The Common Approaches To The Chess Opening Nomenclature
Part 2: IM Obodchuk’s Name ‘Anti-Russian Variation’ & Its Possible Substitutions
(by Yury V. Bukayev)
In Part 2 of my work (its Part 1 was published on Rick Kennedy’s blog, December 2, 2020) I’ll say about the name ‘the Anti-Russian variation of the Three Knights Game’ for 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nc3 Bb4 – the very strange (in my opinion) name which was used by IM Andrey Obodchuk in his book ‘The Four Knights Game’ in Russian (this book was published in 2013 or in 2014 in Moscow). I have no opportunity to contact Mr. Obodchuk to ask him about this name and about russophobia, unfortunately, but it is possible to analyse the situation mainly without author’s explanation.
Firstly, Mr. Obodchuk calls both 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nc3 and 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 as ‘the Three Knights Game’, but it isn’t right. Thus, only 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 is the Three Knights Game, in fact. The another system – 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nc3 – is the Three Knights variation of the Russian Game, in fact. It should be noted that the common approach doesn’t permit to name these two variations identically.
Secondly, this author calls 3…Bb4 as ‘the Anti-Russian variation’ (‘антирусский вариант’ – in Russian), but it can’t be right, since the Russian game (the Petrov defence) arises as a result of 2…Nf6 after 2.Nf3, so Black can’t form ‘anti-Petrov’ systems: only White can form them. It is according to another common approach to the opening system nomenclature.
I suggest to re-name this variation and to forget the very strange name ‘the Anti-Russian variation of the Three Knights Game’ for it. Here are some of my variants for it:
the Russian Game: the Three Knights variation with 3…Bb4;
the Berlin variation reversed of the Spanish Game reversed;
the Russian Game: the Three Knights variation: the Berlin pseudogambit.
The last variant can be understood after reading of the Part 1 of this my work where the term ‘pseudogambit’ was explained, after analysing of 3…Bb4 4.Nxe5. Or my other published work ‘The Winning Part of the Same Jerome Gambit – 4.c3 Nf6 5.0-0 Nxe4 6.b4 Nxf2 7.Bxf7+! (Part 2)’ (2023) can be used for it instead.
Contact the author: istinayubukayev@yandex.ru
© 2023 Yury V. Bukayev (Copyright © Bukayev Yury Vyacheslavovich 2023). All rights reserved.
[A legal using of this investigation with a reference to it is permitted
and doesn’t require author’s consent.]
