[chessmind] Dennis Monokroussos: This Week's ChessBase Show: Gligoric & Fischer vs. the King's Gambit

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Posted by Dennis Monokroussos:
This Week's ChessBase Show: Gligoric & Fischer vs. the King's Gambit
http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1196825364.shtml


   The last few weeks have seen us take a critical look at double king
   pawn openings where Black plays an early ...f7-f5, and the results
   haven't been pretty. This week we take aim at the granddaddy of f-pawn
   pushes in the Open Game, the King's Gambit. It's a wonderfully
   entertaining opening with a great history, but its soundness has
   certainly come into question the past few decades.
   To claim that it's completely busted would be an overstatement, but
   it's not for want of trying. The most famous pronouncement of the KG's
   death came in 1961, when in the wake of his 1960 KG loss to Boris
   Spassky (though from a won position!), Bobby Fischer proclaimed that
   he had refuted it with 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 d6! Fischer never got
   the chance to try his refutation - in fact, he subsequently played the
   King's Gambit on several occasions, but with 3.Bc4 - but another world
   class grandmaster did, with great results.
   That player is Yugoslav legend Svetozar Gligoric, a 3-time candidate
   and elite grandmaster for more than 30 years. Gligoric's resume as a
   player, theoretician, writer and even as an arbiter places him as one
   of the great figures of chess in the 20th century. (A rigorous proof:
   Kasparov devotes a mini-chapter to him in part III of [1]My Great
   Predecessors. QED.)
   Putting it all together, we'll look at Gligoric's two deliriously
   successful outings with Fischer's "bust" of the King's Gambit: his
   27-move win over Albin Planinec (a remarkable player in his own right)
   and his even faster win over Ricardo Calvo; both games played in 1977.
   They're entertaining, of theoretical interest, and they remind us that
   there is no guarantee that White will have all the fun in the King's
   Gambit!
   I look forward to seeing all you later today (Wednesday, at 9 p.m. ET;
   early Thursday for those of you "across the pond" in Europe); if you
   need directions for watching the show (free, as always), have a look
   [2]here.

References

   1. http://www.amazon.com/Garry-Kasparov-Great-Predecessors-Part/dp/1857443713
   2. http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1114234449.shtml