Sicilicide or Suicide?1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Nf3 g6 4.h4!?
I enjoyed seeing the games from the recent Marshall Chess Club Championship (see crosstable), some on ICC and most in the club's tournament bulletins (see Rounds 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 at the club's website). Dylan Loeb McClain discusses two of the GM games at his Gambit blog (see "Ehlvest Wins Marshall Chess Club Championship"), but it was actually the games of FM Effim Treger (also spelled "Yefim"), with their frequently amusing openings, that interested me most.
I have annotated the game Treger-Charbonneau, where Treger eventually drew by perpetual check against the GM after a wild ride.
The game features a line in the Two Knights Sicilian recommended by Nigel Davies in a Foxy video titled "Sicilicide" which goes 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Nf3 g6 4.h4!? Whether it is really sicilicide or suicide is yet to be determined, but it sure looks like fun! Another idea in this line for the adventurous, by the way, is 4.a3!? (planning an eventual b4 push) which was discussed by Hikaru Nakamura in SOS 5 and featured in the game Ljubojevic-Miles, Tilburg 1985. It's nice to get out of book against the Sicilian!
You might enjoy checking out other games by Treger, if only to see the crazy ideas he cooks up in lines like the Apocalypse Attack (1.e4 c6 2.Nf3 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Ne5!?) and Nakamura's Matrix (1.e4 e5 2.Qh5!?). Checking out some of Treger's past games online (see especially Moulin-Treger, Marshall CC 1995), I see a player who knows how to have fun in the opening, even if it sometimes gets him into trouble! But I like his attitude and his creative spirit, which I have always tried to achieve in my own approach to the game.
3 comments:
i believe there was an article on this line in Secrets of Opening Surprises #6 (pink/yellow cover) by Jeroen Bosch. I didn't buy it, but i leafed thru it at a bookstore a while ago.
Seems playable-- no need for an all or nothing "with us or against us" view. :)
I just cannot believe that h5 is best in response to h4 and certainly doesnt deserve a ! imo. In general in these positions, g5 square is more important than preventing h5 so ...h5 looks dubious. Bg7 looks more reasonable, often black can play nh6 and bg4 later on.
Ilya -- you make a good point. I was mostly going by the games, which have favored Black. I looked at the Donaldson & Silman article in SOS 6 on the anti-Accelerated Dragon line 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6 3.h4!? mentioned by katar and was convinced that 3...h6! is probably Black's safest option there -- which suggests maybe 4...h6!? is an idea here, meeting 5.h5 with 5...g5.
This is interesting stuff, though I suspect Black has a number of ways to equalize.
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