Michael Healey has christened a new opening – the Baboon, which hinges on an early b5 as Black and is a kind of mirror image of the Orangutan opening. But is it any good? Photograph by Leila Boujnane

The Orangutan (1. b4) is a beautiful, rare, fascinating opening. And animal. Yet there is its mirror image – b5 as Black. First of all, what to call this? The Polish Defence? Bit of an insult to Poles. The St George? Bit of an insult to St George – and it specifically requires a6 as well, à la Basman and Miles.

What is the opposite of an Orangutan – a big, smiley, mostly calm, orangey ape known for its large, plate-like, grey, flanged face, which denotes male status to females? A Baboon (specifically it turns out I was picturing a Mandrill, but never mind)! A vicious scowling monkey with a blue, stripey face known for advertising to females with its bright red … bum.

Is calling this opening the Baboon an insult to b5 as Black? Or Is b5 an insult to baboons? Let’s find out!

For several years I tried to make b5 work as Black, particularly against White openings I found too “dull” – the Reti, the London System and the Nimzowitsch-Larsen “Attack”. Unfortunately against the similarly boring English 1.c4 b5 was too insane, even for me. It was an attempt to kick sedate White players out of their comfortable armchair from the first few moves, and get them actually thinking rather than lazily scanning the board, remote control in hand, until they found some positional weakness in Black’s set-up to focus in on.

It is quite possible to get relatively “normal” openings – White can allow transposition into various Sicilians, and the Reti is sometimes met by an early b5 and Bb7. If Black manages to create an Orangutan a tempo down, that suits me down to the ground – or up to the trees rather.

The biggest problem: unlike the Orangutan, the Baboon is a tempo down. And that tempo is massive. White gains development and the centre. Black gains space on the queenside, but b5 (and the squares a5 and c5) are too weak early on. Black has to react to too many threats after the initial shock. The Baboon overturns the comfy armchair and tries to tear the fabric to bits; meanwhile the intended victim slips away to get their safari hat, net and stun gun. 

If White stays calm, Black often just ends up in trouble, as this game against Barry Hymer from 2018 shows:

Sure, Black had more central pawns, but White had everything else and I was extremely lucky to scrape a draw. Here is another desperate draw from a grim position, this time against Gavin Lock in an Alexander Cup match in 2019:

There are multiple ways to approach the opening. White can go for a King’s Indian Attack, as Ameet Ghasi did here at the King’s Place Rapidplay in 2017:

This was a miniature so embarrassing it ended up in the Times. Alternatively, White can go for a reversed main-line Orangutan a tempo up (1. b4 e5 2. Bb2 Bxb4), as Jonathan Nelson did here in 2017:

Or White can go for a double fianchetto, open the b-file and wait for Black’s feral attack to wear off, as IM Lorin D’Costa did here against me in 2017:

The top players favour a quick Bg5 taking out the f6 knight. This is GM Keith Arkell against me in 2019:

So is it all bad? Well, when I had a bit more vim to my game, I could get the occasional result. If White chooses to meet bared teeth with bared teeth, titled players who should beat me every time found themselves in a brawl with a Baboon. Here, in 2019, I halved with Swedish FM Drazen Dragicevic:

I also got a fighting draw with French GM Paul Velten in 2019:

Black has to work very hard to mix things up, and even then, after trades, tends to be positionally busted. In the games below I went completely rabid, with mixed results. First, a game against Thomas Bonn from 2023:

The second of my “rabid” Baboons, against FM Jonathan Rogers in 2019, is one of my favourites from among my own games. I was reading Alexei Shirov’s Fire on Board at the time and had lost all concept of the value of pieces.

There is, however, one move against which I recommend the Baboon – 1. b3. Partly from psychology – “You push one square and develop the bishop; I go TWO and do the same!” Partly from genuine strategy – one problem with b3 is that it weakens the c3 square long term; if the Baboon pawn gets to b4, White can end up strangely uncomfortable. My friend, colleague and occasional blitz rival Donny Muter has even stopped playing 1. b3 against me. He had zero experience of b5 because in thousands of bullet games online no one seems to play it, and the blitz games we have tend to go my way (which is the opposite story from every other opening). Maybe it’s also the gentle, civilised nature of 1. b3. No one expects the Baboon inquisition!

This was my first Baboon in a crucial game in the late stages of a tournament. It was played against Akito Oyama in 2016, and helped to win me a Weekend Open at the London Classic:

And finally here is another of my favourite games, against Robert Willmoth in 2017. I had been reading R N Coles’ book on Sultan Khan at the time, and was very pleased with my powerful retreating bishop on a8 supporting wild flailings of pawns and knights on the kingside.

So, to sum up, the Baboon isn’t all bad. Just a bit mad. And very hard work. Stick to the Orangutan!

International master John Hawksworth (pictured left, above) on his return to competitive action at the Kingston Invitational after a break of 35 years

After a short gap of 35 years, I played my first rated tournament since the 1990 British Championship at the Kingston Invitational Open in mid-August. Thanks very much to Stephen Moss for inviting me and for the excellent organisation by Stephen, the arbiters and others who helped the event run efficiently and professionally throughout.

