Although, I'd forgotten that Ray Keene's, The Openings in Modern Theory and Practice - referenced earlier in the thread - contains an ... Nh6 Leningrad that was played by Paulsen against Steinitz in Vienna in 1873

JonathanB wrote on 10/29/11 at 05:54:53:

James Plaskett in his 1988 Batsford book "Playing to Win" Page 19 indentifies Howard Staunton as playing the opening concerned 100 years before Basman.
Regards
Hadron.

edgy wrote on 10/31/11 at 18:54:18:


I considered 3...h5 too, briefly but the weakness of f4 and g5 looks too risky. 

After 4.e4 one should contemplate d6, d5 or e6 instead of fxe4. 

4.Nh3 Nf6 5.Nf4 Rg8 is a peculiar position, but probably okay for black - haven't consulted the monsters though...

fling wrote on 10/31/11 at 18:01:09:


After 4. e4, I think I like White.  4...fxe4 5. Qg4 looks awkward for Black.

Maybe 3...h5 might be OK?  Though I'd think the exchange of h-pawn pushes must be advantageous for White.

TalJechin wrote on 10/31/11 at 17:53:22:


That is what I was thinking too. At least, I think ...Nf6 is the response White wants to see after h4.

Scraping together my little understanding of the Dutch, one reason to play c2-c4 is fighting the Stonewall. So nowadays this move is rarely played as the second move (contrary to the first Dutch games, when it was quite standard). With an early d7-d6 Black declares he's not going to play the Stonewall. Therefore White might play Nc3 instead of c4, with the idea e2-e4. The play might develop 1.d4 f5 2.g3 d6 3.Bg2 g6, and now 4.Nc3 (in this exact position, it's relatively much more common than in other, "normal", positions). The most common move after 4...Nf6 is 5.e4 with some advantage for White; the game Tukmakov-de la Riva Aguado, Malgrat de Mar 1993, might be a good example.

There might be another reason why an early d7-d6 is rarely played: "The drawback is that Black's most reliable responses to an early b4 by White involve leaving the d-pawn at home." (Jon Tisdall about the position after 1.d4 f5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 d6 in his CP annotations of the game Khenkin-Genocchio, Reggio Emilia 1999/2000).

But it seems to be true that White cannot play this "mad attack" any more (resp. only in variation which is better for Black).

That variation might be playable once the game has reached the position below:



But the question remains how Black can get such a "decent" position, if White is "getting mad": 1.d4 f5 2.g3 g6 3.h4 Nf6 4.h5!? Nxh5 5.Rxh5!? gxh5 6.e4:


I've found only 14 games from this position, so the statistics are not extremely reliable, but White scores 89% with a TPR of +240. At the moment, White has only a knight for rook and pawn, but he'll almost inevitably win two pawns, and Black's king's position is horrible.

So is there a move order without Nf6 which allows Black to avoid a position as in the second diagram?

Best regards,

Zwischenzugzwang

Glenn Snow wrote on 10/30/11 at 21:06:23:


Yes, that's the thing I find most amusing about this line:  both knights go to rook three.  That takes a certain style - and plenty of balls.

I suspect you're right about the objective assessment ... but I'm not sure Basman gave much of a toss about the theoretical evaluations.

tafl wrote on 10/30/11 at 18:00:46:


Thanks very much.  I'll search for an English version.

I believe there was a quite good chapter on this in one of Keene's old books - probably the title was simply "The Opening" - as far as I know one of his last books that were worth buying. He offered some quite insightful attacking ideas for White (from Steinitz and Botwinnik IIRC) and some advice on Black's move orders.
I am sorry not being able to be more specific about the title. I had to move the book to my "remote archive".

Rolf Schwarz in his 1964 book on the Dutch has 1.d4 f5 2.g3 g6 3.Bg2 Bg7 4.Nf3 d6 5.O-O Nh6 Dittmann-Ciocaltea, 1956 and 5.b3 Nh6 6.Bb2 O-O 7.O-o f4 unclear plus a game Pirc-Alexander, 1954.
Taimanov 1980 had something to say about leaving the Knight on g8: 1.d4 f5 2.Nf3 g6 3.h4 Nf6 4.h5 Vadasz-Hölzl, 1974 plus the line 2.g3 g6 3.h4 Nf6 4.h5 Nxh5 5.Rxh5 gxh5 6.e4 Bg7 7.Qxh5+ Kf8 8.exf5 Qe8 9.Qh4 Qf7 10.Bh3 Nc6 11.Ne2 "with a strong attack for the sacced Exchange".
Why on Earth should the Knight be better of h6 than on f6?

There are quite some games by P.Petran (he's from Slovakia, I think) in my database, but he's not soo strong (2380 ELO ± 60 during the last 15 - 20 years). In CI there are two games, with a certain density of annotations, (i) N.Holloway-T.Harding, England 1974 (17/106), and (ii) A.Wojtkiewicz-E.Julia, Buenos Aires 2003 (90/48), both covering 8.e4 after the position you've given, but the main move seems to be 8.d5, 42 games, White scoring 61 %.

I wonder if White cannot make use of the delay (or rather omission) of Nf6 by playing an early h2-h4 (cf. Avrukhs "St. Petersburg Variation")!?

Best regards,

Zwischenzugzwang