Something else deeply amusing in its way - in the old line from Karajakin (et al as I remember?) - Yusopov, with:
8.. Nbc6 9 Qh5 Ng6 10 Nf3 Qc7 11 Be3 Nce7 12 h4 Bd7 (12 .. f6 there is reasonably playable too it seems, as is 12.. Nf5) then 13 Rb1 isn't all that strong.

Black has a horrible looking resource - 13 .. c4 14 Bxg6 fxg6 15 Qg4 and then 15 .. h5!? (yuck!). That seems to give black time to get organised to have a good chance.

Cf 16 Qh3 b5 17 g4 a5 which is enough to provoke it into 18 o-o as white. Then so on.

It somewhat prefers going 13 Qg4 cd 14 cd f5 15 Qh3 Bb5 16 Bxb5 Qa5+ 17 Bd2 Qxb5 18 h5 Nh8 19 h6 g6 which does look a bit annoying for black if presumably quite solid.

It's actually fascinating looking at these (sort of) old lines with SF16 and friends - none of them are absolutely brilliant but there's a fair few that seem to be quite holdable.

That line from the update, but also things like:
8 Bd3 Nbc6 9 Qh5 Ng6 10 Nf3 Qc7 11 Be3 c4 12 Bxg6 fxg6 13 Qg4 then a couple of fascinating things.

Firstly it points out that black can (amazingly) get away with 13 .. Bd7 14 h4 Rf5 15 h5 Rxh5 16 Rxh5 gh 17 Qxh5 Rf8 18 Kd2 Be8 19 Qh3 without any exchange sacrifices.

It thinks Rxf3 might be OK mind, but prefers just going h6, ditching e6.

Or 19 .. Nd8 20 Rh1 h6!? and then if 21 Qg3 h5!?  Looks utterly suicidal, is risky!, but isn't.

The other thing is that after 13.. Qc7 14 Ng5 Qe8 15 h4 Ne7 16 Qe2 Bd7 17 g4 everyone has been doing it a bit wrong with black.

NOT 17 .. b5. Instead 17 ..a5 18 Kd2 Rb8.

With the point that if white goes for the desired 19 h5 gxh5 20 Nxh7 Kxh7 21 Rxh5+ Kg8 22 Rah1 black still has 22.. Ba4 and is then apparently OK in the serious mess  eg 23 Rh8+ Kf7 24 Rh8h7 Bxc2 25 Qf3+ Bf5 which are some serious heroics from the bad bishop!

I can't see an especially strong waiting move for white either, so it might be moderately effective. Of course 9 Bg5 iso Qh5 is still very annoying! Much narrower for black too.
(9 Qh5 is actually SF16's third choice, the other being Nf3 f5 Qh3)

Nernstian59 wrote on 01/09/24 at 00:23:23:


A *differently* hair raising one, please

There's a lot of different lines, if you ask the modern strong computers - much improved in these sorts of positions - they can iirc (as far as I can tell) hold many of them. 

Often a  bit of a struggle. Fairly terrifying to prepare as white though as there's a wide choice for black and the positions stay very, very complex for a very long time.

The January 2024 update has several poisoned pawn games with 7...0-0. I'm no expert in these lines. I followed one line with 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 c5 5. a3 Bc3 6. bc3 Ne7 7. Qg4 O-O 8. Bd3 f5!? 9. ef6 Rf6 10. Bg5 Rf7 11. Qh5 g6 12. Qd1 Nbc6 13. Nf3 Qa5 14. Bd2 Qc7!? 15. dc5! e5 16. Ng5 Rf8 17. c4! e4! where it seemed that Black was in the game. There are several other Winawer games that I think could be mined by Winawer (especially 7...0-0) proponents.

I can't see how black can save himself after Nd8.

I don't think anyone has ever claimed all of the 7 Qg4 o-o stuff to be busted, or for that matter even all of 8 Bd3 Nbc6. The specific subvariation of that stuff that Watson had does seem dead but plenty of other options.

