Karolyi gives 12..Bd6 a la S. Volkov - A. Rychagov, Paleochora Open, 2012

FreeRepublic wrote on 10/17/20 at 17:53:58:

And I'm not fully convinced for White after (somewhat ironically) 11...g6. Black's play can be improved in the games Khenkin-Asrian, Moscow 2001 and Kovaljov-Vavrak, Benidorm 2009.

It never made sense to me the exchange variation didn't become the main line after Kasparovs handling of it.

Here are two different ways of countering it by Ulf Andersson. Both failed

game 1 vs Ulf Anderssonhttps://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070305

game 2: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1020567

It refers to the new series by Hammer, on chess24.
A ‘classical’ approach with black - 1.e4 e5, 1.d4 d5.
OCP - are you predicting the imminent demise of c24?!

(Non-disclaimer - I have no connection at all with any chess publisher - books, online, whatever.)

Happy chessing!

I see that in Jon Ludvig Hammer's new black repertoire product after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cd ed 5.Bg5 c6 6.e3 Be7 7.Bd3 Nbd7 8.Qc2 0-0 9.Nge2 Re8 10.0-0 Nf8 11.f3, he goes with one of the old book moves -- 11...Ng6 -- and refers to "a big new discovery."

stockhausen wrote on 02/13/20 at 15:16:30:


At a 2000 level, defending the QGD Exchange makes it too easy for White to get a good position and for Black to have limited chances. 

The relatively better technical play of an IM or GM may be needed to make it work in practice. 

There were two recent pretty well publicized games even in the old line that Carlsen "refuted" against Kramnik, with Black scoring 1.5/2, and never appearing to be in too much trouble
https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/fide-womens-world-championship-202...
https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/tata-steel-challengers-2020/8/1/4

Carlsen also played the Korley line at the World Blitz
https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/world-blitz-championship-2019/3/1/...
And while the Engine yells +4 somewhere in the middle, his willingness to play it at all may or may not mean something (ok, he plays the Norwegian Rat in Blitz, so who knows)
-- Don't know if there's an actual name for it, I just call it "Korley line" based on this game https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1968792 , which he made a video about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQIh-NqZKHQ

There's also the Ntirlis treatment in his 1.d4 d5 book, where White seemingly has to find/know the plan of castling long, followed by Kc1-b1-a1 + b2-b4 (+Rb1?) to achieve anything, as he did here https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1924134 , but Black has some improvements along the path of course.

I don't know anything about the Illingworth line, but if he recommends it - I trust him as an author/analyst, so I have no doubts it's quite playable as well.

It's a major opening, so yes, it will always be "fine". If you're a sitting duck, and play the same variation every game, while the entries in the database pile up, at some point you're going to run into issues - but that's the case in any opening. As long as you jump between subvariations here or there, and aren't too concerned with playing a boring "no-play" line as in the l'Ami game, I see no issues with the QGD Exchange. If you're below 2200 or w/e, then "anything" works as a main response anyway, and certainly the QGD is rather on the "sound" than on the "bogus" end of the opening spectrum.

SuperGMs don't visit it much anymore, since there are even *fewer* issues in the Nimzo, but I mean.. that applies to pretty much any opening under the sun (aside from the Berlin, perhaps?), so it doesn't exactly disqualify the good old QGD.