RdC wrote on 04/19/16 at 20:22:09:


Well, it's a known thing, e.g. ECO has had it as leading to equality.  I thought it might have come up fairly recently in Chess Publishing, but maybe that's wrong.

fling wrote on 03/01/16 at 23:14:35:


Defending against this stuff, they play 1. d4, you reply .. Nf6, they play 2. Nf3. What do they intend? Do you trust them to play c4, either immediately or later, or are they intending  3. Bf4 (arguably harmless), Bg5 (similarly) or 3. Nc3 which is annoying by threatening a transposition to a Pirc. You can play 2. .. c5 against 2. Nf3, but you are then potentially committed to a Benoni or Benko lookalike if they play 3. d5 . If you would prefer to play e6 rather than g6 against the Torre or London, there's another problem, as demonstrated recently by Kramnik, that the sequence 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. e3 has its points.

If they play 2. Bf4, you have the almost certainty that they are playing the London System, so you use whatever is your pet defence.

There's an English player in Opens who has some attacking ideas in mind when he defers development of his Kings Knight. Losing in both rounds 3 and 5 of a recent tournament might be discouraging. I had faced an early g4 in round 3, whilst the round 5 opponent had preferred .. d5 to .. d6 and faced an idea where the Bishop dropped back to g3 and f4 was punted, giving a Stonewall look to the position.

fling wrote on 03/01/16 at 20:32:42:


Sorry, my understanding of the OP (i've probably misread this) is that RDC is asking why players with the black pieces dont go for a different set up (to ..d5) once the white player has played Bf4 and therefore indicated he is going to play a london system setup. I dont know much about the london, but i would think that white can still transpose to other lines after Bf4 has been played, as can black....and so choosing not to suggests either both players may not know other lines, or have a specific reason for playing down the lines they do.

Sorry, I don't get your point? Either can deviate by 1. e4 e5 

The idea is that after 1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 is meant to prevent an early ...c5 and ...Qb6 by Black  1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 misses that point because Black hasn't yet played ...d5. Hence the op.

RdC wrote on 03/01/16 at 11:39:49:


Is there such a thing as free lunch? 

OT: Well, maybe when playing me this season, because I have been self destructing in almost all games, despite of the opening ending better for me in most games.

The was meant to indicate that there are trade-offs and that the original question was about that White shows his cards before Black has played 2...d5. Thus, op asked a valid question on why allow White the pleasure of the desired London and not use the move order to direct play in another direction, as also pointed out by the first responses. At least that is how I read the first posts.

Also, when reviving the thread, it was about 1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4, not 1. d4 d5. But I fully agree, the latter seems better to meet with 2. Bf4 than 2. Nf3 in case you'd ever want to play the London.

fling wrote on 02/29/16 at 18:09:19:


Obviously Black's light-square bishop can't reach f5 until the d-pawn is moved. But even if the game starts 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4, White may still wish to hold back playing Nf3 for a while because Black can play ...d5 at any time and move order White into the passive position mentioned previously.

Incidentally, Cyrus Lakdawala advocates 2.Nf3 against 1...Nf6. But in response to 2...d5 he advises White to play 3.c3 in order to avoid the move order trick. I'm not sure if it creates more problems than it solves though.