I have generally used the Christmas tree formations against the London when I have played the Leningrad, and indeed I think this is a very sensible transpositional device for the Classical as well here. It seems logical that against a Bf4, you'd very much prefer some extra oomph for the ...e5-break by placing the bishop on g7 and Queen on e7.

Last few years I felt that the London is another serious challenge to the Classical Dutch. Indeed there are some YT-videos who promote it. With a bishop on f4 I don't trust the Stonewall at all. The Iljin-Zjenesvky setup (e6, d6, Be7) leaves Black cramped as ...e5 is hard to push through. Initially I set my hopes on the queenside fianchetto, but it's surprisingly hard to find a decent square for the queen's knight.
Now it seems to me that the Christmas Tree is Black's best option:

1.d4 f5 2.Bf4 Nf6 3.e3 e6 4.Nf3 d6 5.h3 g6
etc.

At least Black can complete development as Black will play ...Qe7 and often ...Nc6, answering d4-d5 with Nc6-d8.
Any thoughts?

Yes several resulting positions in the Classical Dutch still demand from black to play accurately just to achieve the draw with no hope for more. That is an improvement compared with a few years ago where I was even doubting a draw is possible with correct play.

So I agree playable sounds still shaky here but for a single game against a specific opponent I believe it is worth a try.

I also warn in one of my recent blogarticles that engines have become so good at defending very bad positions that we should be careful not to think we can just copy this defense in our classical games see http://schaken-brabo.blogspot.com/2021/06/verdedigen-deel-2.html
We see professional players have become experts in defining positions which are equal for a computer but not easy to play for the color of the opponent. This is often the best to achieve knowing chess is a draw.

brabo wrote on 03/04/18 at 19:56:29:


Since a few years I do regression-tests see https://chess-brabo.blogspot.com/2020/09/regression-tests.html so reassessing my old analysis with stronger and modern engines/ computers.
I just did for this opening and I notice that the neural networks bring a number of improvements on my new hardware. In 2 very recent correspondence games black comfortably drew in the line 1.d4 f5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 e6 4.c4 Be7 5.Nf3 0-0 6.0-0 d6 7.Nc3 Ne4 8.Nxe4 fxe4 9.Ne1 d5 10.Be3 Nd7 11.f3 dxc4 12.Qc2 and now the improvement 12...Nf6
13.Qxc4 Nd5 14.Nc2 after which both games diverted. Once black played 14...b5. In the other black played 14...exf3 which I believe is slightly more solid.

Overall I have upgraded my assessment of the Old Dutch from a clearly inferior opening to an opening which is probably just playable for classical games but I do advise to avoid very well prepared opponents as some lines are hard to play without access to an engine for black and/or having refreshed the critical lines recently.

Leon_Trotsky wrote on 12/29/18 at 06:06:30:

I get that, but on a forum you're writing for others, not just for yourself. And on an English-language forum the one convention everyone can be assumed to be familiar with is the English one.

I usually understand what is meant when people use other piece letters, but it's distracting and unnecessary. So out of respect for the other users I always use the English letters myself, not my native Norwegian ones.

Stigma wrote on 12/29/18 at 00:21:40:


What I usually would want to do is cheque the correspondence database for what this line has there. Unfortunately I have no corr base and I am not paying 100,€ or however much the ChessBase one costs. They often play the best lines in correspondence, so I wonder how Black responds to this line there.

Even so, if many titled players have played I would have thought that someone would mention it in some article somewhere. Or some White repertoire book would choose 9. Ce1 for their White repertoire choice against Dutch. Anyways, the entire situation seems curious to me.

Stigma wrote on 12/29/18 at 00:21:40:


Those are symbols for both Catalán, and Spanish too I guess. It is a kind of habit. This is what I see in all of my ChessBase files, so if I need to visualise, I use the same notation when writing. I can also do Norwegian too: 9. Se1 d5 10. Le3 

There was a discussion on Quality Chess blog about using the unicode, but typing that constantly on a laptop must be some almighty pain in the arse.

Leon_Trotsky wrote on 12/24/18 at 03:43:23:

I'm not sure what you mean here. Several strong players have used 9.Ne1 d5 10.Be3 with success. One reason it hasn't trickled down to lower-rated players all that much may be it's ignored in all the theory works. I hope I'm wrong, but I suspect the authors may be doing this on purpose: They don't want to draw attention to such a depressing line for Black and increase the risk of facing it themselves.

P. S.: Why do you use Spanish piece letters when writing in English?