GMTonyKosten wrote on 02/25/09 at 23:52:31:


Without noticing your reply, I commented on this in an edit to my post just above.  I think that 20...Rd8 should be considered.  But the more I look at this, the harder it looks for Black.

TN wrote on 02/24/09 at 07:34:03:


Interesting.  For everyone's benefit, the position arises from 1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e6 4.g3 b6 5.Bg2 Bb7 6.0-0 a6 7.Re1 Be7 8.e4 d6 9.d4 cxd4 10.Nxd4 Qc7 11.Be3 Nbd7 12.f4 Rc8 13.Rc1 Qb8 14.Nd5.  Now both the game you cite and Vaganian-Wojtkewicz, Belgium 1996, the latter cited by Shipov in his book, continued 14...exd5 15.exd5 Kf8 16.Nc6 Bxc6 17.dxc6 Nc5 18.b4 Ne6 19.f5 Nc7 20.Bf4.  Here the paths diverged, Meier choosing 20...Re8 and Wojtkewicz 20...Nfe8.  Although my Russian is nonexistent, Shipov's notes don't appear to suggest any notable improvements for White in a game that eventually ended in a draw.  Meier lost, but is this really so definitive?  Perhaps you know better than I.

I have three other high-level games in my data base with 14.Nd5, in most of which 15...g6 was played instead of 15...Kf8.  Shipov thinks that White does well then if he plays 16.Qe2, although 16.b4 produced a win for White in Libeau - Michaelson, Germany 1994.  In the other game 15...0-0?! lost.

At any rate I am not at all sure that 14.Nd5 is the definitive answer to Black's play, are you?

P.S. I've looked at this some more, and I think Shipov is wrong about Black's prospects in Vaganian-Wojtkewicz in view of 20...Nfe8 21.c5 bxc5 22.bxc5 d5 23.Bxd5 Rd8 24.Qe2 Bf6 and now instead of Shipov's 25.Bf3, 25.Qc4.  However I'm still not convinced that 14.Nd5 is winning.

There is a notable gap in the Symmetrical English Hedgehog coverage given here in the updates and the PDFs.  In the 7.Re1 line, Black's plan with delayed castling, ...Rc8 and ...Qb8, which has been known for a long time and is treated at length in Shipov's Russian-language Hedgehog book, is not mentioned at all.  I hope that this will be rectified, or perhaps someone will point out why doing that is unnecessary.

But so far as I understand, this plan is preferable to early castling and ...Rfe8, something that is widely believed to lead to White advantage by means of g3-g4.  This opinion is indeed supported in the PDF.

Oddly enough, Watson's Hedgehog discussion in Mastering the Chess Openings, Volume 3, equally omits treatment of the delayed castling plan.