
<http://chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2010678> won a rapid game using it
against the American grandmaster Jeffery Xiong last year during the $250,000
St Louis 27-round Rapid and Blitz. He’s even
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i7lJ84zf3E> streamed a speedrun series
where he attempted to reach a 3000 rating with a new account using only the
bongcloud.
The combined visibility, culminating with Monday’s viral moment, have lifted
an obscure meme opening out of the shadows. As of Wednesday, it’s been added
to the opening databases at lichess and chess.com. Of course, not everyone
will be a fan: no less than Short himself
<https://twitter.com/nigelshortchess/status/1372173036150001668> appeared to
describe the bongcloud as an “insult to chess” this week.
Chess will return to Serious Business once again in the next few months. The
eight-man candidates tournament to determine Carlsen’s challenger in this
year’s world chess championship <https://www.fide.com/news/952> will resume
in April in Yekaterinburg following last year’s
<https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/mar/26/chess-candidates-stopped-after-russia-suspends-air-traffic>
abrupt suspension. Then in November, Carlsen will embark on the fourth
defense of the title he’s held since 2013. The stratospheric stakes of those
events all but preclude scenes like Monday’s, which as commentator Tania
Sachdev put it amid the delirium, is too bad. After all, it’s only a game.
“It’s kind of nice,” Sachdev said, “to see these two players having a laugh
like this.”
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Source:
<https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/mar/18/bongcloud-meme-opening-carlsen-nakamura>
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/mar/18/bongcloud-meme-opening-carlsen-nakamura
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