Pale Horse, Pale Rider wrote on 11/13/14 at 21:26:51:


I've been wondering if that will make a comeback.  I guess the thing with Be2 instead of Nd2 is still causing Black some consternation.  Watching a game Nyzhnyk-Tarjan a couple of months ago, it seemed that perhaps neither player was aware of that (a possibly relevant fact is that it was Tarjan's first tournament in thirty years).

I have been following Nakamura and Kasparov on twitter. But they both haven't been very actively commentating this event. Who else is worth checking on twitter besides Caruana?

I get all that, but I maintain that it's not pragmatic; it might well be 0.00 all the way, but one slip and it's over.
I take the Caruana view:
"Everyone is saying this is a solid line for Black. But.... isn't that a white pawn on c7?"
https://twitter.com/FabianoCaruana/status/532144119066673152

Dink Heckler wrote on 11/12/14 at 11:40:16:


It's just theory--my understanding was that this was considered more-or-less a drawing line for a while (the whole ...Nbd7, ...c6, and immediate ...Ba6 line), but I haven't kept up with it over the last few years.  There have been a few high level games played in it over the years, the most recent with the pawn getting to c7 was Aronian - Adams 2013, drawn.

I don't know all of the theoretical developments on this line, but Carlsen was following established theory up to a point, and then his preparation seems to have failed him somehow, he got some crazy inspiration, forgot his prep, never looked at this line, who knows?  

Edit: calling it a drawing a line might be a bit extreme, but I think it's been considered more or less equal for some time now.  Obviously the players at the very top have their own view of things, which is different than what gets disseminated to rest of us at times.