Bill Wall

500 Orangutan Games Bill Wall

The Orangutan Opening (1.b4) is also more commonly known as the Polish Opening or Sokolsky's Opening. The Orangutan got its name after the Polish player Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956) visited the Bronx Zoo during the 1924 New York International Tournament. He was impressed by an orangutan named Suzanna at the zoo and decided to dedicate his next game to her. Tartakower noted that the climbing motion of the pawn to b4 and to b5 reminded him of the orangutan. In round 4, Tartakower played 1.b4 against Géza Maróczy (1870-1951) and drew after 57 moves. In 1903, Nikolai Bugayev (1837-1903), a prominent Russian mathematician, published his analyses of this opening in the Russian magazine Shakmatnoye Obozreniyi. In the 1930s, Soviet master Alexei Pavlovich Sokolsky (1908-1969) began analyzing and playing this opening in the USSR. In 1953, Sokolsky defeated grandmaster Salo Flohr (1908-1983) in Moscow with this opening. In 1963, he published his opening monograph Debyut 1.b2-b4. The idea of this irregular opening is for White to fianchetto his queen bishop onto the b2 square to control the a1-h8 diagonal. White also tries to prevent Black from expanding on the queenside as White gains mire spatial advantage on the queenside. Black has many options to control the center and start his own attack. Both sides have many tactical threats and good attacking chances. This book has 500 illustrative and decisive games based on the opening 1.b4. Slight annotations have been added to each game. Diagrams have been added to the most critical positions of some interesting games. This instructive and entertaining collection of games arising from the Orangutan Opening will be of interest to those players who like unusual openings. Have fun!