It turns out that the simple 1.e4 Nc6?! 2.d4 d5 3.exd5! Qxd5 4.Nf3 is just very good for White.

This line also has some relevance for Centre Counter defence/Scandanavian players. 

Perhaps Black should try 2...e5 instead of 2...d5 either way its a depressing position for Black.

My advice is stop wasting time with these half way house openings, pick something decent instead and put some work in that will actually serve you in good stead for the long haul.

Why is there so much attraction to these unsustainable rubbish lines I will never know or understand, but to each his own.

Toppy

Nice with a new discussion on the Nc6 defence, but why are these so often posted in "Daring Defences to 1.d4"??

1.e4 Nc6 2.Nf3 g6 looks creative, but personally I would not want black after d5 Ne5 Nxe5 Bxe5 - (meeting ...Ne5 with Nd4 also looks reasonable to me, especially if Ne5 can be driven back to d7 later) 
- doesn't white just get the centre for free? He doesn't even need to chase Be5 as it's hard to develop without retreating it anyway.

Quote:


How about 8.Bb5+ Bd7 9.Bxd7+ Qxd7 10.f4 Bg7 11.a4 as in Hendriks R-Leeners HJ/corr NL ch 18 1989 ?

Though, I'd probably go for 6.Nd2 if I was white. As in Ye Jiangchuan-Hoi,C/Thessaloniki 1988 - but 10.f4 and then Nf3 seems more interesting, if I ever get motivated to look at it more seriously...

You are a godsend, linksspringer! – thank you!

Of course I had looked at 2 …g6 before, but not since the ‘Nimzo-Pirc’ achieved respectability, and in any case I had mis-evaluated it. Having looked at some of the lines, I agree that this looks a completely viable option for Black! Harding refers to Black’s development being slower than in a KID 4PA, but to set against that, the exchange of Knights surely eases Black’s cramp and reduces White’s chances of mounting a dangerous direct attack. In answer to each of the main sixth-move options Myers mentions, here are a couple of lines given by my Little Fish:


[b]6 f4[/b] Bg7 7 c4 d6 8 Nc3 c6 9 Be3 Qa5 10 Bd4 Nf6 11 a3 (11 e5?! de 12 fe Ne4 13 dc Nc3 14 Bc3 Qc7 15 Qd4 Qc6) Qc7 12 Be2 c5 13 Be3 0-0 14 0-0 a6 (14 …Bd7!?) 15 Bf3 Nd7!? (15 …Rb8!?, 15 …Bd7!?) and …b5 may occur as a pawn-sac.

[b]6 Be2[/b] d6 7 0-0 c5 (7 …c6 looks interesting too) 8 c4 Qb6!? (Myers’ 8 …f5!? looks a little wild, but his other two suggestions, 8 …Nf6 and 8 …Bd7 seem OK) 9 Nd2 Bg7 10 Nf3 Nf6 11 e5 Ng4 12 e6 fe 13 Ng5 Ne5 14 f4 Nf7 15 Ne6 Be6 16 de Nd8 17 f5 0-0! =


White can also play omit f2--f4 and play c2--c4 and Bd3 in various move orders ([b]6 c4[/b], [b]6 Bd3[/b], [b]6 Nd2[/b]), but again Black’s resources seem sufficient. It’s perhaps not surprising that direct transposition to A41 lines is OK for Black seeing that in the 1 d4 g6 2 c4 Bg7 3 Nc3 d6 4 Nc3 Nc6 move order 7 g3! is meant to be the way White should play, but in the Nimzo move order, after 6 c4 d6 7 Nc3, Black has no fewer than five alternatives to 7 …Bg7 in any case! – 7 … Nf6, 7 …c6, 7 …c5, 7 …Bd7, 7 …e6.

And it’s satisfying to discover that the first person to play 2 …g6 was … Nimzowitsch!

Thanks for this, linksspringer. I really must buy that book! ...

This topic relates to (really, equates with) the subject of another recent post of mine, in the KID section, which so far hasn’t generated any responses:

[url]http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1208820581[/url]  

Perhaps we should treat these [i]Nimzo-[/i]derived positions according to the move order 5 Bd3 g6 6 c4 Bg7 (unless there’s a problem with this), because then, after 7 Nc3 0-0 (7 …Nbd7!? is possible) 8 h3 (the most common?), we can consider a number of options for Black: 8 …c6 (the main line?), 8 …Na6, 8 …e6, 8 …c5, 8 ...a5. The sequence given by K&S then transposes, via 8 Nc3 0-0 9 h3, to the 8 h3 c6 line (with 9 0-0).

My question here is, how should Black play this position? Berdichevsky (p. 164) cites the game Wirthensohn--Herzog, which continued 9 …a6 10 Re1 b5 (‘!’, Berdichevsky) 11 cb ab 12 dc b4!, and 0--1, 44. But what if white plays 11 Bf4? I’m worried that Black may be significantly worse after 11 …b4 12 Na4, or 11 ...Nh5 12 Bg5/Be3, or 11 …e5 12 de. My Rybka sacs a pawn with the curious 11…Bb7 12 dc Nc6 13 cb ab 14 Bb5, but is this really enough after say 14 ...Qb6 15 Be3 Qa5 16 Qd3?

Of course, Black has other ninth-move options, but some of them (e.g. 9 …a5) run the risk of leaving him a tempo down on E91 lines. One game, which I haven’t looked at yet, went 9 …Nbd7 10 Be3 c5. In short, Black seems to have quite a few choices on move 8 and move 9, and I’d really welcome thoughts on which of them might be promising and which not! There’s also the broader question of whether we can suggest any guidelines for when Black should/might alter the strategic lines of the position with moves like e7--e5, c6--c5 or cxd5. I admit to being a bit hazy here, possibly because I haven’t played the KID for twenty years!

For us devoted students of …Nc6 systems these positions are important, since although they’re not too common they can arise, I believe, from no fewer than six different openings! – Nimzowitsch Defence, Mestrovic Defence, KID, Old Indian (Panther), Bogolyubov Defence, Tango. (There may be more!)

With the growth of respect for the Pirc with 6 ...Nc6, it's ever more tempting for some of us Nimzo players to hope for a transposition after 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 Nf6 4 d5 Nb8 5 Nc3 g6 (or 4 Nc3 g6 5 d5 or 5 Be2). The only real problem is 4 d5 Nb8 5 Bd3(!), which older books tend not to treat too seriously but which I'd argue is White's best choice. I'd be interested in knowing what people think is best play for both sides after 5 Bd3. I have plenty of thoughts of my own, but will see what other people think before voicing them.

There's also 4 d5 Ne5, of course -- 5 Ne5 de 6 Nc3 looks for now to be a small and fairly stable edge to White, but I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise ...