Hi.

I am an easily sidetracked person sadly. Here are some short thoughts on h6+g5 with putting the knight on d7.

About:
1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Bg5 Bg7 5.Qd2 h6 6.Bh4/Bf4 g5 7.Bg3 Nh5 8.0-0-0 Nd7

It seems reasonable to talk move orders first. 4...h6 could be ok I suppose but I have yet found a position after 5.Be3 where I'd like to have played h6 as black. This problem is also what John Shaw points out when he discusses the move in his book.
4...Nbd7 5.f4 c6 6.e5 (or 5...Bg7 but then the same reply) I think favours white.
4...Bg7 5.Qd2 Nbd7 6.Bh6 is pleasant for white.
4...Bg7 5.Qd2 h6 6.Bh4 Nbd7 seems viable even though 7.f4 (Otherwise just 7.0-0-0 and black should probably go 7...g5 but at least white will be committed to the main line with long castling) 7...c5 8.Nf3 cxd4 9.Nxd4 Nc5 10.e5 looks a little bit risky for black. Care required, although it looks viable.

So probably the traditional move order of:
1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Bg5 Bg7 5.Qd2 h6 6.Bh4/Bf4 g5 7.Bg3 Nh5 8.0-0-0
Is most relevant. Here I think 8...Nd7 looks more interesting compared to 8...Nc6 (which usually plans pretty slow things like e6, Bd7, Qe7). As it looked though many of the authors cover both moves or outright prefer 8...Nc6. In part it is down to taste. Now:
8...Nd7
In principle seems desirable to arrange the undermining c7-c5 move and jump the knight somewhere active in case there is a chance. I think the often covered pawn thrust is not horrible for black:
9.e5!? Nb6! 10.Bd3!?
10.Qe3 Bf5 (10...Be6!?) 11.Be2 Nxg3 12.hxg3 Qd7 13.f4 g4 14.Bb5 c6 15.Bd3 O-O-O 16.Nge2 Kb8 and to me it looks like white has given up so many squares I don't know how he would progress effectively. He may somewhat for choice regardless though.
10.Qe2 Is another iteration but something like. Nxg3 11.hxg3 Bf5!? 12.Qf3 Qc8 13.Qe3 Qd7 14.Bd3 O-O-O 15.f4 f6 16.Nf3 fxe5 17.dxe5 Bxd3 18.Rxd3 Qg4 seems to give black OK chances.
10...Be6
10...Nxg3 11.hxg3 Bd7 12.f4 e6 13.Be4!? d5 14.Bd3 Qe7 15.Nb5 Bxb5 16.Bxb5+ c6 17.Bd3 O-O-O Looks a bit passive.
11.Nge2 Qd7 12.exd6 exd6 13.f3 O-O-O 14.Bf2 Nf6
And suddenly it looks like a decent french exchange variation for white. Black having weakened himself somewhat with g5. Still it doesn't ultimately look so bad.

I'm not even sure I would venture the direct 9.e5 because there is also:
9.Nge2 c5 10.Nd5!?
To mess with black's development. As played by the creative GM Bellon Lopez against Marin. I think, since white threatens to just strengthen his center with c3, black needs to go:
10...Nxg3 11.hxg3 Nb6
To challenge white immediately. But then:
12.dxc5 Nxd5 13.exd5 dxc5 14.Nc3 Qd6
Looks to me something like between more pleasant to mildly advantageous for white. Crucially though not at all unplayable for black.

Have a nice day.

Hi.

As I recall I thought Kornev was a bit to optimistic after 6.Bh4 g5 7.Bg3 Nh5 8.0-0-0 Nc6. The other suggestion was quite interesting on the other hand. There was some line with Bxf6 though and this didn't seem very enjoyable.

On a semi-related note I would probably join the 8...Nd7 camp in these h6+g5 structures. Seems likely to generate imbalanced positions without obviously burning many bridges. 8...Nc6 is not as active.

I'll give a few lines when I'm at my computer.

Have a nice night.

Quote:

Interesting. I've wondered whether 7.f3 b5 8.h4 is stronger. With 4.Be3 iso 4.Bg5 Black may answer 8.h4 with ...h5, but with the bishop on g5 that defense look less attractive.

Hi.

I brought with me a lot of Pirc books and is doing a read through of the 4.Bg5 chapters atm. At the very least I will let you know which lines are favoured by which authors.

Have a nice evening.

Stigma wrote on 07/19/19 at 11:04:18:


One or the other of javascript or cross-domain scripting is disabled. We discussed it in the "The Forum is back!" thread.
https://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/chess/YaBB.pl?num=1138031987/55
It's probably for the best. Your workaround is genius. I didn't notice the trick because I am not usually logged in while reading on chesspub.

Downloading attached pgn files seems to work fine. It's only downloads of pgns created via the pgn tags that don't work.

These tags used to create a playable board directly in the browser with the variations in the pgn. I don't know why they now just produce a download link ("Download game in pgn format") that doesn't even work.

Michael Ayton wrote on 07/19/19 at 10:01:31:

I've had problems with pgn downloads here for a long time now. Seems to be a sitewide issue.

My workaround is to press "Quote" on the post containing the pgn, then copying and pasting the pgn string from there.