Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Beating Beth Harmon With the Worst Opening Ever


Reader Marco Zanin sent me the link I Beat Beth Harmon with the WORST OPENING EVER - YouTube.

"The worst opening ever" of course, being the Jerome Gambit, 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+.

The video features Jonathan Schrantz, a teacher in St. Louis, Missouri, who can be found at 

https:/www.twitch.tv/vampirechicken and

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIh4QOvH7v8eQNdUb2As9VA

Beth Harmon is the main charcter in Walter Tevis' novel The Queen's Gambit (1983) which was recently made into a series at Netflix. 

The online site Chess.com, where Schrantz can also be found, has a selection of computer-based personalities, i.e. "bots", that can be played against. There is a series of Beth bots, running from Beth (age 8) rated 800, up to Beth (age 22) rated 2700.

Schrantz delights in playing offbeat openings against bots, and for his game, of course, he chose to face the top-rated Beth (22).

The game lasted 32 moves, and immediately leaps into the top 25 Jerome Gambit games, ever; likely it makes it into the top dozen.

I will probably analyze the game in a future post, but I would like you to watch the excitment as it unfolds in the video. Schrantz has done the work, and he should get the attention.

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