FightingDragon wrote on 07/04/06 at 09:12:14:
It won't be a problem, though.
Golubev briefly gives 15. ... Rb8 16.Qc5! and analyses 15. ... Bf5 which leads to a white advantage in the endgame after 16.Qc5! Qc5: 17.Nc5: Nc3 18.Re1 Na2: 19.Kb2 Nb4 20.Bc4!! which is known since van der Wiel-Golubev, 1999.
And I don't think you want to defend that endgame, Scholar, do you?
In Chess Today, Mikhail admits that he overlooked van den Doel-Rogers, Dutch Cht 2004 which went 15. ... Qc7 16.Bc4 Rd8 17.g4?! Be6 ... and white hardly had a serious advantage.
Black must also be prepared to meet 16.h4!?
By the way, can you explain the idea of 15. ... Qc7 to me?
Isn't it just a loss of tempo compared to 13. ... Qc7 ?
The knight could be well placed on a4 since his ideal place is c5 in that pawn structure.
Black has a few moves here to consider now (Be6, Bf5, Qc7), and since there have been a few posts which share the above sentiment, I'll ramble a bit and get to some variations later.
For me, the idea of Qc7 and Qb6-a5-c7 are very similar. In both cases, Black moves the queen off the d-file in order to free up the knight and connect his rooks. I've never really looked at the consequences of the Qb6 move order in any depth, and so I decided to go with that one, but there are good heuristic arguments for both sides. My flippant answer: go through the critical lines in the 13...Qc7 variations and see who benefits from White's additional moves.
Qb6-a5-c7, inducing Na4/b3, relieves some of the pressure on d5; the downside is that Black loses the threat of Nxc3 in some lines, but the control of d5 is more important to me. Whether Nc5 is so strong that Black should regret helping White get there is less clear to me at the moment. The addition of b3 -- I do not think that the move is of any use to White. It is weakening, even if Black does not attack along the b-file, and deprives the bishop of a convenient retreat. In any event, I view the battle for the d-file as much more important.
That discussion may well be moot, since Be6/Bf5 both need to be considered much more carefully, and for some of the reasons mentioned above, connecting the rooks is a high priority. For all of the talk of van der Wiel-Golubev, it's worth mentioning that Golubev held the draw -- and in my view, suffered only because his play was so uncompromising. If one expects a draw, there are easier ways to return the extra pawn. I would not mind entering that endgame...
Quote: Yes, I think you're right. The success of 14.Bc4 in the Sutovsky-Kudrin game is connected to Black's decision to play 15...Nxc4 and this is certainly not forced (nor best).
This I find an interesting comment. I think Nxc4 and Qxd4 both lead to level games, but I'm not sure that I would strongly prefer one to the other (maybe I need to look more closely!). I do agree that Black has nothing to fear.
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OstapBender-Scholar, Yugoslav 9.0-0-0 d5 (Read 155901 times)
