WSS wrote on 08/03/13 at 02:44:41:


You're probably right; I said '10.0-0-0!?,' not '10.0-0-0!', and I think it's worth an over-the-board try; Black has to solve some fairly difficult problems.   

But I suspect you won't be happy with that: for a refinement, how about 10.dxc5!?.  Now 10...Bxc3? just loses (more or less), and 10...Ne4 can be met by 11.Nd4, when I prefer White.  So Black has to accept right away: 10...gf and now 11.0-0-0!  Could this be promising for White?  I don't know; I'll have to look at it later, but ultimately it wouldn't surprise me in the least to discover that saccing a whole piece so early is objectively unsound.  That doesn't mean that it's not worth a try as a surprise weapon in the right situation.

My opinion is that 10.Nd2! is promising enough to take a closer look at, and I think I'd prefer the White side here.  Why don't you like it?  You said that you don't want to sacrifice the d-pawn, but didn't explain why.  Often you need to sac a pawn to obtain or keep an initiative.  I'd follow something along the lines of Wells - Adams 2006 I guess (or at least start my investigations there).  The position after



has only occured twice in GM practice, and Black vastly outrated White in both games.  So maybe the GMs have figured that Adams refuted this, but it's not so clear to me.  Equal perhaps, but I don't see that White should be worse in the ending after 17...Nc6 18.Nxa6 Bxa8 19.Qxg4+ Qg5+ 20.Qxg5+ hxg5.

I'm not an expert in these lines by any means, these are just some of my notes from years ago, trying to give ideas for further investigation.  But if White can achieve unbalanced equality after Black defends perfectly, that's about as much as you can expect from chess, right?

Edit: after a few minutes of moving the pieces around, I think I'm starting to prefer Black in that ending, so I'm not sure what to recommend for White, sorry.  That's about the end of my knowledge of this line, though it's far from the last word and I'm sure that a creative player can find some interesting ideas to challenge Black in here.  He has to walk a very narrow path in the Wells - Adams line, so a White improvement might be found.  Can White avoid the ending with 19.h3!? or 19.Kc1!?.  Hmm, that looks interesting...

ErictheRed wrote on 07/18/13 at 19:06:04:


I have experienced quite the opposite; I almost never face 4...Bb7! According to my database, the average is somewhere in between; the statistics say around 60-40 in favour of 4...Bb7.

Actually, if you can prepare for the game, you may be able to predict the likelihood for facing 4...Bb4 by looking at Black's usual response to 4.a3 QID. If your opponent invariably meets that with 4...Ba6, there is a large probability (s)he will want to avoid 4.Nc3 Bb7 5.a3.

tony37 wrote on 07/18/13 at 20:29:31:


That's another way to start the day, when in my experience 4...c5 and 4...d5 were both more common than 4...b6.  So White's choice of move order will depend on which other lines he'd prefer to face, and how he plays against the QGD.

After 5...a5 it's possible that 6.g3 is the best move, and 6.Bg5 is probably good as well; the pawn on a5 doesn't do a great deal in those lines.

However, 6.a3 is not necessarily a mistake, in my (and Seirawan's) opinion.  There is an interesting idea that hasn't really been tested: 6.a3 a4 7.Qc2 Bxc3+ 8.bc!? (almost surely better than 8.Qxc3).  The point is that in this pawn structure, the pawn doesn't really belong on a4; it's potentially weak in the long term and Black would really have liked to use the a4-square for a piece (in the Saemisch, for instance, ...Qd8-d7-a4 is sometimes played). 

Probably 6.a3 is not the strongest, but there are some interesting ideas in this whole line that haven't received many tests.  This is typical of Seirawan in general (and others like Petrosian); he's a very original thinker and his ideas are worth a closer look.  What was it that Gallagher said?  Something along the lines of Seirawan operating on his own (admittedly very advanced) positional planet, but that what works well for Seirawan doesn't always work well for others.  Very Petrosian-esque to me, and full of interesting, deep ideas that should be played out on the board, not just subjected to a few minutes of Houdini. 

Incidentally, White players wanting to play 5.Qb3 should be prepared to see 4...Bb7 a lot more than 4...Bb4; at least that was my experience. 

You saw right through me!    Actually, it's ironic to think how much White players would pay to have a reliable advantage versus the Nimzo!

Thanks for the 10.0-0-0 idea - it looks fun!  One of the reasons that I have been exploring the 4.Nf3 lines is to find interesting and challenging positions that my opponent might be a little less familiar with.  I can certainly imagine an opponent expecting a solid Nimzo game being shocked by 10.0-0-0!? and going into a long think.

Thanks Eric.  I had looked at the lines after 6.a3 Ba5 7.Bg5 but Black seems to score well with 7...h6 8.Bh4 g5 9.Bg3 g4 which forces White to sac the d4-pawn with 10.Nd2.

Sokolov's 7.dxc5 might be another option after 6.a3.  After 7...bxc5 8.Bg5 h6 9.Bh4 g5 10.Bg6 there is no hanging d-pawn.  Sokolov-Greet 2007 was an attractive game for White.

I have spent some time recently working through a White 4.Nf3 repertoire versus the Nimzo-Indian as an alternative to the main stream Rubinstein (4.e3) and Classical (4.Qc2) variations.  Predictably the hardest lines to attempt to find an advantage are Black's responses with 4...c5 and 4...b6.  For the latter (which transposes to a Queen's Indian) I had hoped to eke out an edge in the 5.Qb3 Seirawan line but the series of exchanges with 9...Bxc3 and especially Gelfand's 11...Bxf3 seem to take much of the "fun" out of the position.

Here is a subset of the analysis to give a general idea of some of the critical lines.  I'm doubtful that White can prove a significant advantage in these lines. I was curious if any of my fellow forum members had suggestions of fruitful alternate directions to explore seeking interesting play for White in the Seirawan line (versus "jumping ship" to the 5.Bg5 Kasparov variation)?