Going into the event, I was quite apprehensive, not really knowing what to expect but hoping for a plus score and some improvement in my ECF rating, even if my 1990 vintage Fide rating of 2350 was likely to take a battering. Because nine games in five days seemed like a tall order for a returning pensioner like me, I arranged to take two half-point byes, which turned out to be a smart move to conserve energy.

On the first day, I was happy to start with a reasonably well-played draw (on both sides) against FM Rick McMichael, who I first encountered in junior tournaments in the late 1970s. I then had a quick draw against a promising youngster, Jai Kothari, who went on to win the junior title on tie-break after having led the whole event after six rounds.

After a bye in the third round, however, I was somewhat taken aback to be paired as Black against Qixiang Han, who is only 12 years old but already has a higher ECF rating (2263) than me, even if he is very underrated on the Fide list (2070). Luckily, he didn’t have his best game, blundering a pawn in the opening and allowing me a relatively easy win despite one inaccuracy near the end.

In the fifth round, I was back in the veterans’ enclosure with White against Surrey county captain Clive Frostick, whom I actually played in the 1982 Varsity match (we drew) as well as in earlier junior events. Being a morning game, I was able to prepare in depth for Clive’s a6 Queen’s Gambit Declined, meaning that my first 14 moves were all homework. This gave me only a slight advantage on the board, but a big lead on the clock.

Nonetheless, Clive defended very actively in the middle game to generate counterplay and the fairest result would have been a draw after some swings and roundabouts in the computer evaluation. But luckily for me, Clive was down to just a minute on the clock and made an unsound piece sacrifice that allowed me to win, despite him coming close to a perpetual with a queen sacrifice at the end that only just failed, nearly giving me a heart attack in the process!

After another energy-preserving half-point bye in the sixth round, I had 4/6 and was promoted to third board, where I had Black against 19-year-old German WFM Luisa Bashylina (pictured above), who had played for Kingston/CSC in the 4NCL earlier this year. In my preparation, I noticed some potential weak points in how she played against the Nimzo-Indian, where she generally went for lines with 4. e3. I therefore prepared in some depth against that move, only to see her confidently play 4. f3, which I had only looked at briefly! Fortunately, things still worked out well in what turned out to be my best game of the event.

Rather unexpectedly, I therefore found myself with 5/7 and playing on top board of the Open section in the penultimate round. My opponent was the co-leader on 5.5/7, Norwegian FM Jacob T Grave, who at 2366 was not just the highest rated in the event but also the strongest player (based on Fide ratings) that I had faced since returning to competitive chess last September. It’s fair to say I was happy with a draw and indeed offered one with White after only about 10 moves, but he decided to play on. This turned out to be justified as he gradually outplayed me to reach a queen and bishop ending with equal pawns but a clear advantage to him due to the weak dark squares in my position.

Jacob sacrificed his bishop to get two connected passed pawns but then, playing just on increment, allowed me a trick to win one of the advanced pawns and block the second one after it reached the seventh rank. The position was then equal, but he kept on trying to win until I found a perpetual check to force the draw.

A lucky escape for me and pretty nerve-wracking to have to play on increment for the only time this event. My hands were shaking too much to record the final moves, which the arbiter told me off for afterwards. I was used to club games where you don’t have to record moves after you are down to less than five minutes, but apparently this does not apply to Fide events with 30-second increment. Of course, there were no increments when I last played a serious tournament in 1990 as we were still using analogue rather than digital clocks in those days. In fact, we would have adjourned after 40 moves in those days, often after a crazy time scramble, but then got an extra hour for your next 20 moves, which generally led to more precise endgame play than you see today.

After that drama, I was hoping to play a quiet game in my final round as Black against Tom Villiers, but the gods were not wanting to let me off that easily. My opponent seemed to blunder a pawn in the opening but, rather than acquiesce to this, he went all in by sacrificing an exchange and a pawn to get a knight to a dangerous attacking square on d6. This more or less forced me to sacrifice my queen for three pieces, after which I had a notional material advantage (rook, bishop and knight vs queen) but my king was still stuck in the centre.

I really had no idea what was going on in this final position but, fortunately, my opponent felt the same and offered a draw, which I gratefully accepted as I had only 30 minutes on the clock and didn’t want to spoil a good tournament with a last-round loss if I blundered something later. The computer actually says White is slightly better in the final position, so I felt slightly vindicated in chickening out.

Overall, therefore, I finished with an unbeaten 6/9 (or 5/7 excluding byes) and equal fourth place in the event, which certainly exceeded my expectations. I still lost a few Fide rating points but not nearly as many as feared, while probably gaining about 25 ECF rating points. More importantly I played at least a couple of decent games, as well as having my fair share of luck. Hopefully this good form (and luck) will carry over into club and county games in the coming season!