Last night I called in on one of my private English language students, a doctor who I have taught for many years. After an hour or so of English conversation, we spent another hour reading Franz Kafka's "The Trial" (the Folio Society edition, quite a tough translation to get through - a "trial" in itself), we set up the chess board, uncorked a bottle of Beaujolais, set the chess clock to 30 minutes each with no increment, and played our first game of chess in quite a while.
The Setting
The setting was the old sitting room of the Doctor's late parents. It was our first time to conduct our lesson in that room where, years ago, the four of us used to gather once a month to play Japanese "riichi" mahjong. Ah, sweet memories! The fridge was always fully stocked with cans of Kirin Ichiban Shibori, mostly for my benefit, it seemed.
The good Doc wants to preserve the room and furnishings more or less as it was left to him, and to use it for private parties and events such as our English lesson and chess game.
Queen's Gambit Declined, 3... Ne7
I happened to be White and opened with my customary 1.d4. All was according the the "book" until the Doc's 3rd move as Black:
- d4 d5
- c4 e6
- Nc3 ... Ne7 restricting the Queen and blocking the f8 Bishop.
This move is mentioned neither in John Watson's 1.d4 repertoire book, "A Strategic Chess Opening Repertoire for White," nor in W. R. Hartson's Penguin Book of Chess Openings (1981)!
I carried on with the exchange variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined,
- cxd5 exd5
- Bg5
which was a lazy approach and got my Bishop into a spot of bother. Indeed, deep into the middle game, we ended up with the position in the photo above, which Lichess gives as a clear advantage to Black, and it certainly felt like it to me for much of the middle game:
The PubChessBluffer Comes Out On Top
However, the Doc was struggling under a time disadvantage, and was up against the #PubChessBluffer - an old hand and drunken chess trouble-making. For, it is one thing to have a material and positional advantage, but it is another thing to convert it into a win.
The details are a bit foggy right now, but I don't think I played Lichess' recommended Rook-d1 move at all. Instead, I shuffled the king over to g2, parked the Queen behind the d4 pawn, sacrificed the Rook which pinned the Knight on f5 to the King, activated my sleeping h1 Rook, and somehow gained the upper hand and converted a disadvantageous position to a win with several minutes to spare on the clock.
After the game, I was surprised to hear from the Doc that he felt under pressure all through the game! It's leads to another principle in the #PubChessBluffer playbook:
Just because you can see that your opponent has an advantage does not mean that he can see it! Just keep poking and provoking him into making mistakes while you shore up your position...
A Similar Opening Back In 2018
A funny thing happened while I was preparing this post. I consulted ChatGPT about the 1. d4 d5, 2. c4 e6, 3. Nc3 Ne7 opening sequence, but ChatGPT is pretty crappy at analysing chess games at the moment and ballsed up the answer twice in a row. Then, on the third try, it found a YouTube video by a certain "David Hurley" that was published back in 2018 in which he reported on a game with a certain "Doctor M" which had proceeded like this:
- d4 d5
- c4 e6
- Nc3 Ne7
In that game too, it seems I nearly came a cropper, and discovered in my post game analysis that there was a dearth of QGD games with 3... Ne7!
Here's the video of the 2018 game:
Cheers!
David Hurley
#PubChessBluffer
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