HgMan wrote on 01/10/09 at 21:34:06:
My sense is that Black surrenders space and White can determine the nature of the ensuing game, but that the unbalanced positions can yield some rewarding results for the second player. Or is the Pirc objectively an inferior opening and Black will always be playing catch-up?
My current thinking is the latter. I play it sometimes OTB to ensure unbalanced positions and winning chances, but when I want to play for theoretical equality I do something else.
In that spirit I meet the Austrian with 5...0-0 to avoid the forced draw after 5...c5 6.Bb5+, but I suspect 5...c5 is objectively the best move, and black should be OK there.
4.Be3 is the real problem. I've always played 4...c6, but either of 5.h3, 5.Qd2 b5 6.Bd3, 5.Qd2 b5 6.f3 and 5.Nf3!? require hard work and theoretically I'm really worried about the first. In
http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1169821247/15#15 I debated 4...c6 5.h3 followed by f4 with Vigus and others; I still consider this a big threat to black. White can also throw the h3-g4 "Archbishop Attack" in; I think this is particularly strong when Black has committed to Nbd7 (no ...d5 break). White is also scoring extremely well with 5.Qd2 b5 6.Bd3 Nbd7 7.Nf3 OTB lately whether black goes for 7...e5 or 7...Qc7, but I don't know the theoretical status of this.
After 4.Be3 Bg7 the lines with W 0-0-0 versus B 0-0 were discussed by JEH and MNb in this thread (and the one above):
http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1174659643/30To me this looks scary for Black. But maybe there are improvements to be found.