French Defense
"We could hardly dream of building a kind of Great Wall of France, which would in any case be far too costly. Instead we have forseen powerful but flexible means of organizing defense, based on the dual principle of taking full advantage of the terrain and establishing a continuous line of fire everywhere"--Andre Maginot
When I was in high school, I discovered the French Defense in a classic overview book by I.A. Horowitz entitled "How to Win in the Chess Openings". From almost the beginning of my time as a chessplayer, I have had the dilemma that I am not a particularly gifted attacker, and that I am uncomfortable with wide open spaces on the chess board. In the French Defense, after white moves the king pawn two places forward, black moves the king pawn merely one place forward, intending to set up a closed system for defense against white's on-slaught.
In the French, black is defending rather than trying to immediately counter-attack, but black hopes to lure white to his doom. I like that image of luring opponents to their own doom--it has a nice aikido feel, without all the need for martial arts discipline.
Chess openings for me have always served as kind of a metaphor for personality style--much more reliable than Myer-Briggs, much less expensive than a self-help seminar.
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When I was in high school, I discovered the French Defense in a classic overview book by I.A. Horowitz entitled "How to Win in the Chess Openings". From almost the beginning of my time as a chessplayer, I have had the dilemma that I am not a particularly gifted attacker, and that I am uncomfortable with wide open spaces on the chess board. In the French Defense, after white moves the king pawn two places forward, black moves the king pawn merely one place forward, intending to set up a closed system for defense against white's on-slaught.
In the French, black is defending rather than trying to immediately counter-attack, but black hopes to lure white to his doom. I like that image of luring opponents to their own doom--it has a nice aikido feel, without all the need for martial arts discipline.
Chess openings for me have always served as kind of a metaphor for personality style--much more reliable than Myer-Briggs, much less expensive than a self-help seminar.
( Collapse )