Catastrophes & Tactics in the Chess Opening - Volume 7: Minor Semi-Open Games: Winning in 15 Moves or Less: Chess Tactics, Brilliancies & Blunders in the ... Opening (Winning Quickly at Chess Series)

INTRODUCTION
Thanks for picking up this book. I sincerely hope you will enjoy reading the book as much as
I have writing it.
We all dream of winning our games fast, using excellent opening preparation, flashy tactics
and then mate our opponents. However, it rarely goes like that. Usually, the games average
around 40 moves, contain enough blunders on both sides to have both you and your opponent
horrified after the game. However, what I have found is that many games, even amongst the
strongest players, contain errors and mistakes, some quite significant ones, as soon as the players
depart the theory that is known to them.
This book, the seventh in a series of eight, aim to take a look at some of those games, but
only the ones that are of 15 moves or shorter. Of course, for a game to end within 15 moves, one
of the players has to have made one or more serious mistakes. I have left out games where a
piece is threatened and the player forgot to move it, touched the wrong piece or such things.
However, I have included games that include typical mistakes, even if they seem banal.
As for the games, they are typically between players with a rating of at least 2350 and often
well more than that, although I have made some exceptions when I found a game of particular
interest or value; you will find several games played by players rated above 2600 in this book.
Furthermore, I have included some older games, but where the players would most certainly
have been rated above 2350 if rating had existed at that time.
The openings covered in this volume are:
Scandinavian Defense – The Center Counter
Pirc Defense
Modern Defense
King’s Fianchetto – 1…g6
Alekhine Defense
1…Nc6, 1…b6 & 1…a6
In opening encyclopedia terms, these openings have the Chess Informant Opening code of
B00 through B09. There is a total of 1xx main games, but with many more complete games in
the notes.
As for the other openings covered under the “Semi-Open Game” label, volume 5 in this
series covers the Anti-Sicilians, volume 6 covers
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