DEATH TO THE DUTCH!

It happened again. I opened a game with 1.d4 and was met with 1... f5 – The Dutch. Ugh! In Raetsky and Chetverick’s book “Petroff Defence” they joke that all chess openings are divided into two categories: 1) The Petroff, and 2) The Petroff Declined (1.d4, 1. c4, 1.Nf3, etc.). I am almost coming to think that it should be the Dutch and the Dutch declined. I HATE THE DUTCH!!!

When I open 1.d4 and then the reply comes 1...f5, I can (up to this day) pretty well be assured that I have just lost a point. I found a way (two ways in fact) around this by opening with either 1.c4 or 1.Nf3 against known Dutch players. However, how the heck can you know that someone is a Dutch player or not, unless you have heard them preaching the Dutch Gospel somewhere or have seen quite a few of their games?

I like kicking off a chess game with 1.c4 or 1.Nf3 (the English and the Reti respectively), but I really want to start with 1.d4. BUT... I am sick of loosing to the Dutch! And when I say sick of it, I mean sick like a consumptive leper with AIDS, pneumonia, and a bit of typhoid fever thrown in. Sick and freakin’ tired of it!!! Yellow fever, black plague, red death sick of it. I want to get all of my kindred spirits to open their windows and yell into the streets, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” [RIP Sidney Lumet – “Network” is just one of the MASTERPIECES you left us with; we will always remember your work!]

So, as I came home dejected from the loss, I wondered what I could do. I cannot let this keep happening. Against all other replies to 1.d4 I feel fine. Why not the Dutch? Well, first off, the Dutch is what I would call a “specialty” opening. It is an opening usually employed by the converted. This special group who use it as their only weapon. The live and die by the Dutch. When they play me, they live a VERY happy life. I sit back and let them crush me. I cringe at somewhere between moves one and three that they stick their proud pawn on f5 (depending on move order). I cringe again when their knight makes a home on MY e4 square. The bile backs up in my throat and my anger builds as I play the Dutch player.

Things have to change!!!

And then I came to the OBVIOUS conclusion! (No, no dopey, I am not crossing over and becoming one of them.) I am, however, going to become a “Dutch Expert.” I am devoting the next two (at minimum) weeks to looking at the Dutch and learning it, knowing it, feeling it, and DEFEATING it!!!! “Death to the Dutch” is my new mission!!! I will learn their moves, and find better ones. I will learn their tactics, and find better ones. I will learn their strategies, and find better ones. I am on a mission. I will best the Dutch. I will kill the Dutch. I will not lose to the dreaded Dutch. For me, it will no longer be the “dreaded” Dutch! DEATH TO THE DUTCH!