kylemeister wrote on 07/05/11 at 22:21:28:


Thanks.  I knew this subtlety from the 6. Bc4 Najdorf (Play ...Bb7 or ...Be7, but NOT BOTH!), but hadn't made the connection.

kylemeister wrote on 07/01/11 at 03:24:37:


If there's a fast way to explain how this is still true while 7...Nbd7 and even 6...Nbd7 have been rehabilitated, I would love to hear it.  I've been away from the Najdorf too long as black, and as White, everyone seems to play ...Be7 against me, much to my delight.

I assume that if nothing else, Black can always answer h2-h4 with an h-pawn move of his own.  And that's if he really has nothing else he wants to do (like develop his Queenside).

BirdBrain wrote on 07/01/11 at 00:56:24:


I'd say the business of pushing the h-pawn looks rather odd.  Incidentally 11. h4 is a known try against the Browne system (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cd 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Be7 8. Qf3 Qc7 9. 0-0-0 Nbd7 10. Bd3 h6), but is considered dubious as far as I know.

8...Nbd7 has always been frowned upon due to 9. Bc4.

A famous game involving such dubious early castling by Black is Unzicker-Fischer.

The more important question is: what reason did you have to play 10.h4 ? How did you intend to continue after 10...Qc7 ?
Of course 9...0-0 is almost a blunder.

MartinC wrote on 06/29/11 at 21:25:13:


Oh... I agree completely.  I think it is more accurate to delay ...d6 a few moves, e.g. 5 Nc3 Qc7 6 Be3 (6 g4 h6 7 Be3 Nf6 8 f3 d5) a6 7 f3 Nf6 8 g4 h6 9 Qd2 b5!  Since the modern way to combat g2-g4-g5 is ...d5, we need to preserve the option of playing it in one move against systems that depend on that motif (Keres, obviously, but also the English and the Be3/a3 system in the Taimanov).

...d6 is an important and thematic move, and the whole point is to transpose to a Scheveningen, but not at the cost of being worse.  I know the 5...d6 move order is played often, but unless you really think you aren't going to play ...a6 and ...Qc7, it isn't essential to play it on move 5.

(...Qc7 isn't exciting against the English attack either, necessarily, but there are no perfect move orders.)

MartinC wrote on 06/28/11 at 12:16:50:


I don't really fear the English, because ...b5-b4 and ...d7-d5 is always faster than White's attack (this doesn't mean Black isn't capable of being worse, but it means Black has an available panic switch to flip if White is becoming too focused on the kingside attack).

What is troublesome is lines with Bd3 and f4; Black has no good way to take advantage of this, and can just end up in a move-down Classical Scheveningen if he is not careful (White gets Bf1-e2-d3 in one move, where the two-move version is a line of the Classical which is supposed to be = but is tricky).

I agree with Kylemeister as well.  The problem is that Black doesn't have anything particularly compelling to do with his knight on g8 except move it to f6 (and certainly a Scheveningen without ...Nf6 isn't a Scheveningen anyway).  So White can just play g2-g4 as if Nf6 was played, and then g5 whenever Black gets around to moving the king's knight.

Presumably Black could play something like Nge7-g6, but then f2-f4-f5 is powerful, and if it isn't, then h2-h4-h5.  There is also ...d6, ...Bd7, and ...Nge7-c8.  But all this is pretty artificial and "pure" Taimanov-ey, with Nge7.  It does not mesh well with ...d6!

That said, I would endorse this move order for Scheveningen players willing to PLAY the Keres, since you gain a bit of flexibility in allowing g4-g5, and don't want to play ...Nbd7 anyway.