Saturday 11 August 2007

chess and childishness

Slow as ever to take advantage of the benefits of technology and proper searching on the Internet, I have only just come across this excellent website (chessgames.com) of top-notch games, playable in a PGN viewer that seems to be built into the webpage.

Best of all so far to my infantile tastes are the King's Gambit adventures of Finnish GM Heikki Westerinen (and I shouldn't say it, as it's rather patronising, but I so love Finnish names!) who certainly doesn't worry about material, king position or being in any way sensible as he blazes around the board having a lot of fun. I wasn't brave enough to play 3. Nc3 or Bc4 in real games (following the advice of Joe Gallagher, I always played 3. Nf3), but it's nice to find someone post-1900 who is. This one is very nice indeed.

I also like his sartorial style (see the bottom of the profiles page...)