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Copyright Michael Curtis 2005, 2006 ..

(Follows on from the blindfold chess article)

Chess Openings

In chess, some players study 'opening moves' so that the player gets off to a good start.

I started playing with the question: "How would you use mnemonics to represent the branching nature of chess openings?". After all, once a piece has moved 2 squares forward at the start of the game, there are several different routes which the game could take!

I came up with a relatively simple solution but it only gives the barest information: it is a prompting solution rather than telling you every detail.

I will not bore you with the pros and cons arguments which went on in my mind but the system which I decided upon is as follows:

1). Since there are only 20 opening moves, place an image on an instructional chess board: one for each opening move. These images will be of people; these people will be capable of doing an action (there is a list of 64 actions to represent the 64 squares where a piece might arrive);

2). The first person (the 'opening white move person') will perform an action which indicates the next square that a piece arrives on; it is your responsibility to remember which piece actually arrives at that nominated square.

3). The action is done to another character. The identity of the recipient of the action is a clue to the name of the move which has just occurred. eg. 'Alakine' is a famous type of move; so I can imagine an alchemist because it sounds a little like 'Alakine'.

Here are the opening images:

They are based on the idea that they 'sound like' classic openings. eg. The 'werewolf' sounds a little like 'Ware Opening'; so, when the left-most white pawn advances 2 squares forward as an opening move, it is the 'Ware opening' and that is why you see a werewolf there. Since a knight can arrive at squares which pawns can arrive at, some squares have 2 images: one describing the pawn opening and one describing the knight opening. eg. The dragon image represents the knight's 'Durkin' opening since 'dragon' sounds a bit like Durkin; but the ant on the same square represents the pawn move: 'Anderssen's opening':

amour: Amer/Paris opening

ant: Anderssen's Opening

banker: Benko's Opening

bar-maid: Barnes' Opening "Part 1"

bird man: Bird's Opening

Clemenz Opening [Clemenz sounds like 'climbing']

clergyman with a cross: Van't Kruys Opening [Kruys is like 'cross']

dragon: Durkin's Opening

English gentleman: English Opening

goblin: Grob Opening "Pat 1"

guitarist: van Geet's Opening

Kadas' Opening [Kadas sounds like 'cards']

king: King's Opening

Knight: Nimzowitsch-Larsen Opening

mouse: Mieses Opening

orangutan: Orang-Utan Opening

queen: Queen's Opening

Red-coat: Reti Opening [weak association involving words which begin with 'R']

sergeant-at-arms: Saragossa Opening

werewolf: Ware's Opening

The 64 moves:

This is a combination of my 52 pack of cards actions (1-8, 11-18, 21-28, 31-38, 41-48, and using the remainder too) plus 12 other actions:

[square count is now 53] 

53 [e7]: eats (bites into the shoulder of the other actor)

54 [f7]: freezes (eg. shoots snow balls at the other actor)

55 [g7]: garnishes (sprinkles herbs over the other actor)

56 [h7]: hooks (perhaps uses a fishing rod and hooks the other actor)

57 [a8]: apprehends by grabbing an ear or squeezing the side of the actor

58 [b8]: belts (whip-like manoeuvre with a belt)

59 [c8]: uses/trains a cross-bow on

60 [d8]: uses/aims a dagger at 

61 [e8]: entertains by slapping the hands of the actor in a pat-a-cake manner

62 [f8]: pounds with fists

63 [g8]: aims/uses a gun on (a pistol, for instance)

64 [h8]: harpoons/aims a harpoon at

I want the actors to perform actions on other actors; those other actors are the title of that chess move. Here are some suggestions for actors' names. eg. a type of dragon:

Please advise me of any errors or improvements criticisms. I am not a chess player. My idea of draughts is a pint of Guinness. So I am approaching this purely from the math point of view of 'using mnemonics to represent a graph of nodes' [it's not every day you get to use a line like that!]. Provided that there is not a lot similarity where several physically similar actors do many of the same actions, I think that the openings stories will generally remain distinct in a person's mind.

If this approach is welcomed then maybe a collaborative project could be organised to assign romantic images to the various chess moves: images that a sci-fi or fantasy enthusiast would enjoy.

mick_curtis@yahoo.co.uk [subject: Chess]

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