Hi.

Yea. There is some sparse practice already. The reason I think the whole continuation with 5...Nf6 6.h5 is gonna pick up popularity is that there is already three otb games in 2021 with reasonably strong players in all and a correspondence game now as well.

1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.Be3 a6 5.h4 Nf6 6.h5 Nxh5 7.Rxh5 gxh5 8.Qxh5 Nd7 9.Bc4 O-O
Is a continuation as well. Very prospectless though after both 10.Nf3 and 10.0-0-0. It's like the point of the game where black could hypothetically make use of a rook vs minor piece advantage is so far off that white doesn't really care that much. He just plays to have a long comfortable middlegame with only the kingside open and black having to work really hard to open up more lines.

Have a nice day.

P.S.
1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.Be3 I had in a recent corr game and my idea then was to go 4...a6 5.Be2 b5 6.h4 h6!?. I think it's a little bit more serious of a setup to go for when Be2 (and b5) have been played. Didn't really analyse much however. It looked like something you could figure out if happened.

Instead my opponent went 5.h4 and I played 5...h6!? more or less anyway and was fine after the sort of reasonable looking but perhaps not terribly testing 6.h5 g5 7.Qd2 Nf6 8.f3!?.

Hi.

Confused_by_Theory wrote on 05/04/21 at 22:09:17:

I notice people, starting early 2021, have started picking up on a key line, so I guess I might as well expand a bit.

The problem with
1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.Be3 a6 5.h4 Nf6
Which asfair has been recommended by multiple authors. Appears to be that white can just ignore the added defense of the h5 square with:
6.h5!?
And after the capture with the knight, looking like the only thing that works positionally, white actually has quite good compensation for an exchange.
6...Nxh5
6...Nbd7?! 7.h6 Bf8 8.g4 b5 9.g5 b4 10.Nce2 Nxe4? 11.f3 Nxg5 12.Bxg5 (+-)
6...Rg8?! 7.h6 Bh8 8.Qd2 Ng4 9.Bg5 f6 10.Bh4 g5 11.Bg3 Rg6 12.f3 Nxh6 13.f4 gxf4 14.Bxf4 Nf7 15.Rxh7 (+/-)
7.Rxh5! gxh5 8.Qxh5 (D)


We get a situation where white has very easy development and can push pawns forward against a mostly undeveloped black position. It's not really looking so fun for black. That is even though black has a few different ways of trying to get his pieces out. Most of them basically see him under some kind of pressure. For example:
8...h6!?
Perhaps a slightly weird move. The idea is something like preventing Bg5 so Qe7 becomes a viable place for the queen and perhaps at some point not giving white a Bh6 move.
9.O-O-O e6 10.e5 Nc6 11.f4 b5 12.Bd3!? Ne7 13.g4 Qd7 14.f5 exf5 15.Nge2 (+/=) to (+/-) With seemingly quite nice compensation.

8...Nc6 9.O-O-O Bd7?
9...e6 10.e5 or 9...h6 10.f4 avoids disaster and can go into the line I gave after 8...h6!?.
10.Bc4 e6 11.d5! exd5 12.Bg5 Qc8 13.Nxd5 Ne5 14.Bf6! (+/-) With very serious pressure.

Best practically is probably 8...Qd7!?. The only move played in correspondence in fact. Even so it does look like white had a pretty comfortable position and I wonder if it's not more menacing to just play slowly with 9.Be2.

[Event "WS/CCM/A/15"]
[Site "ICCF"]
[Date "2020.12.18"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Beveridge, Colin"]
[Black "Egan, Michael"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "B06"]
[WhiteElo "2294"]
[BlackElo "2270"]
[PlyCount "68"]
[EventDate "2020.??.??"]

1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 d6 4. Be3 a6 5. h4 Nf6 6. h5 Nxh5 7. Rxh5 gxh5 8.
Qxh5 Qd7 9. Bc4 Qg4 10. Bxf7+ Kf8 11. Nd5 Nc6 12. Ne2 Bd7 13. c3 Qxh5 14. Bxh5
e6 15. Ndf4 Ke7 16. f3 Raf8 17. Kf2 Nd8 18. Rh1 Nf7 19. g4 Bf6 20. Ng3 a5 21.
Nh3 Rhg8 22. f4 Bh4 23. Kg2 e5 24. f5 Ng5 25. dxe5 dxe5 26. Bc5+ Kf6 27. Bxf8
Rxf8 28. Nxg5 Bxg5 29. Rd1 Ba4 30. b3 Bc6 31. c4 Kg7 32. Kf3 Rd8 33. Rxd8 Bxd8
34. Ne2 Bg5 1/2-1/2

Have a nice day.

