MNb wrote on 07/27/06 at 14:35:32:
smrex13 wrote on 07/27/06 at 02:48:13:
Sorry I wasn't clear in the original post. I was referring to a set up with pawns on e6 and d5, Nf6, etc. against 1.c4 when White refrains from an early d4. One of the appeals of this "QGD" set up is that it can be used against the English/Reti, but I imagine there must be some subtleties when White avoids d4.
Thanks,
Scott
It has been a long time, since I looked at this, but what I remember is 1.c4 e6 2.Nf3 d5 3.b3 Nf6 4.g3 Be7 5.Bg2 o-o 6.o-o c5 7.Bb2 Nc6 8.d3 b6 and 9....Bb7 being very solid. I assume that there is some book on the Reti (the Neo-Catalan is a variation of this opening) containing this stuff.
Instead of 8. d3 it seems more normal to play moves like e3, Qe2 and Nc3 (aiming to sometimes play d4 in one go). White could later aim to play against hanging pawns or an isolated pawn, starting with cxd5 plus the aforementioned d4. Black often plays ...dxc4, which can result in White taking on hanging pawns after a later d4. (I think after ...dxc4 bxc4 it could also happen that White adopts a "crouching" posture in the centre with d3, aiming to follow up with something like Ne1, f4, g4 and g5.)
White can also avoid the immediate/early b3 (I suppose that's the "Neo-Catalan"). Then Black might well play ...dxc4 on one of the next few moves. If he doesn't, it could transpose to a Tarrasch, Semi-Tarrasch or of course a Catalan or Reti (e.g. of the type discussed above).
It's a bit of a paradox that, while it's pretty clear that these ways of playing must be fine for Black, it might be hard to find a book that "argues Black's side" of them. (I can readily think of books, e.g. by Davies and Soltis, that advocate [at least some of] the foregoing lines for White.) At the risk of maybe stating the obvious, a sensible approach would be to explore the relevant lines in ECO/NCO/MCO, and use a database (e.g. Chessbase or NIC-base online) in order to look at the cited games in their entirety.