Off the Wall Opening - Black Krazy Kat

Submitted by billwall on Mon, 08/18/2008 at 8:49pm.

The Black Krazy Kat is a defensive system for Black where the black pawns are on f6 and g6, the knight is on f7 and the bishop is on g7. A typical opening setup is 1.e4 Nh6 2.d4 g6 3.Nc3 f6 4. Bc4 Nf7 5.Nf3 (or other moves) 5...Bg7. You may have heard that "a knight on the rim is dim" but "a knight on f7 is heaven." (OK, I made that one up). As a player who loves unorthodox or off-the-wall openings, the Black Krazy Kat or Old Hippo (without the bishop on g7) is perfect for me. I get out of the books early (except my books) and get to explore and try my own analysis, avoiding opening theory that can be 20 moves deep. Recently, Gary Gifford, Davide Rozzoni, and myself wrote a nice book on the Krazy Kat and Old Hippo, called Winning with the Krazy Kat and Old Hippo. It's filled with 168 games, mostly annotated and over 260 diagrams. The book is available at http://www.lulu.com/content/3292224 . Here is another online chess game I played with this opening. My knights hopped all over the board, exchanged themselves for my opponent's bishops, then I exposed my kingside by getting rid of my g and h pawns. This allowed me to develop my other pieces against the enemy kingside. My Critical opponent made a critical error and finally had to resign or else face checkmate. It was a fun game for me and definitely a crazy Krazy Kat.

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Comments:

by normajeanyates - 14 months ago
london [often in calcutta india] England

Member Since: Jan 2008
Member Points: 2597

Thanks Mr Wall,

That was most useful!

[you must admit I ask good questions - now that the opening has been seen to not-provenly-unsound yet - surviving even correspondence controls - that is an even bigger ad for your book! ;)]

by billwall - 14 months ago
Palm Bay, FL United States

Member Since: May 2007
Member Points: 2511

normajeanyates,

The GM games were played at normal time control. Suttles played ...Nh6 after g6 in international tournaments in 1967 and 1969 as well as the Palma de Mallorca Interzonal in 1970. Adorjan lost to an ...Nh6 variant in an open tournament in Finland in 1991. J.C. Thompson defeated GM Tolush in a simul given by Tolush in England in 1954. du Chattel played Nh6 is the Dutch championships and Dutch opens. The majority of games do come from correspondence or Internet activity. Again the opening is rare. The Week in Chess from 2004 to the present only has one 1.e4 Nh6 game, but it was won by Black in a computer tournament.

by normajeanyates - 14 months ago
london [often in calcutta india] England

Member Since: Jan 2008
Member Points: 2597

billwall, those GM games, are they at blitz, or at 'normal' time controls? [150mins/40 moves or equivalent - adjournment after 40 moves - it is a pity those days are over - those ones tested the openings much better]

Any one tried it or plan to try it at higher levels at ICCF? [correspondence, engines, university-department-sponsored so lot of hardware and person power, GM-with-experience-at-computer-chess as paid consultants...]

I am not disparaging the opening, in fact I like it! I am asking this from the math standpoint [of course those games will not give theorems, but they will give a 'likelihood' conjecture about the worth of the opening.]

PS: i used the bayesian term 'likelihood' rather than probability because chess being 2-person finite complete-info, the 'probability' of an opening or defence being 'correct' is either 1 or 0, only we do'nt know which :)

by billwall - 14 months ago
Palm Bay, FL United States

Member Since: May 2007
Member Points: 2511

If you know any opening well, you can play it against anyone. Our book has several grandmasters (Adorjan, Janosevic) losing to it. The strongest GM to play it as Black and win against other GMs and IMs is GM Duncan Suttles of Canada. When Dutch master Philip du Chattel was active, he won many games from other masters. I doubt any GM who plays this as Black would lose to any non-GM, or any master losing to any non-master.

by billwall - 14 months ago
Palm Bay, FL United States

Member Since: May 2007
Member Points: 2511

Benws,

You are right. The Queen sac would have been on the 26th move if White had played 26.Qxe4.

by benws - 14 months ago
NC United States

Member Since: Oct 2007
Member Points: 1165

thanks for the suggestion, and good game. but there is no queen sacrifice:

29 Kh1 Qf1+

30 Qxf1 Rf1#.

a queen trade instead. though it doesn't really matter. nice job.

by diomed1 - 14 months ago
Minnesota United States

Member Since: Apr 2008
Member Points: 731

I have to try that opening, thanks billwall

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