Ametanoitos wrote on 09/30/11 at 11:15:36:


What I wrote is what I wrote, and it's meaning was plain as day. The fact black has done well from practice reflects exactly what I said, no philosophizing necessary.

Your impression of what I said was wrong.

Re-read my sentence.

"White has to fight to maintain equality" is not even close to the same thing as "white has to fight to prove equality".

You'd do well to more carefully read what people write.

I can add that following blindly A.Moiseenko 2650 - Y.Kuzubov 2603 (Moscow, 2008) - Avrukh's line - 9...Bb7 variation in the main line of QGA is not healthy, too.. 
All in all, white is the one who has to achieve the draw.

Smyslov_Fan wrote on 09/28/11 at 18:00:24:

Not only with the Catalan repertoire.. I've found the hard way such "holes" in Avrukh's Queens Gambit Accepted, Gruenfeld ("dynamic" variation) & King's Indian (Panno variation) repertoire.. All of these corr. games of mine ended with draws after the novelties that my opponents made. 
Bologan's (and Hilton's "Wojo's") Panno recommendations ended happily with draws, too.. Even Marin's recommendation in the symmetrical English (Fisher variation) has a "hole" according to my experience as a first player. So, my advice is: such recommendations can be played only in OTB games. Don't try this at home (resp. in corr. games) !!!.. 
I can state herein that these were my last tries to play as per some recommendations. I'll follow my own ones from now on!.. 
Btw, I like the BPaulsen approach - arm yourself with a good database and an engine and you'll make wonders! Everybody has to find his own 9.Nc3's 

But correspondence one generally has a lot of time to play the game, no? In a FIDE time control game such as 90 min/30 second increment, it would be much harder to play those same positions.

HgMan wrote on 08/19/11 at 19:13:17:


Isn't 23.Qxa6 an obvious mistake? I can propose 23.e4 f4 24.Rd8 Qf6 25.Qb2 h5 26.Qe2 h4 27.g4 Bf7 28.Rxf8 followed by h3 with what seems to be a strategicaly dominant position for White. If he can win it is another matter but i think that he is better anyway.

@BPaulsen: does your "promising" line starts with the move 9.Nc3?  To my eye this is the most critical line nowdays after this ...Nc6 move

I thought ChessPubbers might be interested in the game annotations by GM Mesgen Amanov (playing for the Chicago Blaze team in the current USCL) where he played Black against NM David Adelberg. See link http://www.chicagoblazechess.com/2011/09/%E2%80%9Cand-here-comes-lightning%E2%80.... You can also follow annotations by Kostya Kavutskiy here: http://main.uschess.org/content/view/11398/640/

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.g3 dxc4 5.Bg2 a6 6.0-0 Nc6 7.Nc3 Rb8 8.e4 Be7 9.Qe2 b5 10.Rd1 0-0 11.d5 exd5 12.e5 d4 13.exf6 Bxf6 14.Qe4 Bb7 15.Nd5 Nb4 16.Nxf6+ Qxf6 17.Qf4 c5 18.Qxf6 gxf6 19.Bf4 Rbc8! 20.Bd6 Rfd8 21.Be7 Re8 22.Bxf6 h6!(N?) 23.g4? [and Black went on to win 0-1]. (note: 23 a4 was previously played.)

According to GM Amanov, he learned of 22...h6 from playing blitz with GM Yury Shulman and later found the game by GM Barsov in his database.

GM Amanov made some points in his annotations about (over) relying on opening books providing a seemingly "complete" repertoire. You still have to check the databases and do your own analyses. He also emphasised home game preparation as including psychology preparation as well.

PS for those who like visual aesthetics, notice the Black pawn formation (!) on the Q-side after 27...b4. (GM Amanov called it "Pawn Power!")