tracke wrote on 02/17/19 at 20:09:43:
Glenn Snow wrote on 02/17/19 at 08:56:02:
Anyone seen The Chigorin Defence: Move by Move by Jimmy Liew. I'm curious as to how he treats the "refutation".
I‘m not a Chigorin expert and have not regularly followed this thread but probably you mean the Solak line?!
6.Bxc4 Bxf3 7.gxf3 Qxd4 8.Qb3 Ne5 9.Be2 Qb6 10.Qa4+ c6 11.f4 Ng6 12.f5 Be5 13.Bf4 Nfd7
14.0-0-0 Qxf2 15.Rhf1 Qb6 16.Bxe5 Nxe5 17.Nd5 Qd8 18.Kb1 White has a clear advantage (Solak) Here Liew2018 has „[...] but Dean from the ChessPublishing Forum suggested
18...g6 19.Nf6+ exf6 20.Rxd8+ Rxd8 21.Qxa7 b5 22.fxg6 hxg6 23.Rxf6 Bxe7 24.Rf2 Rh4 25.Qe3 Kf8 and Black seems to be alright. It is hard to suggest how White might make progress given Black‘s total control
of the dark squares. Whether all this holds up remains to be seen“
I played a correspondence game last year in this line, which went:
[Event "ESP/MG2/D (ESP)"]
[Site "ICCF"]
[Date "2017.10.25"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Evans, Craig"]
[Black "Azevedo, José Manuel P."]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "D07"]
[WhiteElo "2300"]
[BlackElo "2300"]
[PlyCount "141"]
[EventDate "2017.??.??"]
1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nc6 3. Nc3 dxc4 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. e4 Bg4 6. Bxc4 Bxf3 7. gxf3 Qxd4
8. Qb3 Ne5 9. Be2 Qb6 10. Qa4+ c6 11. f4 Ned7 12. e5 Nc5 13. Qc2 Nd5 14. Nxd5
cxd5 15. Be3 Qa5+ 16. Kf1 e6 17. Rc1 Nd7 18. Qc7 Qxc7 19. Rxc7 a6 20. Rxb7 Bc5
21. Bxc5 Nxc5 22. Rc7 Nd7 23. Rg1 Kd8 24. Rc6 g6 25. Bxa6 Ke7 26. a4 Ra7 27.
Bb5 f6 28. exf6+ Nxf6 29. Ke2 Nh5 30. f5 gxf5 31. Ke3 Kf6 32. f4 Rb8 33. b3
Rab7 34. b4 Ra8 35. Rb1 Rab8 36. Rbc1 Rg8 37. Rc7 Rxc7 38. Rxc7 Rg4 39. Bc6
Rxf4 40. a5 Rxb4 41. a6 f4+ 42. Kf3 Rb3+ 43. Kg4 Ng7 44. a7 h5+ 45. Kh4 Rb2 46.
Rf7+ Kxf7 47. a8=Q Nf5+ 48. Kh3 Rb3+ 49. Kg2 Rb2+ 50. Kf3 Rxh2 51. Qe8+ Kf6 52.
Bd7 Nd4+ 53. Kxf4 Rh4+ 54. Kg3 Rg4+ 55. Kh3 Re4 56. Qxh5 Ne2 57. Qh8+ Kf5 58.
Qf8+ Ke5 59. Qg7+ Kf5 60. Qf7+ Kg5 61. Qe7+ Kf5 62. Be8 Nf4+ 63. Kg3 Ke5 64.
Qg7+ Kd6 65. Kg4 Ng2+ 66. Kg5 Ne3 67. Qf8+ Ke5 68. Bg6 Rg4+ 69. Kh5 Rc4 70.
Qb8+ Kf6 71. Bd3 1-0
So my opponent deviated from the Solak line for black, but got fairly easily crushed.
In terms of the 'actual' Solak analysis, it is worth pointing out that as well as 12.f5, black needs to try and fix up 12.e5!? and 12.Be3!? - both of these were considerations of mine in that correspondence game had black gone for 11...Ng6, and both of them give white good chances.
However, the bigger problem for black is that 18...g6?! doesn't hold up to scrutiny. 19.Nf6+!? is fine for white to get a material imbalance where he has chances to convert... however, 19.Qb4 looks like the bigger problem for me (or 19.Qa3 with similar ideas) - the knight on d5 is immune due to 19...cxd5 20.Bb5+ with splat on the d-file. 19...Qc8 looks black's only bet, but 20.Qd4 looks pretty promising to me with the threats it creates. My Stockfish (configured for Correspondence chess) on a deep search depth gives white more than +2 in the main lines, with a won exchange and still attacking threats.
Even if black can somehow try to hold this, it's pretty miserable it seems. Solak's line is just Kryptonite to the Chigorin. I seem to recall a few years ago, the only efforts to keep the Chig afloat centred around early deviations from this line?
Hope this is helpful.