Still Krazy after all these years...

It is always good to hear from other chess players, especially those who have an appreciation for creative and off-beat lines of play.

I recently received an email from Garry Gifford, editor of the Unorthodox Openings Newsletter and co-author (along with Davide Rozzoni and Bill Wall) of Winning with the Krazy Kat and Old Hippo. Nowadays, Gary is doing well with the New Hippo as well as the Krazy Kat

Marty [Martin Frère Hillyer, author of Thomas Frère and the Brotherhood of Chess: A History of 19th Century Chess in New York City] and a few club guys took me to the Marshall Club in NY as a going away present (I am moving to Austin).

I played the Krazy Kat against a 2098 player. I took a drawing line, but later realized I had a forced win! [International Master] Calvin Blocker verified that for me last week... though I already knew.

I also use the Krazy Kat in round 4 to defeat a psycologist in just 18 moves.

I used a modern Hippo on Saturday to defeat Marty's Colle....

A few words about Austin, Texas, by the way: when you are in town and hungry, check out the legendary Torchy's Tacos... It's also hard not to mention that in a Christmas-time tag-team match between two of the "Kennedy Kids" (known as they made their way from Houston to Austin as "the locusts") and The Salt Lick all-you-can-eat Bar-B-Que restaurant, the visitors were held to a draw ("Pack the rest up. We'll have it for breakfast...")

Hip' Kat

From a recent email from Garry Gifford, editor of the Unorthodox Openings Newsletter and one of the authors (along with Davide Rozzoni and Bill Wall) of the new Winning with the Krazy Kat and Old Hippo (see my review of the book at Chessville) -

...On a related note, last Saturday I played in Martin Frere Hillyer's first Thomas Frere Chess Memorial tournament (an unrated unadvertised invitational event) . [See my review of Hillyer's impressive Thomas Frère and the Brotherhood of Chess: A History of 19th Century Chess in New York City - RK]

In round 4 I drew with a guy and had to play a 5 minute tie-break game to see who would get the "gold" and who would get the "silver." These were not real gold and real silver, of course, just colored metal to resemble the actual.

So, having black and facing a very booked up player (who was also great at speed chess), I played the Krazy Kat. This was for the Gold, so you can see I take the Kat seriously (also a crowd was watching). Sure enough, my plan was a good one.

White was taking a great deal of time in the opening and early middle game and I could move at the speed of a crazy cat. But perhaps I moved too fast. In the middle game my opponent calculated a way to exchange pawns, pin a knight, gang up on it, and win it. And he did.

But at the cost of much time. I had 1 minute and 14 seconds showing on the clock. He had 6 seconds. "Avoid getting mated and the Gold is yours," said my inner self. And so I toughned up the defense while making some threats of my own with queen and rooks on open files. And 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 1... Black won on time.

Phew! So, I owe the gold to the Krazy Kat.

(By the way, the English Chess Forum has some interesting posts on the Hippopotamus and its creator. And Chess.com has a nice discussion on the Krazy Kat started by author Bill Wall - RK)

Unorthodox Duo

I suppose that it is possible that chess players who like the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) might like other unorthodox chess openings as well.

With this in mind, I'd like to steer them to the latest issue (#22) of the Unorthodox Openings Newsletter, edited by Gary K. Gifford (see "But - Is this stuff playable?? (Part II)" and "Jerome Gambit Tournament: Chapter IV") for download at http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess-Unorthodox-UON/files/

Earlier editions of UON would also be of interest, I'm sure.

I'd also like to mention that Gary, along with Davide Rozzoni and Bill Wall, have an impressive new book out: Winning with the Krazy Kat and Old Hippo (Lulu Press, 2008) at http://www.lulu.com/content/3292224