But Richard Réti said "After P-K4, White`s game is in its final throes."




"Alex" wrote in message
m...
Bobby Fischer once said that "1. e4 is best for test"
And it seems he might be correct....it does allow two pieces to
develop and you can castle on the king side faster.

But Richard Réti said "After P-K4, White`s game is in its final throes."


But then, Reti never faced Bobby Fischer as Black. "Talk is cheap." Okay,
I'll settle for a few massacres, by Reti, of Lasker and Capablanca, after 1.e4.

Still, Reti should have done an article under this title, like Bobby's "A
Bust to the King's Gambit"; or the hilarious "My Ingenious System."



Bobby Fischer once said that "1. e4 is best for test"
And it seems he might be correct....it does allow two pieces to
develop and you can castle on the king side faster.


Actually, the fact that White's Queen can move (or as you put it, "develop")
along the d1-h5 diagonal is of little consequence in the main lines, as this
diagonal gets quickly blocked by an early N-f3. Other deployments of this
Knight are generally less effective, and may also have the same effect of
obstructing the Queen.

The other part -- that White can castle early -- is valid, and this can lead,
indirectly, to positional pressure on Black.


The real reason Fischer *preferred* 1.e4 is that it tends to lead to more
open games, and there is a boatload of theory which must be mastered, as
opposed to longwinded manuevering struggles of a more positional nature, which
often ensue after 1.d4.

Since Fischer's time, this gap in the amount of theory between e4 and d4 has
narrowed considerably.

Take a good, hard look at Spassky/Fischer, game 1, from 1972. Not Bobby's
cup of tea, to put it mildly.
Even Bobby's renown mastery of tactics failed him in this game, when he
blundered away a piece, rather than try and defend stubbornly in an inferior
ending,after Spassky's superb positional handling gave him a solid pull.



---------------------------------------------

OTOH, maybe some people play 1.d4 or 1.c4 because they can't make up their
minds what to do against the Sicilian. The Queen's pawn debut tricks unwary
Sicilianites into -- gasp -- a Benoni, and certain death! While the other move
may confound diehard Sicilian players into trying the reversed Sicilian, a
tempo behind. Best of all, many a fool will attempt one of the many Injun
"defenses," and thereby seal his own doom. (Ask a silly question...)

Oops, that probably very well was Breyer, sure enough. My mistake.
I mixed it up because usually Réti is mentioned as having RELAYED the quote.




"Louis Blair" wrote in message
...
Joshua B. Lilly wrote (Thu, 03 Jul 2003 03:49:53 GMT):

But Richard Réti said "After P-K4, White`s game is in its final
throes."

_
The Oxford Companion attributes this to Gyula Breyer.