THE THEORY OF THE OPENINGS.
SECOND BOOK.
The Chess fraternity had reached an understanding of the foregoing points centuries ago. Proof: the stories dealing with Chess in olden times speak of the above stratagems; words that from usage in Chess play have crept into common usage such as to "Check" an opponent, to "Mate" him, to make a Drawn gam e, originate from this sphere of mentality; in olden times a King to whom a son was born at the exact moment that he attacked King and Rook with his Knight called the newly born prince "Shak-Ruk," meaning "Check-Rook"; and this Prince, we are told, became a brave hero. The above considerations and observations are the elements of all Chess strategy, just as intelligible to every Chess player, as is his mother-tongue. And five centuries ago these elements embodied the whole of Chess science. But then a novel idea entered into the plan, setting a problem which stirred the Chess fraternity passionately and which even now excites it greatly.
In abstract terms the problem may be stated as follows: how and according to what rules must the pieces from the initial position, where they stand ineffective and obstructive, be marched into efficient battle array?
For hundreds of years Chess players had started their games in a happy-go-lucky fashion. After a few such chance moves, complications arose and in these complications skill and sagacity were displayed; they considered that the start of the game, compared to the importance of the hand-to-hand fight which ensued afterwards, was insignificant. Then one day some genius, now unknown to us, began to pay attention to the different ways of opening the game. And if he has done no more - and probably he did not - than to record some of the methods of starting the game and to designate these "Openings" by the names of the eminent players who preferred them, his performance was most estimable. Suddenly, in the fifteenth century, we find Openings provided with well-known names and analysed in books written to that end, and peculiar terms are coined and introduced such as "Gambit" or "Giuoco Piano." Furthermore, from that day the problem of Openings becomes the point upon which attention has been centred and remains so, one may say, even to the present day.
To visualise the beginning of this evolution we may surmise that at an ancient date, when players of original talent, whom to-day we would call "natural" players, predominated over all others, some unknown genius, with a penchant for collecting information, made notes of the beginnings of good games, compiled them, classified them, and exhibited his work to a few friends. As a natural consequence, some of the industrious and intelligent learners would, in the first dozen moves, overcome superior players of that day, by employing the tactical manoeuvres gleaned from the manuscript of their compiler-friend. One can imagine the surprise of spectators and the wrath of the defeated masters as they observed newcomers, without natural talent, waging a strong fight purely with the aid of a book of compiled information.
Their wrath evaporated of course, but the cause of it endured. Since those days we have continued to have compilers of "variations," players who fight according to the book, and those with natural talent who, however, can no longer climb to the summit.
There is justification for the compiler. But can a player hope to become a master merely by studying a compilation? No. That were possible if the number of the different lines of play were small. In Chess, however, that number, no matter how critically one may select and how many feeble lines of play one may reject, goes into many millions. The brain cannot encompass them by a process of mere compilation. One must therefore search for rules, laws, principles capable of comprising within their compass the result of a thousand, nay of ten thousand different variations.
That, naturally, has been done. The process is common to all investigation which aims at comprehending a bulk of matter too large to be comprehended in detail. Probably, the players with natural talent thus tried to offset the efforts of book players. In the eighteenth century they announced their first rule: "Sortez les pieces "- "Get the pieces out." The meaning of this brief sentence is clear. The pieces obstruct each other in their initial position, the Chess-board in the middle is unoccupied, let the pieces get out so as to obtain dominance over a fair share of the unoccupied territory. And let the pieces fight the opponent in his endeavour to lay his hand on too much of that territory. And, if you have mobilised your pieces sooner than he, assail him quickly, before he can throw his undeveloped and therefore inefficient force into the action.
It took a hundred years before a new rule was announced. Anderssen, the winner of the first International Tournament, that of London, 1851, said: "Move that one of your pieces, which is in the worst plight, unless you can satisfy yourself that you can derive immediate advantage by an attack." One may guess the reasons for this rule. If you cannot successfully carry through an ambitious enterprise, it is sufficient to get your house into order and to improve the worst spots. In the initial position the KP, the QP, the two Knights, occupy the weakest positions, because they obstruct the most; hence, Anderssen's rule points out the necessity of moving these four men from their initial positions. But later the same rule applies again and again.
A few decades went by, tournaments became of frequent occurrence, and the masters, coming together oftener than before, evolved a "public opinion." That tended towards the rule: Avoid the moves of Pawns in the Opening as far as possible. The distrust of Pawn moves was founded on experience in tournament play. If one was worsted in the Opening, one could almost invariably point to a Pawn move as the original offence. The reason is that time is valuable in Chess as it is every where else. There are Pawn moves that are effective, for instance, such as lay hold on important points in the centre of the board or remove an obstruction; but there are very many Pawn moves that really are not effective. Distrust a pawn move, examine carefully its balance sheet: this was the sentiment of the masters a few decades after 1851, and, with slight modifications, this sentiment is still very strong and likely to last unchanged.
I have added to these principles the law: Get the Knights into action before both Bishops are developed. The advantage obtained in following this law is certainly not great, yet it is distinctly perceptible.
By means of rules, laws, principles of the above kind, players with natural talent could dispense with compilations and the memorizing of them. But games played by them were again and again analysed and compiled and memorised, so that at last, no matter how they tried to vary from the "book" they had to play against themselves, and, of course, they could not successfully do that. All of which shows that nobody can wholly escape the dire necessity of compiling variations and of examining and memorising them. And therefore such a compilation, though a brief one, is correctly included in a Manual of Chess.
Here follows a collection of variations essential in Opening play. They are selected from the million of possibilities as possessing character, importance, and value as instruction to a marked degree. A number of variations are slightly indicated, some only hinted at, so as to provide the reader with matter for his own research and to accustom him to independent judgment and to initiative.