Parham Attack
Encyclopedia
The Parham Attack is an irregular chess opening
beginning with the moves:
The opening is named after American chess
master
Bernard Parham
, the first master-level player known to have advocated it. Parham also advocates early development of the queen in other positions, as in his favored line as White against the Sicilian Defence
, 1.e4 c5 2.Qh5?!
The Parham Attack violates a conventional opening principle because it develops the queen
too early and subjects it to attack, although it is relatively safe after retreating to f3. Nonetheless, the opening causes Black some problems. Left to his own devices, Black would probably develop with ...Nf6, ...Bc5, and ...Nc6. The Parham Attack hinders this by first forcing Black (unless he wants to sacrifice a pawn) to defend the e-pawn (usually with 2...Nc6), then after 3.Bc4 forcing Black to either play 3...g6 (virtually committing Black to fianchetto
ing his king
bishop
), 3...Qe7 (blocking the bishop), or 3...Qf6 (taking away the knight's best square). In 2005, the Dutch
grandmaster
Hans Ree
called 2.Qh5 "a provocative but quite sensible move."
As with the similar Napoleon Opening
(2.Qf3?!), White hopes for the Scholar's Mate
, e.g. 2.Qh5 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6?? 4.Qxf7#. In both cases, Black can easily avoid the trap, but 2.Qf3 does not pose the impediments to natural development of Black's pieces that 2.Qh5 does. Incidentally, Black's worst possible response to 2.Qh5 is 2...Ke7?? 3.Qxe5#. (This line ties with a few others for the fastest possible checkmate
by White.)
(GM) tournament games in 2005. U.S. Champion Hikaru Nakamura
played it as White against India
n GM Krishnan Sasikiran
at the May 2005 Sigeman Tournament in Copenhagen
/Malmö
, Denmark. Nakamura got a reasonable position out of the opening but lost the game due to a mistake made in the middlegame. He later wrote on the Internet, "I do believe that 2.Qh5 is a playable move, in fact I had a very good position in the game, and was close to winning if I had in fact played 23.e5." Sasikiran went on to tie with Timman
for first place in the tournament, with Nakamura half a point behind.
The previous month, Nakamura had played 2.Qh5 against GM Nikola Mitkov at the April 2005 HB Global Chess Challenge in Minneapolis. That game ended in a draw
after 55 moves.
More often the opening is adopted by chess novices, as when actor Woody Harrelson
played it against Garry Kasparov
in a 1999 exhibition game in Prague
. Harrelson achieved a draw
after being assisted by several grandmasters who were in Prague attending the match between Alexei Shirov
and Judit Polgár
. The next year Kasparov again faced the opening as Black, this time winning in 17 moves, when tennis star Boris Becker
played it against him in an exhibition game in New York.
Chess opening
A chess opening is the group of initial moves of a chess game. Recognized sequences of opening moves are referred to as openings as initiated by White or defenses, as created in reply by Black. There are many dozens of different openings, and hundreds of named variants. The Oxford Companion to...
beginning with the moves:
- 1. e4 e5
- 2. Qh5
The opening is named after American chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
master
Chess master
A chess master is a chess player of such skill that he/she can usually beat chess experts, who themselves typically prevail against most amateurs. Among chess players, the term is often abbreviated to master, the meaning being clear from context....
Bernard Parham
Bernard Parham
Bernard Parham is an American chess master most famous for advocating a chess opening known as the Parham Attack. He is also known for inventing the Matrix Notation for chess as an alternative to the algebraic notation. One of the advantages of the Matrix Notation is that it is rotatable 180...
, the first master-level player known to have advocated it. Parham also advocates early development of the queen in other positions, as in his favored line as White against the Sicilian Defence
Sicilian Defence
The Sicilian Defence is a chess opening that begins with the moves:The Sicilian is the most popular and best-scoring response to White's first move 1.e4...
, 1.e4 c5 2.Qh5?!
The Parham Attack violates a conventional opening principle because it develops the queen
Queen (chess)
The queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess, able to move any number of squares vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of the first rank next to the king. With the chessboard oriented correctly, the white queen starts...
too early and subjects it to attack, although it is relatively safe after retreating to f3. Nonetheless, the opening causes Black some problems. Left to his own devices, Black would probably develop with ...Nf6, ...Bc5, and ...Nc6. The Parham Attack hinders this by first forcing Black (unless he wants to sacrifice a pawn) to defend the e-pawn (usually with 2...Nc6), then after 3.Bc4 forcing Black to either play 3...g6 (virtually committing Black to fianchetto
Fianchetto
In chess the fianchetto is a pattern of development wherein a bishop is developed to the second rank of the adjacent knight file, the knight pawn having been moved one or two squares forward....
ing his king
King (chess)
In chess, the king is the most important piece. The object of the game is to trap the opponent's king so that its escape is not possible . If a player's king is threatened with capture, it is said to be in check, and the player must remove the threat of capture on the next move. If this cannot be...
bishop
Bishop (chess)
A bishop is a piece in the board game of chess. Each player begins the game with two bishops. One starts between the king's knight and the king, the other between the queen's knight and the queen...
