Monday, 24 December 2007

The Night Before Xmas

When I first started getting serious about chess, one of my earliest book purchases was "Exploring the Chess Openings" by Hugh E Myers. Myers is well known as a practitioner of offbeat openings, and the book was a collection of his games. Included in the book was a wonderful piece of advice on the Sicilian "This only works for Black if White misplays his kingside attack".
Also included was the following game, apparently played the "night before Xmas", and involved both players having a few drinks beforehand.

Myers - Alvarez [A00]
"The night before Xmas"

1.Nh3 d5 2.g3 e5 3.f4 Bxh3 4.Bxh3 exf4 5.0-0 fxg3 6.e4 gxh2+ 7.Kh1 dxe4 8.Nc3 Nf6 9.d3 exd3 10.Bg5 dxc2 11.Qf3 Be7 12.Qxb7 Nbd7 13.Bxd7+ Nxd7 14.Bxe7 Kxe7 15.Nd5+ Kf8 16.Nxc7 Nc5 17.Ne6+ Nxe6 18.Qxf7# 1-0

Myers was particularly proud of the fact that he gambitted 6 pawns in the first 10 moves.
BTW If you go looking for this game in Chessbase it lists it as having been played by correspondence in 1988. This is wrong, as I certainly saw it in print in late 1982.

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