Miniblog

前些日子，Le Labyrinthe de Pan的導演Guillermo del Toro做了一個AMA，其中一個回答提及了帶給他靈感的兩本書：

When I was writing the movie^*, I locked myself in a little room in a hotel in Spain. And I brought six or seven Victorian and Edwardian volumes of fairy lore and fairy tales. One was a couple of volumes from Andrew Lang’s colored fairy books. Another one was, The Science of Fairy Tales, which is a beautiful book, and then some of the taxonomy for the fairies in the highlands [...]

其一為維多利亞時代紅極一時的Andrew Lang彩色童話集系列^*（見圖），其二為 The Science of Fairy Tales。^*

一直對童話深感興趣，期許這些書也能帶給我些靈感。

作為一名專下棄兵開局^*的gambiteer^*，可參考的開局書籍常常寥寥無幾。

Tennison棄兵就是這麼樣的開局。

斯堪的納維亞防禦（1. e4 d5）一直是我的剋星，嘗試過主變例（2. exd5）及較差但個人勝率較高的前進變例（2. e5）。最後相中了這個Tennison棄兵納入我的開局錄^*，並一連幾周的晚上在棋社與棋友嘗試各種變例始有心得。後在今年Noisiel的比賽，受到Martian棄兵的啟發，局中找到引擎合意的棄馬妙手，不表。

Tennison棄兵的最後一本較正式的書籍應該是Uwe Bekemann的Better late than never - The Tennison Gambit（2015），其簡介還記載了開局典故^*：

This is one of these old stories from chess history which can neither be confirmed nor ultimately refuted. According to the story, and so far there is no doubt about its authenticity, Otto Tennison was a Danish player who lived in the 19th century. He used to open all his games categorically with the strongest first move 1.e4 until one day he became so fed up with all the elaborate variations his opponents threw onto the board without even thinking that he said to himself, "Enough is enough! From now on I will choose a completely different approach.“ Thus spoke Otto Tennison, and at the next opportunity when he played with the white pieces, he threw 1.Nf3 onto the board without even thinking. Alas, when his opponent answered 1...d5, he was overcome by doubts about what he had done. He sat and stared at the board as if in deep meditation, but suddenly, like struck by lightning, he took his king pawn, pushed it to e4 with great decisiveness and uttered – more to himself than to anybody else, "Better late than never!“ The Tennison Gambit is one of these openings which the chess world has almost entirely neglected up to now. The initial move order 1.Nf3 d5 2.e4 (or less often 1.e4 d5 2.Nf3) leads to positions which are new territory for most players. As a surprise weapon it is the ideal approach to lure your opponent into theoretical no man's land almost from move one.