Ludde wrote on 03/13/14 at 23:10:52:
I have played 9..Bf5 in a couple of correspondence games and thought I had found the "solution" to the Voronezh until I recently ran into 10.Nf3 d5 11.c5 Nc8 12.h3 Nc6 13.Be2 e6 14.O-O N8e7 15.g4 Be4 16.Ng5 Rb8 17.Qd2 h6 18.Ngxe4 dxe4 19.Rcd1. I will finally hold this game (actually we have reached a rook ending covered by tablebases, so I have no concerns any more - not about discussing the game either) but only after severe agony. The position here is not nice to play at all for black, and requires several "only moves". I seriously doubt it could be held between equals in an OTB game. So at the moment I think it is back to the old 9..e5 which is the only way to go. It is a shame really - in the other games I got nice play with this line, but the continuation above has closed the chapter on 9..Bf5 for me.
This ^^^ is the line in question. In my notes I have
13...Be4 instead (getting the bishop to e4 before Ng5 is possible), intending
14.O-O Bxf3 15.Bxf3 e6, transposing to lines you'd more typically reach via
12.Be2 Bg4 13.O-O Nc6 14.h3, and so on. This line tends to score very badly for White, but it seems to be objectively around equal or so. More critical seems to be
14.Nxe4 dxe4 15.Ng5 Nxd4, when White has a few choices:
a)
16.Bxd4 Bxd4 17.Nxe4 a5!? 18.O-O Na7! Bc4 was T.Ton That Nhu-D.Nguyen, Vung Tau 2002, and now
19...Nc6N seems equal to me.
b)
16.Nxe4N Qa5+ 17.Qd2 Qxd2 18.Nxd2 Nxe2 19.Kxe2 e6 seems very solid to me, but it's also possible that, similar to the idea above, that
16...a5!? or
16...a6!?, intending ...Na7-c6, is good too.
c)
16.O-ON a6! 17.Nxe4 Na7!= and so on.
I'd be interested to hear what people think about this, specifically Ludde, since he probably rejected this idea for some reason.
If a moderator wants to split this off, I'm fine with it - keeping the ...e5 tries consistent and not hijacking Kam's thread seems logical. If not, that's okay too!