trw wrote on 03/18/10 at 02:25:20:




This site needs a face-palm smiley, seriously.

And aside from that, try focusing here, I know it's tough while you're trying to get offended and all - This thread is about the Classical Dutch. My suggestion, surprise of surprises(!), was about the Classical Dutch.

The solution to your problem is don't use sub-optimal move orders in the Classical Dutch that allow black to solve his problems so easily.

0-0 first rather than Nc3 is also the standard move order used in various encyclopedias.

BPaulsen wrote on 03/18/10 at 02:16:17:


my perceived move order issue. Good one. Is this what passes for insults these days? If you don't have a suggestion on the position it is okay to say nothing.

So you want to castle instead of Nc3, I'm not sure why d5 isn't good for black now but in any case this is certainly not the position being discussed as probably its not as good to play 6... Ne4 now.

Also since i've been spending time on looking at the games with this line another idea occurred to me (I haven't tried it but its been tried). 7. Qd3 the point be to keep the pawn structure in tact with Nxc3 Qc3 and expand on the queen side. I see no reason why white should be better here either.

No, I don't think computers have "solved" chess.

I think chess is a practical game between two humans without computers involved, 
and mainly about outplaying your opponent from an equal position. Getting a += or a = out of the opening is not that relevant in practice.

On the other hand I like theoretical discussions where a += or = matters very much

trw wrote on 03/17/10 at 22:44:19:


This is a known line named the Aljechin variation.

6.. Ne4?! might be a bit dubious due to 7.Nbd2!. Rybka even thinks black should play 7.. Nf6!? here at pretty high depth. Although looking silly, it actually makes more sense than one might think. It could be argued that the white knight is misplaced on d2.

As has been discussed in this forum, after the normal 7.. Bf6 black seems to get in some positional trouble after 8. Nxe4! fxe4 9. Ne5 d5 10 Ng4 Be7 11. Bf4

True to his style, Avrukh goes for the meaker 8. b3 but has some interesting improvements on current theory. But as in many other cases in his Dutch coverage,  I'm not impressed by his analysis:

- I think the Stonewall part is his best with lots of improvements, even though he did publish an addendum after a critical variation had been brilliantly neutralized by a forum member (Brabo?).

- He published another addendum for an entirely missed(!) chapter with black Bb4+ plans. I won't go into details here, but again he is not even mentioning best/critical variations for black given in previous books.

- As shown in this thread, he misses critical stuff in the Classical, including the Aljechin...

All in all I think Avrukh does not know the Dutch or its published theory very well, despite his super-GM status and book ambitions. But this just shows one of its advantages, many white players don't know how to handle it, and Avrukh is not helping them too much

Despite all the critisism, I would recommend his books. In general they have unusally high quality and I think he deserves a lot of respect for sharing so much insights.

Regarding "no winning chances": Anyone who claims that a position has no winning chances should first play 10 games vs Rybka without losing and only then make such statements

Kramnik said this in an entirely different variation! Here after 8.Qc2 Nxc3 9.bxc3 is not as good for White as in Kramnik's game.