Latest News in the DDG World


Books

Tim Harding has written a book Four Gambits To Beat The French, Chess Digest, 1998, covering the Alapin French, Winckelmann-Reimer Gambit, Wing Gambit and Milner-Barry Gambit in detail. As one of the "lesser" gambits, Tim briefly deals with the DDG in three pages, presenting three DDG games: Duhm-Martin (1908-1909), Diemer-Buerger (1948), Heikkinen-Watson (1996). He mentions the DDG pages.

Tim Sawyer has published The Blackmar-Diemer Gambit Keybook II (Pickard & Son, 1999), and the theory of the BDG is stronger than ever. In the annotations of the only Alapin-Diemer Gambit game of the book, there is one nice game transposing to the DDG: Tom Purser - guest, ICC, 1997. When are we going to see such a book on the DDG?

Articles

Tim Harding published my article Lessons of a Great Battle in Chess Mail 5/1999. It was about playing gambits in general, but the DDG was used as an example of an unorthodox opening.

Jan Erik Zimmermann published my DDG article in K-skakbladet, a Danish correspondence chess magazine. The article just rehashed two analyzed games on the DDG Keres Variation.

Eric Schiller has published some analysis on the Tarrasch Defense - Marshall Gambit [D32] 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5 4.cxd5 exd5 5.e4 dxe4, which can be reached in the DDG, e.g., via 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.e4 c5 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Nc3 dxe4.

Comments

Eric Schiller responded via e-mail to the article Schiller on the Keres Variation, DDG News 1/1999. He agreed that nasty 15.Nfd2 holds up, and suggested 12...Re8 (instead of 12...a6) as an improvement. He will give the Keres Variation a more thorough examination in a forthcoming book Refutations and Remedies and will also post the relevant analysis at Chess City. DDG News will then, naturally, cover these new analyses.

Gordon Evans recommended the DDG for IECG (International E-mail Chess Group) members in WebWatch, the IECG newsletter: "It does contain some venom."

Tournaments

Thomas Stock has been organizing thematic gambit tournaments (TGT). The first DDG tournament of four players started in April 1999. Unfortunately, two out of four players withdrew silently in a month. Still the tournament resulted the "DDG Miniature of the Year": Jyrki Heikkinen - Marco Bongiovanni.
DDG News 1/2000, Jyrki Heikkinen (ed.)