Excellent! Great to revive the discussion for the second time, albeit in a new thread.

I'd looked independently at your 14 Be3 e5 line, concluding it's OK. 11 g4!? though I hadn't considered at all! -- I shall take a look (beginning with 15 ...ed 16 hg Re8 perhaps?). In view of the various 'mines' in the position I'd wondered if White should go for 14 Nc6 despite its theoretically strengthening the pawns, e.g. 14 ...bc 15 Bd3 d5 16 Qc2. But I thought Black could well be OK here so long as he keeps active.

You get the feeling that someone like Karpov would find a setup to refute Black's cheeky play, but it certainly ain't obvious. I guess 'Noggy' was playing the line against a lower-rated opponent, and it's a shame it hasn't been tested in some more games.

@ Phil Adams

I understand your opinion of the anti-Bologan 10 ...0-0 -- but then your game with Hebden reaches a radically different position from this. I haven't yet had time to do much more than feeding a few lines into some strong engines, but I was surprised how resilient Black's position seemed -- despite the weaknesses there might be dynamic possibilities, incl. of advancing the central pawns in some positions and so trying to turn the weaknesses into strength? But there are so many possible lines! -- hence my wondering which might be strongest ...

(Can't comment on the Voronezh as I haven't looked at it lately, but it seems to be getting a lot of attention on here at the mo! ...)

Michael Ayton wrote on 04/20/09 at 11:05:12:


I think that Black faces an uphill struggle, with three pawn islands against two. White's position simply shows no weakness. It reminds me of a game I lost many years ago:

[Event "Manchester open"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "1982.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Hebden, Mark"]
[Black "Adams, Phil"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B05"]
[Annotator "Adams,Phil"]
[PlyCount "113"]
[EventDate "1982.??.??"]

1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. d4 d6 4. Nf3 Bg4 5. Be2 e6 6. h3 Bh5 7. O-O Be7 8. c4
Nb6 9. Nc3 O-O 10. Be3 Nc6!? 11. exd6 cxd6 12. d5! Bxf3 13. Bxf3 Ne5 14. dxe6 $1
fxe6 15. Bg4 $1 Nexc4 (15... Rf6 16. b3 Nxg4 17. Qxg4 $14) 16. Bxe6+ Kh8 17.
Bxb6 $5 Nxb6 18. Qd3 (18. Qg4) 18... Bf6 19. f4 $16 Qe7 20. Rae1 Rae8 21. Kh1
Bxc3 $6 (21... Qc7 $5) 22. Qxc3 Na4 23. Qd2 Nc5 (23... Qf6 $5) 24. Bd5 Qf6 25.
b4 Rxe1 26. Rxe1 Nd7 27. Bxb7 Qxf4 28. Qxf4 Rxf4 29. Re8+ Rf8 30. Rxf8+ Nxf8
31. a4 Ne6 32. Kg1 g5 33. Kf2 Kg7 34. Ke3 Kf6 35. a5 $2 Ke5 36. b5 Nd4 37. Bc6
h6 $2 (37... Nxc6 $142 $1 38. bxc6 Ke6 $1 {Lawton}) 38. Bd7 Kd5 39. b6 axb6 40.
axb6 Nc6 41. b7 Nb8 42. Ba4 Ke5 43. Bd1 d5 44. Ba4 Na6 45. Bb5 d4+ 46. Kd2 Nb8
47. Be2 Kf4 48. Kd3 Ke5 49. Bf3 Na6 50. Kc4 Nb8 51. g3 Nd7 52. Kb5 Kd6 53. Kc4
Ke5 54. Bc6 Nb8 55. Kc5 d3 56. Bf3 d2 57. Kc4 1-0

After over 80 over-the-board games with the Alekhine, I had a considerable plus score with Black but I had lost any faith I had in it theoretically. The arrival of the Voronezh was the last straw; even a weaker player can cause you problems with White. And if I have to play ...exd6 against the Exchange, well that's not the sort of game I wanted from the Alekhine.

It felt as if the Alekhine was a warship that was holed below the waterline in several places!   You could still go into battle and maybe do some damage, but ultimately you were doomed. Better to scrap it and save all the escalating costs of repair and maintenance.

Thanks, Markovich -- that's the one. Re your earlier post, maybe it disappeared following The Big Crash? I know quite a few of mine went for a burton then. Needless to say, if and when you find your notes I'd be v. interested to learn more.

Against the standard White set-up without h2--h3, isn't 9 ...Nc6 reasonable (even if not wonderfully inspiring)?

Just when Markovich is trying to catch up with all the recent Alekhine threads on here, along comes another one.  

The "old" 4 ...Bg4 line is, it's said, under a cloud, chiefly because after 5 Be2 e6 6 c4 Nb6 7 Nc3 Be7 8 h3 Bh5, White has Bologan's idea 9 cd cd 10 d5! e5 11 g4! Bg6 12 h4, with a bind. But is 10 ...0-0 here (a possibility which I've a feeling Markovich himself mentioned a while back), avoiding ... e5 until White castles, so bad as to justify putting the line out of commission? Cox says (p. 62) that if Black consents to pawn weakneses after dxe6 he must expect to be worse, but how serious is this potential inferiority? After say 11 de fe 12 Nd4 Bf7 13 0-0 Nc6 I'm not sure it's easy for White to show much. I'd like to know whether people agree, and what you think best play might be here.

Of course, White can avoid this line by playing (the weaker?) 11 0-0; but then comes 11 ...e5. White can try something like 12 Nd2 here, or the sharper 12 c5 dc 13 g4, but I imagine Black has sufficient resources. Theory would seem to agree, since in the position after 4 ...Bg4 5 Be2 e6 6 0-0 Be7 7 h3 Bh5 8 c4 Nb6 9 Nc3 0-0 10 cd cd, 11 d5 is seldom played.