The Grob. Bring it back

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John Upham
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Re: The Grob. Bring it back

Post by John Upham » Sat Sep 09, 2017 10:36 am

One of my fondest memories was to witness an encounter between Joe French and Gordon Birch which commenced

1. f4 g5

and shortly thereafter a black rook appeared on h1,

I also recall a Camberley - Sandhurst match in which Gordon Birch on board one for Camberley played 1.g4 versus Simon Williams ! :D
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John Upham
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Re: The Grob. Bring it back

Post by John Upham » Sat Sep 09, 2017 10:39 am

On another occasion I was captain of a Camberley team that played Bracknell and Gordon Birch was paired versus another Grob / Borg player.

The players requested not to have to play each other and the chess world was robbed of the first game that started

1. g4 g5

Even Eric Schiller and Hugh Myers would poo poo this !
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NickFaulks
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Re: The Grob. Bring it back

Post by NickFaulks » Sat Sep 09, 2017 10:56 am

John Upham wrote:1. g4 g5
2.f4 suggests itself.
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Michael Farthing
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Re: The Grob. Bring it back

Post by Michael Farthing » Sat Sep 09, 2017 11:23 am

It conjures up a beautiful picture of the end result of 8 moves each involving a couple of double square pawn moves. Plenty of food for thought on move 9.

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John Upham
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Re: The Grob. Bring it back

Post by John Upham » Sat Sep 09, 2017 12:01 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
John Upham wrote:1. g4 g5
2.f4 suggests itself.

May we dub this line "The Faulks Attack" as a possible transposition from the Birds Opening or The Grob ?

Presumably 2...f5 is the only move for Black to stay on the board.
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Kevin Thurlow
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Re: The Grob. Bring it back

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Sat Sep 09, 2017 12:14 pm

"One of my fondest memories was to witness an encounter between Joe French and Gordon Birch which commenced

1. f4 g5"

Some years ago, I was about to play Mike Basman and told him I had an answer to 1....g5. He looked intrigued, and then I played 1.f4. He nodded and played something else. (I still lost.) If Mike thinks you cannot play ....g5 there, then Gordon is a brave man!

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John Clarke
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Re: The Grob. Bring it back

Post by John Clarke » Sat Sep 09, 2017 1:14 pm

Michael Farthing wrote:It conjures up a beautiful picture of the end result of 8 moves each involving a couple of double square pawn moves. Plenty of food for thought on move 9.
I think the nearest to this there's ever been was a "game" (almost certainly apocryphal) cited by Bruce Hayden in Cabbage Heads And Chess kings.

It went 1.e4 e5 2.f4 f5 3.d4 d5 4.c4 c5. There's half the "beautiful picture". Continuation was 5.exf5 exf4 6.dxc5 dxc4 7.Qxd8+ and now the startling denouement 7. ... Kxe1!!!

Explanation was that the player of black (a complete stranger to the team captain) had been persuaded to act as last-minute substitute for a missing club-member when he actually didn't even know the moves. So he'd just copied white as far as he was able to. Improbable, but amusing nonetheless.
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John Upham
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Re: The Grob. Bring it back

Post by John Upham » Sat Sep 09, 2017 1:22 pm

I believe Gordon himself answers 1. g4 with 1...b5 :lol:

Eric Schiller eat your heart out !
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Re: The Grob. Bring it back

Post by Ian Thompson » Sat Sep 09, 2017 2:21 pm

John Upham wrote:The players requested not to have to play each other and the chess world was robbed of the first game that started

1. g4 g5
Unsurprisingly, that's not true. For example, I found the following:



as well as three other examples where it looked like a proper game had been played.

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Re: The Grob. Bring it back

Post by John Upham » Sat Sep 09, 2017 2:45 pm

Ian Thompson wrote:
John Upham wrote:The players requested not to have to play each other and the chess world was robbed of the first game that started

1. g4 g5
Unsurprisingly, that's not true. For example, I found the following:



as well as three other examples where it looked like a proper game had been played.
I suspect that the players agreed to play this nonsense in advance or were friends or were drunk.

We could regard 1. f3 f6 2. Kf2 Kf7 also as a "legitimate" game since it was played in a British Under 21 Championship of 1977.
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Re: The Grob. Bring it back

Post by JustinHorton » Sat Sep 09, 2017 2:53 pm

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Jon Mahony
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Re: The Grob. Bring it back

Post by Jon Mahony » Thu Sep 14, 2017 9:58 am

I once made a fairly decent study of the opening, as I intended to start every white game with the Grob and every black game with 1.g5 (the Borg) at the British RP that year. I got hold of "Matricide Master" Claude Frizzell Bloodgood's pamphlet, and Michael "He don't play it like a Man" Basman's book on the opening.

I agree if black doesn't fall for the traps, its a bit of a stinker (but if they do fall for it its a lot of fun!) I found most players just tend to go for a d5 and c6 set up and just pick on white's self inflicted weaknesses, you never get them doing 1...e5 which is what you really want. As for the black side of it, with the tempo down, forget about it.

Suffice to say I finished on my usual mediocre, half marks score, rather than taking the title in a tactical storm as I envisioned :) I did cheat and start going back to the French on the second day too.

I pulled the opening out in my first round game of a long play congress shortly after, and gave my opponent a sound thrashing - he didn't fall for any of the book traps, he was just over confident and tried to wipe me off the board - the game just went into a castle on opposite sides affair, and I was able to close the kingside and can-open his king on the queenside. When I delivered checkmate he looked at me, looked at the board, looked at me again and said "I played like a tw@t!!" tore up his score sheet and stormed off without a handshake, which I thought was hilarious naturally.

Sadly, I got over confident and tried 1...g5 as black in the second round, which didn't go nearly so well :wink:

I decided to abandon the opening altogether after a few disasters in the league, and concentrate my study time into something more worth while.
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Re: The Grob. Bring it back

Post by LawrenceCooper » Thu Sep 14, 2017 10:10 am

Kevin Thurlow wrote:"One of my fondest memories was to witness an encounter between Joe French and Gordon Birch which commenced

1. f4 g5"

Some years ago, I was about to play Mike Basman and told him I had an answer to 1....g5. He looked intrigued, and then I played 1.f4. He nodded and played something else. (I still lost.) If Mike thinks you cannot play ....g5 there, then Gordon is a brave man!
d4 and Nf3 are also good, as is d3 h4 and Nh3 :D

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Re: The Grob. Bring it back

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Thu Sep 14, 2017 12:33 pm

Unbelievably, 1 d4 g5?!? has been played a fair few times according to databases - on occasion with success :D
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Re: The Grob. Bring it back

Post by John Upham » Thu Sep 14, 2017 12:42 pm

Matt Mackenzie wrote:Unbelievably, 1 d4 g5?!? has been played a fair few times according to databases - on occasion with success :D

In the same vein perhaps

1. h4 f6 2 c3 a5 has been played with success ?
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