So I received
Mr. Watson's Dangerous Weapons: The French in the post today, and excitedly I flipped straight to the chapter that dealt with a topic that had occupied my thoughts off and on for a long time. That topic being, which Knight move to play in the Tarrasch? 7.Ndf3, 7.Ngf3 or 7.Ne2.
For those without the book, The chapter in question deals with 7.Ndf3!? [ECO C05: 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. c3 c5 6. Ndf3 To be precise. (It really bugs me when others assume you know the line they are talking about, and neglect to give all the moves, so I try to avoid that sin myself when I can
]
This chapter is very well written and alone is worth the price of admission. I became interested in this line after witnessing the game GM Ilya Gurevich vs GM Borges Mateos, Trinidad 1991 first hand (I actually played in this event). Being a fellow Tarrasch player I discussed the merits of the various Knight moves with Ilya, who by the way plays this line exclusively against the French and is a great expert in it. Considering Ilya is American I was surprised that Mr. Watson did not seek him out for some input, instead we get the UK connection of Rowson and Emms both strong GM's also, but with no practical experience with this line to my knowledge. That's not to say their contribution was naive, far from it, but I always prefer to gain insights from those walk the walk rather than talk the talk, but I digress.
The real purpose of this thread was in part to get Mr. Watson's attention regarding an important ommission from his book. I could have sent him an email, but I did this once to no avail, Presumably it got picked up by his Junk Mail filter, who knows. Anywho here is that ommission:
1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. c3 c5 6. Ndf3 Nc6 7. Bd3 Qa5 8. Kf1
b5!? This natural and to my eyes quite promising move has done well in pratice for Black, however Watson fails to mention it, even though a database search throws up two relatively old games from 1998 and 2000 both won handily by Black.
WHITE TO PLAY
Granted experience is limited from the above position, nevertheless I find it difficult to agree with Watson when he asserts "In conclusion, 8.Kf1 holds up theoretically and provides another dangerous weapon that you can direct your opponent's way". Quite frankly this looks dangerous only for White.
For those who are further interested in this line, it could be useful to do a search on the ICC for games by Junior, which is Ilya Gurevich's handle.
Well that's it for now, I'm off to peruse some of the other books that came in my order today, in particular Palliser's fighting the anti-Sicilians. That is another topic rather dear to my heart and Palliser's chapter on the Smith Morra has already grabbed my attention, since I have played his main reccommendation for many years, and against Ben Hague's interesting
8.Bf4!? which I analysed way back in 1993 with IM Rafail Klovsky, it has never really been clear to me whether the intended
8...e5 9.Ng5!? though dangerous looking actually works for White. A sample line to illustrate the point being:
1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 Nc6 5. Nf3 d6 6. Bc4 a6 7. O-O Nf6 8. Bf4 e5 9. Ng5 exf4 10. Nxf7 Qd7 11. Nxh8 Ne5 12. b3 g6 13. Na4 f3 14. Re1 Qg4 15. Bf1 Be6 16. h3 Qg5 17. Nb6 Rd8 The smoke has cleared and Black is better. I have never revealed this old analysis before, but to be honest I got fed up of waiting for a chance to test it out. Anyway that's a topic for another thread.
Bye
Toppy
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C05: John Watson - A World of Difference (Read 4141 times)
