out of the blue in an english line i invented

[Roger de Coverly]

If I play what I genuinely believe is a TN, and there is indeed no previous published record of that move having been played

The point is though that there is a previous record if the database is large and comprehensive enough.

Ironically what's missing from databases can be the games featured in widely read magazines such as Chess and the BCM. These are "theory" in the sense that people know them but not always present in archives.

One example is the line in the Taimanov or Flick Knife Benoni that runs 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 e6 4. Nc3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. e4 g6 7. f4 Bg7 8. Bb5+ Nbd7 . I knew this in 1975 and played it as White in that year against Cliff Chandler in the SCCU Championship. I had got it from the game Haygarth - Pigott which had been played in the British Lightning a couple of years earlier and published by BH Wood as "junior" beats ex British Champion . Andy Smith tells me it was known at the time to Kent players and he had played it himself. (It's in his book). Admittedly I was partly making it up in the Chandler game, but I knew that the idea was to play e5 and then e6, but accepting the sacrifice of the d7 Knight could be dubious.

Databases vary in coverage, the earliest example in international ones is from a simul game between Vaganian and Pigott (who else) in 1975.

[Joey Stewart]

One example is the line in the Taimanov or Flick Knife Benoni that runs 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 e6 4. Nc3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. e4 g6 7. f4 Bg7 8. Bb5+ Nbd7 . I knew this in 1975 and played it as White in that year against Cliff Chandler in the SCCU Championship. .

Is cliff chandler any relation to Geoff chandler of the forums or Murray chandler the late grand master?

[NickFaulks]

Murray chandler the late grand master?

?

[Joey Stewart]

He hasn't played for years, I just assumed he was dead?

[Tim Spanton]

Was the game you quote widely published?

I don't think it matters. Chessbase and similar have been around for over thirty years and megasized databases capturing all the recorded historic games almost as long. If claiming a novelty, it has to be something never previously played, not something never previously published in book or article form.

i am claiming 9 Nxe5 as a novelty(which isnt in livebook) and i am claiming i was the first player to play the d3 kid as a regular system

The novelty in your game is 8...e5. The position before that move was reached in a Polish team championship game in 2007 (not, as I posted earlier, in 1979 - got a rating and the year mixed up). I found the game is in ChessBase's 2022 Mega database, which is a standard reference source.

[LawrenceCooper]

He hasn't played for years, I just assumed he was dead?

Judging from the photo he posted on Facebook nine minutes ago from Howick Chess Centre, New Zealand, he's very much alive.

[Paul Cooksey]

Hell, I even thought I was dead 'til I found out it was just that I was in New Zealand

[AlanLlewellyn]

I don't think it matters. Chessbase and similar have been around for over thirty years and megasized databases capturing all the recorded historic games almost as long. If claiming a novelty, it has to be something never previously played, not something never previously published in book or article form.

i am claiming 9 Nxe5 as a novelty(which isnt in livebook) and i am claiming i was the first player to play the d3 kid as a regular system

The novelty in your game is 8...e5. The position before that move was reached in a Polish team championship game in 2007 (not, as I posted earlier, in 1979 - got a rating and the year mixed up). I found the game is in ChessBase's 2022 Mega database, which is a standard reference source.

philistines and assorted odd bods

[AlanLlewellyn]

i didn't 'invent' it on a computer i found it originally in that 2016 game over the board...

[Tim Spanton]

i didn't 'invent' it on a computer i found it originally in that 2016 game over the board...

A novelty is a move that has not been played before ...

[JustinHorton]

Well, maybe, but I'm pretty sure that the criteria used to be a bit looser than that, and would basically involve "not been played before between strong players". Obviously in past time nearly all published games (the real criteria, I think) were between strong players and now all manner of games are "published" in one medium or another between players like most of us who cannot tell a bishop from a knight. Whether this means that "novelty" no longer really exists as a concept, or just has to be thrashed through a bit to adapt to changed circumstances, is perhaps an interesting question.

[Tim Spanton]

Well, maybe, but I'm pretty sure that the criteria used to be a bit looser than that, and would basically involve "not been played before between strong players". Obviously in past time nearly all published games (the real criteria, I think) were between strong players and now all manner of games are "published" in one medium or another between players like most of us who cannot tell a bishop from a knight. Whether this means that "novelty" no longer really exists as a concept, or just has to be thrashed through a bit to adapt to changed circumstances, is perhaps an interesting question.

Perhaps I should have written: a novelty is a move not known to have been played before. If a move has been played and published, the subsequent playing of it is not a novelty even if the player found the move over the board without being aware of the precedent.

[JustinHorton]

Does that stand up though? If a move had, for instance, been played in a grandmaster tournament in the 1980s, hailed as a novelty, changed the course of theory etc etc etc, and then many years later it turned out to have been played in a club game in Adelaide in 1967, would that retrospectively lose its status as a novelty? I am not sure it would, and I think this is because we really think of opening theory as depending on the players involved being of a certain standard. (I also don't think there are clear lines here that we can draw.)

[AlanLlewellyn]

before we start contemplating the nature of time and space, i never used the word novelty i used the word invented.

[AlanLlewellyn]

although 9 Nxe5 is a novelty for sure who else would see such a move or indeed get in a position needed to play it.