BPaulsen wrote on 10/25/12 at 02:49:52:


While dont play Dutch anymore, I have met at least 5 major plans against higher rated players and the only trouble I found was to play for a win in a few of the lines, unless I missrember there are several lines that are very drawish. But I have not  looked at these positions for many many years it so it is very likely that white improvments has been found.

About Re1 I never found any good antiote to it so I drifted over to c6 variantion and later completly abbonnded the Dutch and gets better position than I ever had in the Dutch.

Hi Leningrad players. Sunday i was crushed in the 7... Qe8 8.Re1! variation by a much better player than me, anyway it's not everyday that i could have resigned with a clear conscience after 16 moves .... The game went 1.Nf3 g6 2.c4 f5 3.d4 Bg7 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.g3 0-0 6.Bg2 d6 7.0-0 Qe8 8.Re1! Na6?! 9.e4! fxe4 10.Nxe4 NxN 11.RxN Bf5 12.Rh4! c6? 13.Qb3! Qd7 14.Bh6 BxB 15.RxB Rf7 16.Ng5+- Rg7 17.c5+ 1-0 (28). I know the main move is 8... Qf7 but was not at all prepared against 9.e4 or 9.Ng5. My silicon friend gives 8.Re1 a5? wich is incompréhensible ...

I almost forgot one thing, in Swedish Superettan in 2008 I played Leningrad with c6 and my opponnent played Re1 anyway and I replied Na6 and got the better position but the game ended up in a draw. In a other team match some year later in divsision 1 I won a funny game in c6 Leningrad in the d5 e5 line against a well know chess teacher.

Thanks to both - quite interesting.

I have also read the comments on Carlsen's game on Chessbomb and thought them a bit superfluous (e.g. comment on Qe7 coming as a surprise - I thought this is the standard set-up to avoid the exchange of the DS Bishops).

Yesterday, I played a crazy Stonewall myself, starting with: 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 e6 3. Bf4 Bd6 4. BxBd6 cxBd6 5. e3 f5, but wasn't particularly happy with the outcome of the opening..

chk wrote on 01/30/12 at 09:20:42:

I've seen some very superficial analysis on chessdom of Van Wely - Carlsen. I didn't understand Carlsens setup with the early b6 and cxd5. The book 'Win with the stonewall Dutch' is very critical about that idea.

I also didn't like the concept of black in the game Radjabov - Van Wely although I once won a fascinating correspondence game with that concept. I think in both cases black took up the stonewall just to surprise the opponent and to have little or no preparation so a relaxing evening.

By coincidence yesterday my opponent in the interclub was inspired by the white setup of the game Radjabov - Van Wely. However I had studied the position 2 weeks ago and had little problems to comfortably equalize see: 1.d4 f5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bg5 e6 4.Nbd2 Be7 (I prefer this move today although the book 'Win with the stonewall Dutch' isn't very optimistic about it) 5.Bxf6 Bxf6 6.e4 0-0 7.Bd3 d5 8.exf5 exf5 9.0-0 Nc6 10.c3 Qd6 (Probably the most comfortable setup. Only slight disadvantage is that blacks winning chances are very slim) 11.Re1 Bd7 12.b4 Rae8 13.Qc2 g6 14.b5 Na5 (Very interesting is also Nd8) 15.Qa4 b6 16.Nb3 Nxb3 17.Qxb3 and draw proposed which I took after a 20 minutes of reflection. The trick after axb3 is of course a5 with no problems at all for black. In the final position black can exchange both pair of rooks but the weak d-pawn makes it very difficult to make real progression.

And today Carlsen played Stonewall Dutch! He played e6 first, perhaps to avoid some of the many anti dutch systems.

tp2205 wrote on 01/28/12 at 11:51:10:

It's a bit weird. In thís respect the Leningrad seems to be inferior to the Iljin-Zjenevsky: 7...Qe8 8.Qe1 Qg6 9.e4 Nxe4 10.Nxe4 Nxe4 11.Rxe4 Nc6 is hardly a problem for Black.
In the Bird/Polar Bear White apparently has to play a timely h2-h3.