In some ways, The Big Clamp represents a rediscovery of Philidor's legacy, as I suggested in my piece on The Philidor Clamp. Not surprisingly, Morphy greatly disapproved of this line, writing, "If there is anything to be regretted in connection with the combats between these illustrious players, it is the pertinacity with which McDonnell persisted in adopting, in two of the debuts which most frequently occur, a line of play radically bad." He continues: "The move of, or still better,, are those now generally recognized as the best" (quoted in Utterberg, p. According to Utterberg, this line was called the "Philidor Variation" because it followed analysis by Philidor. One of the most common ways to pursue the Big Clamp today is the Grand Prix Attack (1.e4 c5 2.f4) which McDonnell first employed with success in game five of the first match. I was intrigued enough by the 19th Century origins of the strategy that I picked up Cary Utterberg's wonderful book De la Bourdonnais versus McDonnell, 1834: The Eighty-Five Games of Their Six Chess Matches, with Excerpts from Additional Games Against Other Opponents (McFarland 2005) which made me recognize how Philidor's pawn strategy influenced play up until the Romantic era of Anderssen and Morphy, when the focus of theory turned to tempi and made pawns mere objects of sacrifice to blast open lines for piece play. My 100-game collection includes most of the games given by Day along with some of my own supplements showing the 19th Century origins of the clamp theme and some of its continued influence. In researching this post, I discovered that Day's 32-page pamphlet can also be viewed and downloaded at Scribd (see The Big Clamp: An Anti-Sicilian System). Those interested in getting a copy can purchase the 82 volumes of Modern Chess Theory edited by Raymond Keene from Hardinge Simpole, or search out Day's rare little volume titled The Big Clamp: An Anti-Sicilian System (The Chess Player 1984) which reproduces those two articles with two additional games Day played in 1983. I first read about "The Big Clamp" in Modern Chess Theory where it was published as "Sicilian - The Big Clamp" (3:5-6, pp.
#Modern chess openings scribd for free
A pdf copy of the book can be downloaded from Scribd for free using their free trial offer.Īppreciate your thoroughness! This is helpful, thank you.I have assembled a games collection at titled The Big Clamp to help me study IM Lawrence Day's " Big Clamp" strategy. Similar to the books cited earlier, it is written/targeted to the experienced player. The first few moves may typically go.1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Nge2 Bg7 5.g3 0-0 6.Bg2. *The exception mentioned earlier is the 1993 monograph (78 pages) by GM Andrew Soltis - "Beating The Pirc-Modern With The Fianchetto Variation". A pdf copy of the book can be downloaded from Scribd for free using their free trial offer. *The exception mentioned earlier is the 1993 monograph (74 pages) by GM Andrew Soltis - "Beating The Pirc-Modern With The Fianchetto Variation". "dangerous weapon") for White against the Pirc. Dangerous Weapons the Pirc and Modern by Palliser, McNab & Vigus.has four chapters (3, 6, 7 & 11 - for a total of 69 pages), each focused on a specific line (i.e.
Beating Unusual Chess Defences: 1 e4: Dealing with the Scandinavian, Pirc, Modern, Alekhine and other tricky lines by Andrew Greet.the Pirc coverage is specifically on the Austrian Attack (with 4.f4) as White (45 total pages).Ģ. However.Īfter quick perusal of my library of (hundreds of) openings books, I identified the following two books that I would suggest as presenting decent, but highly specific (i.e., not exhaustive) recommendations for White against the Pirc.ġ. And any decent White 1.e4 opening repertoire book will have some coverage against the Pirc.
Of course any decent book specifically on the Pirc will present best play by White. With possibly one exception (see below *), to my knowledge there exists no book that deals exclusively with White against the Pirc.