BRIAN WALL's FISHING POLE

I chose to look at one of Brian Wall's games first, even though it isn't the first listed in the book Attacking 101 Volume #002 which I am blogging about as a study project. Brian Wall is famous for his "parlor trick" opening, "The Fishing Pole." Brian is the co-author of How to Play Chess Like an Animal, This game is of particular interest to me because he is playing a club member I've known for many years, Manny Presicci, underrated at 1520 in this game from 2006.

Black has played the fishing pole but instead of taking the bait with h3, White has played Re1, which leads to some devastating results if Black follows up correctly, as Brian Wall of course would.

Here is the game so far:

Manny Presicci (1520) vs Brian Wall (2242)

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Ng4 5. Re1 Bc5 6. d4 Nxd4 7. Nxd4 Qh4 

If White plays 8. Nf3 *

Then

8...Qxf2 9. Kh1

And this allows the smothered mate with the Qg1 sacrifice, followed by Nf2#, whichever legal move White makes.

There are several interesting variations of The Fishing Pole shown. Johnson has covered it thoroughly. It illustrates well a few key concepts I have noticed throughout Attack Formations and his other books. To put it in the Brian Wall's words, rather than my own, 

"The heart of the matter is the relationship between material (I only believe what I see) and bodyguards (pawns surrounding a king are worth roughly a piece) is not well understood or explained...The Fishing Pole is where the visible world collides with the spiritual world in Chess."

He also says patzers scoff  at the idea without thought of consequences...

I have to admit being one of those patzers. But it only happened once. I had been living away in California and hadn't seen Brian in a long time, and when I got back to Colorado it was apparently all the rage, like the Twist dance craze. I did exactly what Joel described. Al Gardner offered me a free knight, ignoring my mighty h3 threat and I shrugged, scoffed, gave it not a second thought and captured it. Woe is me. I never did that again.

I was happy to notice that my friend Francisco Baltier (1550)'s win against Walter Brown (2550) in a simul was presented in this chapter as there is a very entertaining video of the 5 (or is it 6) time US Chess Champion, responding to The Fishing Pole.