Khalifman in the opening according to Anand books doesn't give more than +/= (which he has to claim vs everything of course ) against several of blacks main tries.

This should be winning for white instead of Ng6.

The java format is easy - there's a PGN button in the editor window which inserts a pair of pgn  /pgn tags (with square brackets round them), and you just paste  the pgn in there.

Santimr wrote on 04/18/13 at 22:48:12:


Good question, and these days maybe everything has changed, but I can tell you what the old way to play as Black used to be:

10...Ng6 11.0-0 Qa4 12.f4 c4 13.Bxg6 fxg6 14.Ra2 Bd7 15.h4 Rf5 16.Ng3 Qa5! (a positional exchange sac) 17.Nxf5 gxf5 18.Qg3 Be8 and the Black bishop will appear on h5, all Black's pieces are active, the position is blocked and Whites attack has been stopped. Mind you, he is the exchange down and modern analysis and engines have probably changed this line at some point, maybe earlier because in a practical game I'd be happy here as Black.

Moskalenko mentioned in The Wonderful Winawer the variation 8. Bd3 Nbc6 9. Bg5! Qa5 10. Ne2!, which looks dangerous. What's the best continuation for black?

Khalifman does indeed follow Cheparinov-Fernandez in his main line (I have the book here).

There are two later games with this endgame line played against the same Tatev Abrahamyan as in the "crazy tactics" game brabo alerted us to - clearly she's the one to watch in this line. Both games were draws; one agreed as soon as Black blocked with ...g5, in the other, she had to work much harder for it.



Contra Khaliman, White has still not managed to win the bishop ending in the games I've found, but he did win with the rooks still on the board in Manik-Petrik. White's play there with 28.g5 and 29.c4 looks annoying actually, threatening to use the rook on either the c-file or the f-file; though black must have a more useful move than 28...Ba4.

If this endgame turns out to be a real problem, the 12...cxd4 move order twist might be the solution!

brabo wrote on 04/17/13 at 10:56:24:


I had the position after 19.-Qc8 on my analysis board long ago Now Houdini sees the whole line to perpetual in a few seconds 

EDIT: This line seems very interesting with the help of Houdini. Mad tactics indeed.

Some of the moves of that line look so ridiculous on first sight that I might try it for that reason only!

White doesn't have to go all in with 12.h4 and 13.g4 though; along the way there are serious options like 13.Bd2, 13.0-0 and earlier 12.0-0. Also 15.0-0 is an alternative to 15.cxd4 where White can temporarily win a pawn (Black must play 15...f6) but Black seems to get enough compensation.

I've never studied any of this since I've usually played 8...f5 instead (and even that almost only in blitz). But now I'm tempted to switch to 8...Nbc6.

Lauri Torni wrote on 04/17/13 at 08:58:37:

There has been very recently developments in this line. Look at http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1712869
I know by coincidence about this game as it was used to pre-arrange a draw in a Belgium Youth tournament played last week see http://schaakfabriek.be/2013/04/13/belgische-kampioenen-zijn-bekend/

MartinC wrote on 04/17/13 at 08:46:52:


This 11.. Nce7 line was my last hope in 8 .. Nbc6. Then Karjakin killed it:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1427421
Can this line really be made playable? The white attack seems too natural and strong. I recall looking at these Qc3+ ideas, but could not make them work.

ArKheiN wrote on 04/16/13 at 18:56:10:


No wonder.  Black can avoid immediate loss with the 8.-f5 line 

I looked at this line too, but found it difficult to play. It must be a tough nut to crack though. Apicella is predictable in his opening choice against 1.e4, so preparing against him is in principle easy.

See e.g. 

