Very instructive game you have dig up Vass!  Highlight the weakness of an early Qc1 with fast Rc8 and fast d5. Nd4 hits the temporary weakness on b3.

Hi
This is my first post ever on chesspub.
I got hit by 7.Bg5 a few weeks ago at local club championship. I very much suspected my opponent had Marvin grandmasters book as  7.Bd2 (or 0-0) would been more in my opponets playing style. I didn’t play 7.-h6 as I couldn’t slove 7.-h6 8.Bd2 b6 9. Qc1!?. White will follow up with 0-0 and standard a3, b4, Rb1 and asking black how his going to castle. OTB I couldn’t find any good way to castle for black with h6 target as knight will not be stable on f5 (after e4).   
I went for 7.-b6!? And my opponent played 8.Qc1 anyway but without pawn on h6 it was nothing for white (if 8.d4 I would have play 8.-h6! 9.Bxe7 Nxe7!?). 

So maybe 9.Qc1!? improve on a3 in Vass corr. Game?   

Vass wrote on 11/30/12 at 13:42:52:


Right, missed that. Well, my plan is actually to use this system as Black as a refreshing change from the Botvinnik set-ups I have played recently. This analysis goes to show that White seems to have at least as many problems to solve as Black.

What about 14. b5 instead of 14. e3 as in the Henrichs-Fontaine game? The point is that the knight will be a bit off on a5, or on the pawn structure worse after 14 ...Ne5 15. Nxe5 dxe5. I found the game Thiede-Siebrecht, 2012 that continued this way (well, White lost after a blunder, and I am not sure it is better). It is at least different from the other games in which White has been run over on the kingside.

9.Rb1!? is a good try and maybe a novelty in this exact position. Nevertheless, after the logical 9....Bb7! threatening Nc6-d4, therefore 10.0-0 is necessary.. 10...0-0 11.a3 d6 (or d5) 12.b4 Qd7 and we're back on the tracks..
As for 11.Rb1 d6! 12.Qc1 I have found only two games which I combined in this one:





By the way, this year a new move (13.Ne1!?) was made by Liu, Chang (ELO: 2336, U18 at WCh, Maribor, Slovenia) in this known position:



Liu won, but not convincingly.. So, I think there are still some blank spots where improvements can be found.. 

EDIT: ...And no, Marin never commented on the position you mention.. 

fling wrote on 11/29/12 at 22:20:33:

Who knows? 
Maybe they just didn't want to draw the game after, say, 11...Na5 12.Qc2 Nac6 13.Qc1 Na5
Or maybe they feared of a possible white attack after 11...Na5 12.Bxh6!? Nb3 13.Qf4 Bxh6 14.Qxh6 Nf5 15.Qf4 Nxa1 16.Rxa1 where white definitely has some compensation for the exchange..
I'm sure that 12.Bxh6!? is playable over the board, but in a high level correspondence chess game white has to be confident of playing it. In other words, this position needs to be heavy analysed. What about 16...Qb8(!?) afterwards? 

I just started reading the English - Move by move and Giddins has not picked up on this move order subtlety. In fact, there is much praise for Marin's set-up.

John Bartholomew, sorry if I missed it, but have you covered this recently or will you perhaps do it? It would be great!

Promising move order for Black.  At first I thought 8...b6 9.h4!? Bb7 10.h5 g5 11.Nxg5 was worth considering, ala Radjabov-Ivanchuk, but then I realized we're just down a tempo compared to that game     I don't think White has much better than 9.0-0, which doesn't pose many problems.  Btw, in addition to 9.a3 Bb7, 9.a3 d5 should also be very good for Black.

Judging from the database it looks like a few good players have cued into 8...b6 in 2011 (IM Altounian the first to play it OTB?).

Definitely not easy to get an edge vs. the Fischer setup.  Probably the best strategy is to switch things up from time to time on move 6 (lots of White alternatives here) or 7 (7.h4!?), or even move 5 if you want to escape Marin territory.