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Normal Topic Slightly off-beat Dutch (Read 3867 times)
brabo
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Re: Slightly off-beat Dutch
Reply #4 - 05/08/13 at 20:15:17
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Stigma wrote on 05/08/13 at 19:27:57:
That makes sense of the move-order.

It doesn't help me much though, since I never liked the Black side of the Stonewall. Is it really so strong now that White players are avoiding it, even with Black committed to the old ...Be7?

That is still an open question to me too. It is however clear that white already lost some options by playing the knight to f3 while in the stonewall it is well known that h3 is more critical. On the other hand blacks bishop is regarded less active on e7 than on d6. Also the system with b3 against the Classical Stonewall has certainly its own venom which I learned the hard way recently from a more than 300 points higher rated grandmaster (see my last blogreference).
  
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Re: Slightly off-beat Dutch
Reply #3 - 05/08/13 at 19:27:57
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That makes sense of the move-order.

It doesn't help me much though, since I never liked the Black side of the Stonewall. Is it really so strong now that White players are avoiding it, even with Black committed to the old ...Be7?
  

Improvement begins at the edge of your comfort zone. -Jonathan Rowson
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brabo
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Re: Slightly off-beat Dutch
Reply #2 - 05/08/13 at 18:40:48
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Stigma wrote on 05/08/13 at 17:54:06:
But why are so many strong players choosing an early b3 against the Classical Dutch?

I though the main lines were just good for White (and have stopped playing this way with Black), but they must know something I don't.

In this move-order white still can get a stonewall on the board after 6.d4 as I explained earlier on this site, see http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1234670097/15
I consider a normal stonewall after 6.b3 as a mistake so I believe that is the reason why strong grandmasters select the move.
  
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Stigma
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Re: Slightly off-beat Dutch
Reply #1 - 05/08/13 at 17:54:06
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But why are so many strong players choosing an early b3 against the Classical Dutch?

I though the main lines were just good for White (and have stopped playing this way with Black), but they must know something I don't.
  

Improvement begins at the edge of your comfort zone. -Jonathan Rowson
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brabo
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Slightly off-beat Dutch
05/08/13 at 17:42:48
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The recent article on chessvibes http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/top-gms-at-the-4ncl-guildford-are-the-new-cham... caught my eye not only for the h3 game of Adams-Fressinet but also for the Dutch games by the strong grandmaster Matthew Sadler. A win against a lower rated player and a draw against Ivanchuk sounds to me a good result:
The reporter calls the line a slightly off-beat Dutch. Probably correct however I recently started to play myself this system with the black pieces. I wrote some blogarticles about it of which the first one in the row is the most interesting one from theoretical point of view:
http://schaken-brabo.blogspot.be/2013/02/hollandse-stappen-in-de-engelse-opening...
http://schaken-brabo.blogspot.be/2013/03/sitzfleisch.html
http://schaken-brabo.blogspot.be/2013/04/met-een-kanon-op-een-mug-schieten.html
  
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