kylemeister wrote on 03/04/13 at 06:27:39:


Thanks for pointing that out, I'd totally missed that trans-positional possibility.  Maybe then Black has to tempt White on move 5 with 5...Bd6.

My interest mainly stems from the need to face Rubinsteins as I play 3. Nd2.  To that end I was actually considering setting up a thematic Rubinsteins correspondence tourney on chess.com where I'd have to play both sides of the position -- I believe this is a great way to learn to be objective in one's opening assessments.

I've noticed that 3...h6 gets some attention vs. the Tarrasch and even against 3. Nc3.  What about on Black's 4th move in the Rubinstein?  The point being that White won't be able to play Bg5 and therefore Black will be able to develop his KB somewhere more active than e7.  Sure it's a non-developing move, but Black also wastes time with the ...Bc8-d7-c6 maneuver in the Fort Knox variation and survives to tell about it.

The oldest game (1889) I can find with 4...h6 is also probably by far the highest rated in that Isidor Gunsberg, who won with White, would go on to challenge Steinitz for the World Championship just two years later.  In this game black played ...Nf6, ...Nxe4 and ...Bd6, but White could have improved over his plan with c4 by playing Ne5.

I have devised a different, paradoxical idea, and that is to play ...Bd6 without playing ...Nxe4, thereby allowing White to gain the bishop pair AND eliminate Black's good bishop after Nxd6, but after ...cxd6 Black can get try to get play on the open c-file and/or eventually get in ...e5.  So below the Gunsberg game I'm posting a line I've devised with the accelerated ...Bd6 that might pose some difficulties, the moral of the story possibly being, despite how tempting, White perhaps shouldn't play Nxd6!?