Indeed, this line doesn't seem to work; likewise I found 8...Nb8 just leads to a White advantage without overly difficult moves. But 8...Ne7 9.Ne1 a5 as recently played by Radjabov looked like a decent shortcut when I saw it; White should keep a theoretical advantage, but it forces White onto his own resources, and seems like a pretty decent anti-computer line.

barnaby wrote on 02/22/17 at 05:34:52:


Engines seem to score it as around half a pawn's advantage to White. Looking at the lines they suggest, Black is in no danger of an immediate loss, but remains a pawn down. Maybe it's no worse for Black than some of the better known ways of giving pawn odds. 

Returning the Queen to base with Qd1 appears a better treatment than leaving it in the centre to be harassed. After that, White just plays normal solid moves. 

There's hardly any recorded games been played and I don't think any articles, so this is frontier of theory stuff or maybe just a footnote. 

Is there any coalesced theory on this line?

Playing in event past weekend and opponent hit me with 8 ... Nd4

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6  3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6   5. Be2 o-o   6. Nf3 e5  7. o-o Nc6 8. d5 Nd4 !?

Then after 9. Nd4 ed  10. Qd4 opponent played ... Nd7 ! and after 11. Qe3 Nc5 I realized the knight is in on c5 because b4 gets met with Nxe4 and here I think I messed up bigly with 12. Re1 ?! f5!  and the rest of the game got ugly for White and is an embarrassment for me.


Is there a clear path to a advantage as White in this line?
Does it even have a name?

It looks viable for me to try as Black because it looks like there are a lot of ways for White to get real wrong, real fast.  Figuring it out otb was not so intuitive.  I looked at not taking on d4 but then after something like leaving the knight there with Be3 Black clips on e2 and plays Bd7 with solid equal position.

Thanks in advance for any insights.