Totteridge And Whetstone

When played as the first move in the game by the first player to move, this is "Allbright's Opening". This usually leads to "Allbright's Gambit", involving the early sacrifice of one red, black and bronze podume in the hope of gaining a positional advantage. Like the King's Gambit in chess, it is popular at middle-ranking levels but, according to current theory, unsound against the correct response (which may, however, be hard to find): because it is supposedly easier for the responder to counter the positional advantage, than for the opener to either hold on to the advantage or use it to recoup the sacrificed tokens.

When played as the first move of a subsequent player, this constitutes "Allbright's Counter-Gambit". Since other players have already played, and therefore have the advantage of an extra move, the gambit is much less likely to be sound in two-player games, but may still have its merits in multiple-player games - particularly of the All-In variety.

Otherwise, there is very little to say about Totteridge & Whetstone, except "Thank goodness it isn't High Barnet" and "Ye gods, what the hell did Allbright think he was doing, always playing his first move out here"...

[JLE]