There are many things in life that seem peaceful at first, but turn out to be very dangerous:
– Mogwai
– Your girlfriend saying “Sure, go hang out with your friends tonight”
– Adolf Hitler
However, none of these things looked as innocent and turned out to be deadly as a famous chess opening – Petrov defense.
Named after Mr. Alexander Petrov (NOT Mr. Defense), this “equalizer” was introduced into top tournament practice by a World Champion Vladimir Kramnik and World Championship Challenger Boris Gelfand. Ever since, numerous other top players have taken it up as a part of their opening repertoire. The most famous names are Fabiano Caruana – the most recent World Championship Challenger – and Ju Wenjun – Female World Chess Champion.
Even though it was considered as a drawing option back in the day (when many Internet commentators shouted “Drawnik” in chess forums whenever Big Vladdy employed it), today – mainly through the efforts of Caruana, it is a proven lethal weapon.
Especially on the club level, where ignorant 2150 players who never studied it properly end up in positions they don’t like and get outplayed due to their terrible positional understanding and abysmal endgame technique.1 So all they can do after the game is curse the day Mr. Petrov (incidentally – a very romantic and enterprising player) was born.
Curse the day of 12th February.
Happy birthday anniversary to Mr. Petrov and thank you for making the life of 1 e4 players miserable!
(If you like posts as these, check our complete list of Chess Birthdays )