Saturday, December 20, 2003
The Attack of the Morons
We have previously looked at the Moron Defense including both the Accepted and the Declined. What's good for black is even better for white, with an extra tempo, right? Maybe so. We call this Moron Defense in reverse the Moron Attack. The Moron Attack is characterized by an early exchange of pawns opening the d-file, a queen trade with white retaking on d1. It also frequently features white playing c3 and f3, with his king going to c2. Thus, the Moron attack mirrors the Moron Defense Accepted.
The early queen trade in the Moron makes it difficult for a Grandmaster to use the Moron Attack to play for a win against another GM. In the opening, black is often happy to equalize but white often strives for more so the Moron Attack is not a frequent visitor at high level chess. Nevertheless, we have examples of the Moron Attack in the hands of Reti, Hort, Speelman and others.
At the club level just getting to a playable middle game with typical positions that one understands is probably more important than which side has a slight advantage, and the Moron Attack can be a useful weapon for this purpose.
The Full Moron
In the Moron proper, white has a pawn at c4. In the corresponding positions from the Moron Attack, black would have a pawn at c5. In some of these Moron Attack examples black does not play a pawn to c5.
Does this difference matter? Yes, it can. In the words of Lewis McClary (from whom we learned the Moron) "Things that are different are not the same." The difference is that black can defend the d5 square with c7-c6 and also has the option of putting a piece on c5. In the games that start as a Sicilian Defense (1.e4 c5) we do get the proper or Full Moron setup.
In any case, these games are good to study as typical positions and to see how to conduct the middle game from these tableaus whether you play the Moron Defense, the Moron Attack or both.
Center Counter Surprise Weapon Revisited
The Moron Attack can come about from a variety of openings. In fact, we give six sample games with six different ECO opening codes. We even have one example from a Center Counter (aka Scandanavian) -- possibly a better surprise weapon against the Center Counter than the Wilson Gambit!
Here are the games.
The early queen trade in the Moron makes it difficult for a Grandmaster to use the Moron Attack to play for a win against another GM. In the opening, black is often happy to equalize but white often strives for more so the Moron Attack is not a frequent visitor at high level chess. Nevertheless, we have examples of the Moron Attack in the hands of Reti, Hort, Speelman and others.
At the club level just getting to a playable middle game with typical positions that one understands is probably more important than which side has a slight advantage, and the Moron Attack can be a useful weapon for this purpose.
The Full Moron
In the Moron proper, white has a pawn at c4. In the corresponding positions from the Moron Attack, black would have a pawn at c5. In some of these Moron Attack examples black does not play a pawn to c5.
Does this difference matter? Yes, it can. In the words of Lewis McClary (from whom we learned the Moron) "Things that are different are not the same." The difference is that black can defend the d5 square with c7-c6 and also has the option of putting a piece on c5. In the games that start as a Sicilian Defense (1.e4 c5) we do get the proper or Full Moron setup.
In any case, these games are good to study as typical positions and to see how to conduct the middle game from these tableaus whether you play the Moron Defense, the Moron Attack or both.
Center Counter Surprise Weapon Revisited
The Moron Attack can come about from a variety of openings. In fact, we give six sample games with six different ECO opening codes. We even have one example from a Center Counter (aka Scandanavian) -- possibly a better surprise weapon against the Center Counter than the Wilson Gambit!
Here are the games.
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