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1669445

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1668784

cynima wrote on 04/15/13 at 15:53:06:

it's dangerous to look too much at the engine's evaluation in these lines, best proof of this is the 7.Qg4 O-O 8.Bd3 c4? variation, which I'm almost sure is completely lost for black, but when you just look at the evaluation after (for example) 9.Bh6 Ng6 10.Bxg6 fxg6 11.Be3 Nc6 12.h4 Rf5 13.Ne2 Bd7 14.Ng3 Qa5 15.Kd2 you wouldn't think so (my Houdini ridiculously thinks black is better here, Stockfish says it's equal)
and the sad thing for black is that it's always white that gets underestimated in these lines

in the 6...Qa5 variation it's often the other way around: engines giving lots of advantage to white but in fact he often can't make any progress

MartinC wrote on 04/16/13 at 09:19:59:


Yes. This sacrifice was another line I was worried about. The whole line IS practically busted.

Here is a correspondance game I have played in 2008. I don't say everything was forced and it could have improvments for black somewhere, but all the fun is for white here.

[Corr]
[Date "2008.05.27"]
[White "ArKheiN"]
[Black "Riha,Josef"]
[Result "1-0"]

1.d4 d5 2.e4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Ne7 7.Qg4 O-O 8.Bd3 Nbc6 9.Qh5 Ng6 10.Nf3 Qc7 11.Be3 c4 12.Bxg6 fxg6 13.Qg4 Bd7 14.h4 Rf5 15.h5 gxh5 16.Rxh5 Rxh5 17.Qxh5 Be8 18.Qh3 Nd8 19.Ng5 h6 20.Nxe6 Qa5 21.Bxh6 Nxe6 22.Qxe6+ Bf7 23.Qh3 gxh6 24.f4 Qb6 25.O-O-O Qg6 26.Rh1 Be6 27.Qxh6 Kf7 28.Qh7+ Qxh7 29.Rxh7+ Kg6 30.Re7 Bg4 31.Rxb7 Kf5 32.g3 Ke4 33.Rg7 Kf3 34.Rf7 Kxg3 35.f5 Kf4 36.f6 Be6 37.Re7 Kf5 38.Kb2 a6 39.a4 a5 40.Kc1 Rh8 41.Ra7 Rh1+ 42.Kb2 Rh2 43.Rxa5 Rh7 44.Ra8 Rb7+ 45.Ka3 Kg5 46.a5 Kg6 47.Ra6 Kf7 48.Rb6 Ra7 49.Kb4 Bf5 50.a6 Bc8 51.Kb5 Kg6 52.Rb8 Bxa6+ 53.Kb6 Rh7 54.Kxa6 Kf5 55.Rb6 Rc7 56.Rb7 Rc6+ 57.Kb5 Rc8 58.Ra7 1-0

brabo wrote on 04/16/13 at 06:25:51:


Yes. 21.Nh4 was my idea for white for a long time ago! See http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1080298963

MartinC wrote on 04/15/13 at 15:37:25:


Ok

Then you can show me why you think that Watsons variation is dead. Maybe we can start here

I looked at it first on my own and then with Fritz 11 and I dont see why this should be bad for black (I mean the variation I have posted in my first post here)

MartinC wrote on 04/15/13 at 11:10:43:


Hi! Thank you very much for your detailed answer 

But maybe we can discuss this topic with some variations?

I believe in blacks position after 7. ...00

MartinC wrote on 04/15/13 at 08:21:50:


I couldnt find the reasons why this line from Watson is dead, can someone help me please? 

And what are in your opinion the most dangerous variations for black? How do the 1.e4 players here at chesspub play against this variation?

@ako:

Quote:


Why?

Maybe we can analyse a bit your variations?

cynima wrote on 04/14/13 at 23:55:28:


I have studied this line A LOT. It is practically dead. It was my main weapon but I have given it up completely. If you want to stay with the Winawer, play the poisoned pawn (7.-cd) instead. Or 6.-Qa5. There are some other options (see Moskalenkos books), but none of them is waterproof.

I switched to 1.e4 e5 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 and sicilian. Now I'm studying also 1.-e5