While I was not too unhappy with the aforementioned Qd3/f3 + 0-0-0 plan, it still always kinda felt like Black got "too much" in the direct ..exd4 lines, and there was the added issue of just getting moveordered via 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.0-0 d6, when obviously all those plans around long castling are out the window.
I was hoping for Caruana to teach me how to deal with this, but he only covered 4.d4 Bd7 5.d5, as well as ..g6 plans in the Nxd4 line, so I had to stop being lazy and find something of my own against the old standard ..Nf6 ..Be7 business.
This is what I came up with:
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 d6 4.d4 exd4 5.Nxd4 Bd7 6.0-0 Nf6 And now, instead of the standard 7.Nc3, I've taken a liking to
7.Bxc6 bxc6 8.Qf3!?
The first positive thing of note is that this can be done against both moveorders - 3..Nf6 4.0-0 d6 5.d4 exd4 6.Nxd4 Bd7 7.Bxc6 is a direct transposition.
The line has three main points:
A) e4-e5 quickly becomes a significant threat, as the Qf3 will target c6
B) The delayed development of the queenside Knight allows us to push c2-c4, and Nc3 only afterwards, clamping the Black qside
C) Similarly, we might develop it to d2 instead of c3, which doesn't obstruct a potential Bb2, and allows even the Knight to land on c4 eventually
Here are some sample lines:
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8. ..Be7?! 9.e5! Nd5 (9..dxe5 10.Nxc6 Bxc6 11.Qxc6+ Nd7 12.Rd1 Bd6 13.Nc3 0-0 14.Ne4±)
10.exd6 cxd6 (Compi actually prefers [10..Bxd6 11.Re1+ Kf8], but it's not hard to see that something went wrong here for Black)
11.c4 c5 12.Qxd5 cxd4 13.Qxd4 += ; The Bishop pair does not sufficiently counterbalance structure + an extra pawn
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8. ..c5!? 9.Nf5 Bxf5 10.exf5 This looks a bit strange at a glance, but here it's important that we can put the Black queenside in jail, and slowly improve from there.
Eg:
10..Be7 ([10..d5!? 11.c4 Be7 (11..d4?? 12.Qc6+! Nd7 13.Bh6!!+-) 12.Nc3 d4 13.Qc6+ Kf8] is legal, but.. yeah)
11.c4! 0-0 12.Nc3 Qd7 13.b3, and the only active idea that I could come up with, pushing the d-pawn, doesn't lead anywhere -
13..c6 14.Bg5 Rad8 15.Rad1 h6 16.Bh4 Rfe8 17.Rfe1 d5 18.g4!? d4 19.Na4!± ; the Knight will get back into the game via b2-d3 and blockade perfectly, we can calmly keep improving with Kg2 & h3, Black has nothing to do. At some point, his structure will start telling..
Naturally that line isn't forced, but what else is Black going to do?
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8..Rb8 seemed the most promising to me, but White still has a pretty simple recipe:
9.b3 Be7 10.Bb2 0-0 11.Nd2! here C) finally becomes relevant
11..c5 12.Nf5 Bxf5 13.Qxf5! Qd7 14.Qxd7 Nxd7 and here I clicked around a bit; the very best I found for Black were some unpleasant Rook endgames if White pushes e4-e5 early & trades a bunch of material - but he's never really forced to, and can instead prod forever.
Hole-punching welcome!
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Old good Steinitz defence (Read 13557 times)
