Bicker??? LOL. The question in the subject line is worth considering. I have to think Carlsen thought playing the opening moves of Scholar’s Mate [Fritz 15 calls it “C20: 1. e4 e5 Unusual second moves” regardless of whether or not it ends in mate on move 4. Houdini 6 defines it as “Undefined” either way] would lead to a win, though not in four moves.
Still, if it were really a sound opening system akin in soundness to say the London System which Carlsen does on occasion play, we would likely see it played more often in Rapid if not Classical chess.
As an aside, about ten years ago a cycling friend’s middle school son was quite fond of playing the Scholar’s Mate opening and would not play anything else. He decided to play a local unrated Rapid tournament at the local library near where I was living in Western Massachusetts. I was working with a group of middle school students at another local middle school and got three of my students to play the tournament. I told them to expect the opening and how to not fall into its trap. None of them fell for the mate. Two of the three won their games.
IMO, it’s fine to call the opening moves, whether resulting in mate or not, the Scholar’s Mate Opening. Perhaps we could further delineate by Scholar’s Mate if successful and Scholar’s Mate Declined if not??
Kevin wrote:
Mr. Lafferty is a retired adult, not a socially inept high school student. He’s basically just been dismissive of one of the most accomplished chess players in history by suggesting that the World Champion had the audacity to approach the game against a Master by playing for Scholars Mate (which of course is not what was happening.)
I do have a problem with that.
Horse-feathers, Kevin. It seems to me that much of what you do is look for ways to create an argument by making assumptions about other poster’s intentions that, more often than not, as here, are simply not valid.
Was it audacity to open with Scholar’s mate knowing that it would likely be declined? I don’t have any idea what Carlsen’s real intention might have been. I haven’t see anywhere that he was asked the question why he opened with those moves. If you have, please do share his response with us.
Carlsen is certainly an accomplished player and champion. His rating has been totally outstanding for years. Is he a great classical champion? I’m not certain where I would place him historically given that he’s of an era of relatively short matches for the title with rapid/blitz tiebreaks. That in the last two defenses of his title he’s won, IIRC, only one classical game of chess does seem to diminish the world championship if not Carlsen himself. After all, as Caruana pointed out, they’re playing the match according to the rules set out.
It wasn’t Scholars Mate any more than Bishop’s Opening is Scholars Mate. This is precisely the point. It’s no more audacious than the Scandavian. You’ve stated your intentions repeatedly.
EXACTLY. YOU DON’T. Yet you position it as though Carlsen’s intention was Scholar’s Mate, and you have done so repeatedly.
What I HAVE seen is that many strong players have played this opening, particularly in blitz. What I have seen is that Carlsen clearly extensively analyzed the opening with the assistance of a computer. This would not be the case if he were playing for Scholars Mate.
What I have seen is that Carlsen is a strong player with a deep understanding of chess. Thus I would not make the mistake of jumping to the incorrect conclusion that he was playing for Scholars Mate.
Then stop insisting on things that you admit above you do not know to be true, and that your level of chess understanding demonstrates that you don’t have the experience to judge.
Is this discussion benefiting chess, now that we’ve moved beyond the interesting games? So far all it has shown is that Brian doesn’t know or doesn’t accept that by definition the Scholars mate involves an actual checkmate and that playing an opening that could lead to that but does not actually do so is not playing Scholars mate, and that neither he nor Kevin are willing to let that go. If that’s all we’re going to discuss, this thread need not continue.
Wikipedia says:
In chess, Scholar’s Mate is the checkmate achieved by the following moves, or similar:
e4 e5
Bc4 Nc6
Qh5 Nf6??
Qxf7#
The same mating pattern may be reached by various move orders. For example, White might play 2.Qh5, or Black might play 2…Bc5. In all variations, the basic idea is the same: the queen and bishop combine in a simple mating attack on f7 (or f2 if Black is performing the mate).
Scholar’s Mate is sometimes referred to as the “Four-Move Checkmate”, although there are other ways to checkmate in four moves.
To anyone who cares, there is no such thing as the Scholar’s Mate Opening. It’s a mating pattern from the opening and refers to the theme of Bc4 supporting Qxf7mate. While wikipedia is hardly the best source for chess knowledge, they explained this pretty clearly. Chessplayers can name any number of mating patterns, including opening patterns like Legals mate. There is no Legal’s Mate opening either. Similarly, Noah’s Ark Trap is a theme. There is no single Noah’s Ark Trap opening either.
The difference between themes and openings is something every chessplayer ought to understand.
Wikipedia calls it the Danvers Opening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danvers_Opening If we changed the title of the thread to “Did Carlsen Really Think the Danvers Opening Would Work?” would everybody be happy?
Note that Huge Base has a lot of very low quality games, and that’s particularly true here. (There were only 43 with both players with Elo over 2000). One game had White playing 4 Qxe5??? after 3…g6 and the game ended in a draw! (Black politely failed to take the hanging Queen). That was from the championship of Ecuador for U9.
With reference to your claim that you posited nothing and only asked questions, again, this is disingenuous. You defended your position, and tried to make an appeal to authority to bolster your case. Your “questions” were in fact complex questions.
I realize, Brian, that you are often capable of playing your games with many posters, and you’re often capable of duping or overpowering moderation. But your game fails here. Your claim was wrong. We all know it was wrong. We demonstrated several times it was wrong. Your insistence on first defending it and now on trying to pass it off as something other than a claim belies that you know it was wrong. Your insistence on trying to be dismissive of other US Chess members (as you have done again in this thread) is wrong.
Perhaps, just once in the forums, you can choose to admit you were wrong, rather than continuing to make yourself look absurd by continuing to defend an insipid position.
No, Brian, there is no such opening as “Scholar’s Mate Declined”.
No, Brian, a complex question is not still considered a question, because its considered invalid.
No, Brian, I haven’t been arguing illogically. I’ve argued logically and factually. (The statistics you request have already been given in this thread!)
No, Brian, you made no relevant statistical argument regarding Carlsen’s opening and the Scandinavian. THAT is an illogical assertion. What was said was that it wasn’t any more audacious than the Scandinavian.
Audacious: showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks - or - showing an impudent lack of respect.
Neither of these is a statistical measure. The Scandinavian boldly challenges principles about bringing out the Queen early, in a way QUALITATIVELY similar to the opening Carlsen played.
Brian, your arguments demonstrate no knowledge of chess, no knowledge of logic, and no knowledge of statistical reasoning.
I genuinely hope that the moderators stop your dismissiveness of other members, particularly given your demonstrated fundamental lack of information that would be relevant to these forums.
Clearly the moderators are very busy this weekend, perhaps with chess stuff, because this thread is well past the point where it should be locked, and at least the last post on this thread probably should be pulled too.
I shall make no further contributions to this thread.
