Introduction to DDG News


Foreword

A year ago in the first DDG News issue I wrote: "I start publishing an on-line DDG magazine 2-3 times a year." Now that this second issue comes 13 months later, let me rephrase the statement: 1-2 times a year.

This issue briefly covers what happened in the DDG world in 1999. The DDG got nice publicity in a few books and articles; and some good, maybe even great, games were played.

Motivation to play the DDG

By now I should know how to start motivating; in fact, I have written so many encouraging pamphlets that I almost need to motivate myself for yet another. But I am well-motivated: I simply know that I score much better with the DDG than with any respected opening. Reasons are countless -- or at least I can think of three of them:
  1. People hate to meet an opening that they do not know.
  2. There just might be something good in the DDG.
  3. Who really bothers to study the DDG but me.

Why indeed would anyone else play the DDG but me? The reasons are mainly the same as for playing any other unorthodox or risky opening. I tried to gather those reasons together in article Lessons of a Great Battle, which was published in Chess Mail 5/1999.

Remember that even though the DDG may not be a good opening objectively, it may be good for you -- or at least bad for your opponent. To put it shortly: If you play the DDG, you have a deep motivation for winning.


DDG News 1/2000, Jyrki Heikkinen (ed.)