At the risk of feeding everyone's addiction, did you notice Etienne Bacrot played a really nice Miles/Kengis system game today at the EU Championship in Liverpool?

Short also played the Alekhine in Round 3, albeit against a significantly weaker player.

I looked in SDO and it seems to me that 7.Bf4 tends to transpose to 7.Qe2 Nc6 8.0-0 0-0 9.c3 Bg4 10.Bf4.

Yesterday on the internet, I came into following variation of the Alburt: 1.e4-Nf6 2.e5-Nd5 3.d4-d6 4.Nf3-g6 5.Bc4-Nb6 6.Bb3-Bg7 7.Bf4, it was late and I played the horrible 7....-Bg4 and came to loose very soon after 8.Bf7.
Now I could not find nearly anything about this (side) variation. What would you play as black against Bf4. I think both 0-0 and Nc6 could be reasonnable but how to make use of the maybe wrong placed bishop at f4?

kevinludwig wrote on 09/05/08 at 17:41:07:


I played the Kengis for quite a while and had quite good results, but gave it up when I could not find a good answer to 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.Nf3 dxe5 5.Nxe5 g6 6.c4 Nb6 7.Nc3 Bg7 8.Bf4 0-0 9.Be2 c6 10.0-0 Be6 11.b3 N8d7 12.Nf3 Bg4 13.Bg5!?, a novelty (so far as I know) which Corky Schakel used to beat me in a U.S. CC Ch. prelim.  I played 13...f6 and soon got into trouble, then afterward could not see a good line for Black.  But lately I have come to think that 13...Nc8 is O.K. for Black, so I may give the Kengis another whirl.  (Nc8 is thematic in so many lines of the Alekhine, less often in the Kengis.)  In the Kengis, Black has very natural queenside play with a7-a5-a4 and so forth.  I have never played Mile's 5...c6 in a serious game; it just seems so passive that I recoil from it.  I mistrust Black's chances in the piece sac line you mention, and White also has 6.Nf3 with a good game.

My early experiments with 4...g6 led to not very happy positions where I was sometimes able to save the game, sometimes not.

Since dropping the Kengis I have played mostly the Flohr, almost always with a draw or a win.  I admit that my average opponent hasn't been quite as strong as I.  I did lose one recent game with it when my opponent played 6.c4 Nb6 7.Nbd2 N8d7 8.exd6 exd6 9.Qb3, after which I flopped about and did not play very well.  I don't especially like Black's position there, but I don't think it should be lost.  I think in many lines of the Flohr you have to be quite careful not to permit invasion on d6, or at least to find some counterplay if it happens.

My notes also include the "Old Main Line," but so far I haven't played it.  I have sort of convinced myself that it's playable however.

I just finished a game on the IECG with 4...Nb6.  The result was a draw, but the opening was certainly satisfactory to me.  It went 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 3.Nf3 Nb6 4.a4 a5 5.Nc3 g6 6.exd6 bxd6 7.Bb5+ Bd7 8.h4 h6 9.Bf4 Bg7 10.0-0 (10.Qd2 is what I expected after which there have been some high-level games -- to get castled, Black weasels around with Nb4 and some knight to d5) 10...0-0 11. Qd2 Kh7 12. Bd3 Nc6 13.h5 Nb4 14.Be4 d5 15.Bd3 Nxd3 16.hxg6+ fxg6 17.cxd3 e6 18.Rfc1 Nc8 19.Ra3 Ne7 20.Rb3 g5 21.Be5 Rxf3 (a nice move, in my opinion) 22.gxf3 Nf5 23.Nb5 Kg6 (another nice move) 24.Kh1 1/2-1/2.  Apparently he got scared, but I think I was quite O.K.  One game means little of course, but I do intend to investigate 4...Nb6 much more deeply.  In the lines I've looked at, Black seems to have better fighting chances than he does with the other systems.  But 4...Nb6 is risky, and who knows if there is a killer rejoinder out there?

Frankly, any one of these systems is not so easy to learn to play. Black has to be on his toes.  I perhaps should mention that I uniformly played 1...e5 versus 1.e4 in my match games as 1st Board for our Chesspub Team.  I thought that my results would be better that way, and that my team responsibilities superceded my desire to learn more about this defense.

lg wrote on 09/06/08 at 10:32:57:

Does he also play chess? I thought soccer was just enough for his level 

lg wrote on 09/05/08 at 19:14:58:


Mainly the one I mentioned, Ng5 and Qf3.

Markovich wrote on 09/05/08 at 17:35:48:


Agreed but below master level, 2 Nc3 is very popular among people who haven't thought through the implications of playing it and are expecting black to play 2...d5.

MarkG wrote on 09/05/08 at 17:22:55:


I think you're talking about a fairly low level of chess.  When you're up against, oh, masters and above, they don't play 2.Nc3 unless they want to play a Vienna or a Four Knights.  Definitely 2...e5 is a fine move and perhaps objectively best.  Obiously if Black knew that his opponent would play 2.Nc3 in reply to Alekhine's, he would always begin 1...Nf6, never 1...e5. 

But I may want to insist on playing outside those channels, and in fact, I often do.  Sure enough, 2...d5 has a Scandinavian feel and Bagirov even named it the "Scandinavian Variation," but I think Black is fairly good there.  The main threat appears to be the e6 gambit, I believe Black can defend.