Hi.

I have read through Negi's book a lot this weekend. Apart from becoming bothered with how much Alekhine and Scandinavian lines/theory exists nowadays it was enjoyable.

Must say his 150 attack coverage in the Pirc was very enjoyable to follow. Especially the c6 Pirc chapter. Felt like I learned a great deal and also stuff that's gonna help picking lines as black.

Have a nice day.

Hi.

Okay. I have the Negi book. Random observations:

- Same colour scheme as Negis volume one book on french, Caro and Philidor.
- Pages 244-393 is Pirc and Modern, meaning a heck of a lot of stuff to look at for people like me.
- He is obviously very serious about move orders and stuff.
- I just cross-checked with Tiger (2014) so far. As I suspected somewhat beforehand Negi has the poor taste to try and challenge black both in the Modern proper and in probably the most critical of Tiger's Pirc lines i.e.:

(Tiger order p.242) 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nf3 d6 4.Be3 Nf6! 5.Nc3 a6 6.Qd2 b5 7.Bh6 0-0 8.Bd3 Nc6! 9.Bxg7 Kxg7 10.e5 dxe5 11.dxe5 Ng4 12.0-0-0 b4 13.Rhe1
(Negi's order p.334) 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4. Be3 Bg7
4...a6 5.Nf3 Bg7 seems more logical to have as mainline to me but ok it transposes. The reason is I doubt many black players would want 4..Bg7 5.Qd2 a6 6.Bh6 where arguably white gets to suck a lot of dynamism out and get some more or less risk-free pull after 6...Bxh6 7.Qxh6.
5.Qd2 a6 6.Nf3 b5 7.Bh6 0-0 8.Bd3 Nc6! 9.Bxg7 Kxg7 10.e5 dxe5 11.dxe5 Ng4 12.0-0-0 b4 13.Rhe1

- Seems like Negi goes in hard to prevent black reaching particular Nc6 without a6 setups. Basically the idea looks to be that when black plays Nc6 white either should not have gone Nf3 yet (so he can reply Nge2 instead) or if the knight does go to f3 it should be after black went a6. Then at least white knows any counterplay black may try for with his Nc6 move will come after black has spent some time with a6. Obviously Nc6 still a very viable move in many position but Negi always has ideas how to counter it.
Concretely the line:
1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4. Be3 Bg7 5.Nf3
Is avoided in favour of 5.Qd2 I guess because
5...0-0 6.Qd2 Nc6
Is precisely that situation where black has got in Nc6 combined with 0-0 and white has gone Nf3.

Have a nice day.

Hi.

Wintermondnacht wrote on 10/07/20 at 06:21:50:

Cool suggestion. I notice some testing having been done. Guessing they improve somewhere. Not many games at all with this 7.h4 idea, both after 6...Bb7 and 6...Nd7.

[Event "13. LSS Anni P-00019"]
[Site "LSS"]
[Date "2019.04.17"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Greet, Andrew"]
[Black "Bujdak, Pavel"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "B06"]
[WhiteElo "2357"]
[BlackElo "2000"]
[PlyCount "47"]
[EventDate "2019.04.23"]

{[%evp 0,47,17,13,84,71,72,72,97,97,87,73,72,76,54,19,27,42,52,24,28,19,23,24,
24,29,25,20,16,16,42,23,26,16,11,-23,16,16,16,16,16,23,16,16,15,18,18,24,24,24]
} 1. e4 d6 2. d4 g6 3. Nc3 a6 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Be3 b5 6. Bd3 Bb7 7. h4 Nd7 8. h5
Ngf6 9. h6 Bf8 10. Qe2 b4 11. Nd5 Nxd5 12. exd5 Bxd5 13. a3 bxa3 14. Rxa3 e6
15. Bxa6 Rb8 16. O-O Rxb2 17. Bb5 Bxf3 18. Bxd7+ Qxd7 19. Qxf3 Rb8 20. Ra8 Rxa8
21. Qxa8+ Qd8 22. Qc6+ Qd7 23. Qa8+ Qd8 24. Qc6+ 1/2-1/2

Have a nice day.

doefmat wrote on 09/08/20 at 14:48:36:


doefmat wrote on 09/10/20 at 05:33:21:

The absolute simplest thing is to start playing it with black -- with suitable preparation of course. That can go one of two ways. Either your opponents show you what is wrong with it, and you can then use this information as white. Or they don't, and you have a new and viable black weapon.

doefmat wrote on 09/08/20 at 14:48:36:


That's a curious admission that I've heard echoed by others also, would you care to elaborate further.

Would this be a good reference resource for a club player? I absolutely hate to play against the Scandinavian so I would like to learn some lines against it. Or is there a simpler route?

grandpatzer wrote on 08/30/20 at 19:01:53:


4.Bd2 is impossible.

Great news, I'll certainly buy this book, it seems to me that Negi is covering very solid lines for White. One thing: from the PDF I see an original way to meet the ...Qa5 Scandinavian, 4.Bd2 and, after 4...Bg4, 5.f3. Is it a novelty or what?