UON

In discussing the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) I have mentioned the Unorthodox Openings Newsletter on a number of occasions, the most recently being this blog's "birthday" post (see "Happy Birthday: Twelve months of blog...").

Any reader interested in offbeat or unusual chess openings should become familiar with the 23 issues of the free UON. Its current editor, Gary K. Gifford, is also open to reader-written articles – a good way to get your own ideas out in front of a sympathetic group, for support and feedback.

Issues #1 - #14 can be found in the "files" section of the Yahoo Group "Unorthodox Chess Openings". Issues #15 - #23 can be found in the "files" section of the Yahoo Group "Chess Unorthodox UON".

To be able to download the files, I think it is necessary to officially join the particular Yahoo Group, but that takes only a minute or so, and costs nothing.

There is an impressive number of openings covered in the Unorthodox Openings Newsletter, and some recent issues are almost books themselves – for example, #19 is 70 pages, #17 is 80 pages and #21 is 103 pages.

Happy exploring!