The Senior American Master Ken Smith, who died last month
(February 1999), was an advocate of gambits. He was a noted
practitioner of the Morra Gambit against the
Sicilian , viz.: 1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3.
c3 ), which some American players still refer to as the
Smith-Morra Gambit.
I don't like doing so many sessions on Openings, because we all
play different ones, but while Rex was asking me about the English
it occurred to me that I have played more English Opening games
than any other over the last 15-20 years, but I have never tried to
teach anybody about it. So I sat down and tried to put together
this session.
I immediately realised why it wasn't such a natural thing
to do, because the damn thing is so diffuse and complex. [I
wouldn't dream of doing a session which I had narrowed down to
"1.d4", even less so if there were vast transpositional