Hello.  I could swear I read an article one time where Prie acknowledged that someone had shown him- after his previous NIC articles saying otherwise - that the variation with Qxf6 does not work after all.  I am trying to find the analysis, but can't seem to find it anywhere.  He had sort of finally agreed that gxf6 was necessary as I recall.

Martin gives the example game: Groszpeter,Attila (2505) - Reprintsev,Alexander (2440) [B01] Pardubice Czech op Pardubice (5), 1998; i.e 6.Bd3 Nxc3 7.bxc3 g6! etc

it's one of the free samples so you can check it out yourself at

http://www.chesscenter.com/twictheory/

Quote:


After 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 has there been found anything wrong with 5...Ne4!? yet? Martin had an article on it at TWiC and it works OK in blitz for me, though I often forget to play it, as the ...c6, ...Bf5 moves have almost become automatic.

Mmmh, I just realised this old thread I started ages ago has become a bit more interesting recently. From the summary of a Scandinavian article in ChessBase Magazine 106 at http://www.chessbase.com/shop/product.asp?pid=244 it seems like GM Prie has just recommended the 15...Qe5 line in response the Kahlifman's Anand-3 (his repertoire actually allows the 16.Be3 Bf4! trick...) and the "A series of simple moves suffices" article by Tiviakov in NiC, both of which recommended this system for white.

In the following Scandinavian Variation
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 c6 6.Bc4 Bf5 7.Bd2 e6 8.Nd5 Qd8 9.Nxf6+ Qxf6 10.Qe2 Nd7 11.O-O-O Bg4 12.d5 Bxf3 13.gxf3 cxd5 14.Bxd5 O-O-O 15.Be4 

I've tried 15...Qe5 recently in a correspondence game, but Alexander Dyakov from Russia rather efficiently outplayed me. My inspiration for the move had come from a comment by GM Hansen, who said that in this variation black's main problem was the position of his queen (and that ideally it should be on c7 - but getting it there seems rather slow).
16.Bc3 Qc7 17.h4 f6 18.Rhg1 Nc5 19.Rxd8+ Qxd8 20.Qc4 Qc7 21.Bd4 e5 22.Be3 Nxe4 23.Qxe4 Kb8 24.f4 Bd6 25.fxe5 Bxe5 26.Kb1 Qd7 27.h5 h6 28.Qd3 Qf7 29.Qg6 Qxg6 30.Rxg6 Rd8 31.c3 Rd7 32.Kc2 Bd6 33.a4 Kc7 34.b4 b6 35.b5 Kb7 36.c4 a5 37.Rg4 Bb4 38.Re4 Ka7 39.Re6 Bd6 40.Kd3 Bc5+ 41.Ke4 Bxe3 42.fxe3 Rc7 
43.Rc6 Re7+ 44.Kd5 f5 45.Kd6 Rxe3 46.Rc7+ Kb8 47.Rxg7 Re4 48.Rh7 1-0 

I was going to forget the variation after the game against Dyakov, when I came across the following game in TWIC issue 496:
Riff,J (2397) - Prie,E (2427) [B01]
TCh-FRA Nat1 Final Belfort FRA (8), 08.05.2004
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bf5 6.Bc4 c6 7.Bd2 e6 8.Nd5 Qd8 9.Nxf6+ Qxf6 10.Qe2 Bg4 11.d5 Bxf3 12.gxf3 cxd5 13.Bxd5 Nd7 14.0-0-0 0-0-0 15.Be4 Qe5 16.Bc3 Qc7 17.Kb1 f6 18.Bd3 Nc5 19.Bc4 Bd6 20.Bxe6+ Kb8 21.Qc4 Nxe6 22.Qxe6 Bxh2 23.Rxd8+ Rxd8 24.a4 h6 25.Qg4 Be5 26.Bxe5 fxe5 27.Re1 Rd2 28.Qf5 a6 29.Qxe5 Rd1+ 30.Ka2 Rxe1 31.Qxe1 Qxc2 32.Qb4 Qxf2 33.Qf8+ Ka7 34.Qxg7 h5 35.Qh8 Qxf3 36.Qd4+ b6 37.a5 Qf7+ 38.Ka1 Qc7 39.axb6+ Qxb6 40.Qg7+ ½-½

As GM Prie is basically the leading practioner of the 9...Qxf6 variation, I wonder whether it's not maybe playable after all. (there's also an older game Wang Pin - Makropoulou, Olympiad w Bled SLO (10), 05.11.2002, in which white didn't seem to treat the opening particularly well).
My main reason for investigating 15...Qe5 was that I wasn't entirely happy with 15...Bd6 (which gave me easy equality once after 16.Be3?! Bf4!), because white can sidestep the exchange of bishops with moves like 16.Kb1, but maybe that's still better than the positions after Qe5? What do you think?