The 9th Ian McNab Memorial 2017: Thurs 27th April (This Thursday!)
Well the vote for the opening for the Ian McNab Memorial was a tad disappointing with only 9 people voting? Anyway the Monkey’s Bum wins it by a cheek with 3 votes; Cochrane’s Gambit had 2, and all the rest 1 each.
* The Monkeys Bum: 1.e4 g6 2.Bc4 Bg7 3.Qf3 e6 4.d4 Bxd4 5.Ne2 Bg7 6.Nbc3
Now the voting over the years has been abysmal, so I am proposing that the 2nd place opening is the opening for next year (10th), then we stick with the ten openings all ready picked and repeat the cycle. That will allow players to not only defend the Ian McNab, but the opening played!
I hope to see as many of you down this Thursday 27th April for the Ian McNab Memorial. Remember the matches “DO NOT” go for grading; 5 rounds; 15 minutes each player; Swiss pairing system used. You play the opening from “BOTH SIDES!”
Good fun, but a trophy is up for grabs as well!
P.S. How did it get it`s name?
The Monkey’s Bum was discovered and championed by IM Nigel Povah in the 1970s during a wave of popularity for the Modern Defence. In 1972, after Keene and Botterill published their book The Modern Defence, Povah began looking for a response to the opening. He happened across the game Ljubojević–Keene, Palma de Mallorca 1971, which started 1.e4 g6 2.d4 d6 3.Bc4 Bg7 4.f4 Nf6 and eventually ended in a draw. Intrigued by Ljubojević’s early Bc4, Povah began investigating a rapid assault on f7 with 3.Qf3. When he showed the first few moves to Ken Coates, a friend at Leeds, Coates declared, “If that works then I’m a monkey’s bum!” The name stuck. The Monkey’s Bum first appeared in print five years later in the British Chess Magazine. Povah wrote an article on the theory of the Monkey’s Bum, in which he stated that although he had never yet lost with the variation, it was still “in its infancy”.