Talking about this position:
This is obviously a rather critical line, Black now being down two pawns, but common literature on it is somehow *very* quiet.
- Sverre Johnsen gives 13. ..Re8 and follows this game for a bit
https://lichess.org/AIMpRsAt/black#26 , calling it equal, which it may or may not be; but this looks/feels like a very poor Marshall endgame to me, where one holds sometimes and sometimes doesn't. Certainly I see very little chance of winning this pawn-down endgame, even against a significantly weaker player.
- Sverre Johnsen also offers
https://lichess.org/451lHsWS#26 this line, calling it equal after move 21, but omitting that White's 19th (Be3) is seen as a rather large mistake by our silicone friend, which instead gives eg 19.Re8:+ Re8: 20.f4 c5 21.Nc3 cd4: 22.Ne4 Bb8 23.Ng3 Nc6 24.Bd2, and while we got one pawn back and obviously White's structure isn't great, we're still a pawn down and White managed to unravel his pieces (+0.8 at depth 22).
- Lokander notes that the whole line is critical, but still only mentions it in a sidenote (rather than a game of its own / at least having it as the mainline), offers 13. ..c5, and follows this game
https://lichess.org/2vgLLhnu/black#26 for a bit, until he finds an improvement where Black sacrifices two Bishops and goes in for a perpetual check. Now that is theoretically fine of course, but in practical terms I cannot play this against someone lower rated than me, and it's also not something I will ever find over the board, so I'd have to memorize the entire variation, else I will just end up losing (similar to Mr.Urkedal.. actually, even the position that is 'a perpetual' I got kinda lost in, when I looked at it without a computer)
- Ntirlis makes a very good point *against* 13. ..Re8, gives 13. ..c5 like Lokander does, and goes on a bit about how computers tend to misevaluate this position badly, leading to wins for White even in correspondence. Now that to me sounds like something that should be covered in some detail.. but again he just gives it as a sidenote, and doesn't even cover 14.Nc3 for White at all (the clearly most natural move in the position & also Database top choice).
So now I sit here, three 1.e4 e5 books in hand, and not a single of them offers a really satisfactory solution to playing the 2 Knights in an Open Tournament.
Johnsen steers me straight into a bleh endgame, Lokander tells me to learn 20 moves by heart and then give a perpetual (in my last tournament a 1450 played this line against me; I can't give that guy a perpetual!), and Ntirlis doesn't mention the most common variation at all.
I'm perfectly fine playing a pawn down middlegame with sufficient compensation (as in other lines of the 2N); I'm also quite happy with an equal symmetrical position that still leaves some room to outplay a weaker player (like arises out of eg some forcing lines in my Qc2 Nimzo rep). But a perpetual obviously offers very little room for that
, so I'd need something that actually keeps the game going..
An endgame that is "just a draw", but where White had to navigate some significant complications on the path (such as in the Marshall), is also acceptable to me - there I then just have to hope that a lower rated White player would be unable to handle the complications; but again, at the point of the Lokander-Perpetual, White just played the most natural moves in the position, so he may very well find them over the board.
The most logical first attempt for me was 13. ..c5 14.Nc3 Re8, attempting to go back into 13. ..Re8 lines, now that its "critical counter" (14.d4 15.d3) isn't possible anymore, as the Knight on c3 would obviously be attacked, but SF quickly spits out an almost +1 advantage after 15.Nc4 Nc4: 16.dc4: Bg4 17.Re8:+ Qe8: 18.Qf1 (in the same line after 13. ..Re8, Black would now play ..Be2, winning, but here the insertion of Nc3+..c5 clearly favours White)
The next most logical try after 13. ..c5 14.Nc3 (and only real one that I could even think of) would be 14. ..Bb7, but then not to follow up with ..Re8 after 15.b3.
Compi first line is the apparent novelty 15. ..Qf6, with the idea being that after 16.Nf3 Bf3: 17.Qf3: Qf3: 18.gf3: Nc6, White is still 2 pawns up and we have exchanged a bunch of pieces, but this time around his pawn structure is truly wrecked and he is still a bit away from unraveling; so Black can pressure the pawns early on, at least win one of them back, and then still hold a sizeable amount of initiative. Of course the problem here is we gave up the Bishop pair, so if that initiative ever dissipates, the endgames will again be a huge pain..
A sample way of how a game might continue (obviously no guarantee this is perfect play, I just quickly threw out some natural moves that didn't obviously blunder anything) here would be:
Where White retained his extra pawn, but Black's pieces are so active that the pawn doesn't do much, and at least White had to answer some questions on moves 19-25.
This appears quite playable, but obviously I am still not perfectly happy with it.
15. ..f5, with the idea of just starting a quick attack via Rf6-h6, might make some sense as well and appears like the most normal 'practical try', but the usual stone cold machine just calculates to an advantage with
So basically that leaves me with the question, what do/would you play against this 13.Ne5:?
Just one of the "incorrect" lines, in the hopes that White won't the correct path? This 13. ..c5 14.Nc3 Qf6 thing? Something entirely else, that I missed in my own analysis?
Or do you just say "Ok this variation is a draw, that's theoretically sufficient, and against a weaker player I don't go into the 2N at all but rather let him hang himself in the comparably quiet waters of 3. ..Bc5"? That at least is my current state, but I do kinda love the 2N aside from this single variation, so I would prefer to be able to keep playing it..
Any comments would be welcome
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Playing for a Win against 13.Ne5: in 8.Bd3 (Read 6126 times)