P.S. it's also kinda to late to play 5...b5 with effect e.g. 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.Be3 a6 5.h4 b5 6.h5 Bb7 7.h6 Bf8 8.a3 Nf6 9.d5 and sure white has extended somewhat, although on the other hand black's position makes a very odd impression. This coupled with the 6.h5 line after 5...Nf6 is why I say black wants to go 5...h5 or 5..h6 after 5.h4.

Quote:

Very interesting, C_b_T! -- can you say a bit more? Does this relate mainly or entirely to ...h6 tries? You'll see that I've started a new thread on those, so discussion of this may or may not belong there ...

Many thanks to both! That's exactly the sort of thing I was wanting to know. And I think you both pitched it exactly right in terms of giving a good indication of what F. covers without giving too much away, so to speak. For myself I might hang fire on the book for now as I'm more interested in Tiger's ...Nc6 anti-Austrian, and in ...h6 lines against the Be3 stuff -- covered a bit by Tiger, and, I see, in a recent Chessable offering.

Michael Ayton wrote on 03/04/21 at 14:03:10:


The book isn't a complete repertoire : Fernandez has analyzed lines he considered critical and added a bunch of Pirc coverage as alternatives against 4.f4 and 4.Be3 (and also as a way to deal with the 3.Nf3+4.Be3 move-order)

You can find the Table of contents here : https://thinkerspublishing.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/FINAL-TEASER-MODERN-DE...

As for your other questions :

- he recommends systems with ...h5 against Be3+h4 set-up,
- I don't know how the coverage compares with Tiger's 2nd book (I don't have it), but I believe Fernandez is very up-to-date as his book features a lot of original analyis and he references white repertoires in his bibliography.
- against the solid c3+Bd3 system, he suggests a Benoni-like idea with an early ...c5

Hi.

an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 02/20/21 at 19:53:14:

Certainly worth considering.
To my mind you can also keep it in reserve for when 2...d6 gets played. That is if 2...Bg7 3.Be3 d5 worries or 3...c6. In the later line I think 4.Qd2 d5 5.e5 c5!? 6.c3 is also very interesting. White's Be3+Qd2 is not ideal but black will have spent two tempos if he goes c5 after going c6 earlier and he has placed the bishop on g7 early, which is not the most purposeful use of development time. 5...f6 6.f4 seems very pleasant for white btw.

Edit: black also has
1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Be3 c6 4.Qd2 Nf6
4...d6 5.c4!? is an irregular KID where black has played c6 early.
5.Nc3 d6
5...0-0 6.e5! Ng4 7.Bg5 is very well liked by Leela. It thinks black should play 7...f6 but then simply 8.exf6 and black can't play the desirable 8...exf6? 9.Bf4 d5? because 10.h3 and white will win with precise play.

But this alllows the threatening 6.Bh6, which has been discussed a lot on the Pirc forum.

Have a nice day.

As the Argentinean Attack (4.Be3 Bg7 5.Qd2 O-O 6.f3) is one of the very few openings I have remained true for decades I've looked at 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Be3 as well. The answer that bothers me most is not 3...d5 (simply 4.exd5) but 3...c6. Black can be flexible too! Now 4.c4 is met with d5! and 4.Nc3 just transposes to 3.Nc3 lines. So 4.Qd2 remains and I'm not happy (as White) with both d5 5.e5 c5 and 5.f3 dxe4 6.fxe4 e5. Perhaps d5 5.f3 dxe4 6.Nc3 which is obscure even for the BDG.
Objectively I don't see the pros of 3.Be3 compared to 3.Nc3 and evt. 4.Be3.

With the same caveat about how hard it is to work out which lines are covered, it looks to me as if Fernandez pretty much ignores everything except 2.d4 followed by 3.Nc3, 3.Nf3 or 3.c4. I don't mind the absence of the Closed Sicilian and the Grand Prix Attack, but 3.Be3 would be a surprising omission. Tiger devotes two games to it.