), 3...Qe7 (blocking the bishop), or 3...Qf6 (taking away the knight's best square). In 2005, the Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
grandmaster
International Grandmaster
The title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....
Hans Ree
Hans Ree
Hans Ree is a Dutch Grandmaster of chess and is a columnist and chess writer for the NRC Handelsblad. He contributes to the leading chess magazines New In Chess and ChessCafe.com...
called 2.Qh5 "a provocative but quite sensible move."
As with the similar Napoleon Opening
Napoleon Opening
The Napoleon Opening is an irregular chess opening starting withIt is a weak opening because it develops the queen too early and subjects it to attack, and deprives the knight of its best square....
(2.Qf3?!), White hopes for the Scholar's Mate
Scholar's mate
In chess, Scholar's Mate is the checkmate achieved by the moves 1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6? 4. Qxf7#. The moves might be played in a different order or in slight variation, but the basic idea is the same—the queen and bishop combine in a simple mating attack on f7 .Sometimes Scholar's Mate is...
, e.g. 2.Qh5 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6?? 4.Qxf7#. In both cases, Black can easily avoid the trap, but 2.Qf3 does not pose the impediments to natural development of Black's pieces that 2.Qh5 does. Incidentally, Black's worst possible response to 2.Qh5 is 2...Ke7?? 3.Qxe5#. (This line ties with a few others for the fastest possible checkmate
Checkmate
Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...
by White.)
Popularity
Despite its amateurish appearance, this opening was played in two grandmasterInternational Grandmaster
The title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....
(GM) tournament games in 2005. U.S. Champion Hikaru Nakamura
Hikaru Nakamura
Hikaru Nakamura is an American chess Grandmaster . He has been ranked among the top six players in the world by FIDE....
played it as White against India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n GM Krishnan Sasikiran
Krishnan Sasikiran
Krishnan Sasikiran is an Indian chess Grandmaster. Among Indians, he is second, after Viswanathan Anand, No. 6 in Asia & ranked 56th in the world in FIDE rating as on September 2011....
at the May 2005 Sigeman Tournament in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
/Malmö
Malmö
Malmö , in the southernmost province of Scania, is the third most populous city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg.Malmö is the seat of Malmö Municipality and the capital of Skåne County...
, Denmark. Nakamura got a reasonable position out of the opening but lost the game due to a mistake made in the middlegame. He later wrote on the Internet, "I do believe that 2.Qh5 is a playable move, in fact I had a very good position in the game, and was close to winning if I had in fact played 23.e5." Sasikiran went on to tie with Timman
Jan Timman
Jan Timman is a Dutch chess Grandmaster who was one of the world's leading players from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. At the peak of his career he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and was known as "The Best of the West"...
for first place in the tournament, with Nakamura half a point behind.
The previous month, Nakamura had played 2.Qh5 against GM Nikola Mitkov at the April 2005 HB Global Chess Challenge in Minneapolis. That game ended in a draw
Draw (chess)
In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...
after 55 moves.
More often the opening is adopted by chess novices, as when actor Woody Harrelson
Woody Harrelson
Woodrow Tracy "Woody" Harrelson is an American actor.Harrelson's breakthrough role came in the television sitcom Cheers as bartender Woody Boyd...
played it against Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
in a 1999 exhibition game in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
. Harrelson achieved a draw
Draw (chess)
In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...
after being assisted by several grandmasters who were in Prague attending the match between Alexei Shirov
Alexei Shirov
Alexei Dmitrievich Shirov is a Soviet-born Latvian chess grandmaster. He has consistently ranked among the world's top players since the early 1990s, and reached a ranking as high as number four in 1998...
and Judit Polgár
Judit Polgár
Judit Polgár is a Hungarian chess grandmaster. She is by far the strongest female chess player in history. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, the youngest person ever to do so at that time.Polgár was ranked No...
. The next year Kasparov again faced the opening as Black, this time winning in 17 moves, when tennis star Boris Becker
Boris Becker
Boris Franz Becker is a former World No. 1 professional tennis player from Germany. He is a six-time Grand Slam singles champion, an Olympic gold medalist, and the youngest-ever winner of the men's singles title at Wimbledon at the age of 17...
played it against him in an exhibition game in New York.
Possible continuations
Because most games with the Parham Attack have been played at weak scholastic tournaments, 2...g6?? has often been seen, losing a rook to 3. Qxe5+. The two moves that have received attention from higher-level players are 2...Nc6 and 2...Nf6!?2... Nc6
This is the most common continuation. Black defends his e5 pawn from the queen and prepares to meet 3.Bc4 with 3...Qe7 or 3...g6. Grandmasters Sasikiran and Mitkov both played this move against Nakamura in 2005. Garry Kasparov also chose it in his exhibition games against Boris Becker and Woody Harrelson.External links
- Jake, Joe and Garry (column by Hans ReeHans ReeHans Ree is a Dutch Grandmaster of chess and is a columnist and chess writer for the NRC Handelsblad. He contributes to the leading chess magazines New In Chess and ChessCafe.com...
) - Nakamura-Sasikiran, Sigeman 2005
- Article on Parham in Indianapolis paper 2007
- Games with the Parham Attack on ChessGames.com
- Talking the Drum featuring Bernard Parham