The Scotch Game, or Scotch Opening, is a chess opening that begins with the moves
- 1. e4 e5
- 2. Nf3 Nc6
- 3. d4
Ercole del Rio, in his 1750 treatise Sopra il giuoco degli Scacchi, Osservazioni pratiche d’anonimo Autore Modense (On the game of Chess, practical Observations by an anonymous Modenese Author), was the first author to mention what is now called the Scotch Game. The opening received its name from a correspondence match in 1824 between Edinburgh and London. Popular in the 19th century, by 1900 the Scotch had lost favour among top players because it was thought to release the central tension too early and allow Black to equalise without difficulty. More modernly, grandmasters Kasparov and Timman helped to re-popularize the Scotch, when they used it as a surprise weapon to avoid the well-analysed Ruy Lopez.
Read more about Scotch Game: Analysis, Main Variations
Famous quotes containing the words scotch and/or game:
“It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. The only idea of wit, or rather that inferior variety of the electric talent which prevails occasionally in the North, and which, under the name of “Wut,” is so infinitely distressing to people of good taste, is laughing immoderately at stated intervals.”
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)
“Neighboring farmers and visitors at White Sulphur drove out occasionally to watch ‘those funny Scotchmen’ with amused superiority; when one member imported clubs from Scotland, they were held for three weeks by customs officials who could not believe that any game could be played with ‘such elongated blackjacks or implements of murder.’”
—For the State of West Virginia, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)