🚀 go-pugleaf

In Article 170 of gnu.chess, Kari Heinola writes:

>> stein@tellabs.com (Peter Stein)in his writing about GNUCHESS

>>     1. "book" is not enabled on successive games unless the program is
>>	exited and started up again. I tried various combinations of
>>	commands to no avail. What always happens is:
>>		     1. e2e4  g8f6
>>		     2. e4e5  f6e4 ??? and loses the knight in a few after
>>				       3. d2d4.

>I would disagree with this line. It's a playable.
>After 3.d2d4 black can continue with f7-f6 oe e7-e6.
>A sample line could be 1.e4 Sf6 2. e5 Se4 3.d4 f6 4.Bd3 d5 5. f3 Sg5
>6.Bg5 fg 7.f4 g6. Whites black quares are weak.
>
>For more info you might look for Stefan Bueckers Grotesgue Schacher|fnungen.
>
>--
>Kari Heinola  

First of all, I was drawing attention to a GNUCHESS problem which you
didn't even address. I have since looked at file nuxdsp.c and discovered
that when the "new" command is detected only NewGame() is called. I've
simply added a call to GetOpenings() and that seems to do the trick. 
I admit that I haven't delved deeply into the code. It shouldn't be
necessary to load book from disk, since the book is already in memory.
I'm concerned that a session with many games will exhaust memory due
to book memory not being de-allocated.

As far as the likelyhood of the described move sequence being 
deliberately included as opening book I think it's slim and none.
I repeat "LOSES THE KNIGHT IN A FEW". I leave it to the reader as an
exercise. Wether or not a human could wriggle out of this mess is not
the issue.

Perhaps my "???" assessment is too reactionary. Black's Ne4 quite
honestly deserves no worse than "??" :-). Seriously, if you can cite
game(s) where a titled player has merely split the point with a white
opponent of at least 2200 FIDE strength I would take notice. I don't
have a board in front of me right now, but I suspect black's white
square weaknesses would put him in a serious bind if not result in the
game concluding early. While some of these offbeat openings provide
much entertainment they don't occupy niches in the OTB (not speed!)
repertoires of most serious players. There are simply too many practical
problems with these openings. Rather than trying to "crush" these
openings a solid approach often results in these openings collapsing
of their own weight. I cite as an example the rather mundane a3 against
none other than Herr Buecker's Geier. Gee, will my opponents play 
nothing but the Geier (Vulture) in OTB games from now on ? :-)

		 Your 2200 (USCF) fish-at-large

WANTED: CHESS GRAPHICS for the PC. Just the images are fine, I can write
	the drivers.

		 "Der Springer am Rande macht nur Schande..."