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)
“The savage soul of game is up at once—
The pack full-opening various, the shrill horn
Resounded from the hills, the neighing steed
Wild for the chase, and the loud hunter’s shout—
O’er a weak, harmless, flying creature, all
Mixed in mad tumult and discordant joy.”
—James Thomson (1700–1748)