alyechin wrote on 05/01/21 at 16:55:01:

Yes I find this line annoying for black. It's hard to make sense of the knight on a6. But black should be okay anyway.

1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bf4 e6 4.Nb5 Na6 5.e3 c6
(5...Be7 is worth considering 6.h3 c6 7.Nc3 
so far Lubbe - Kulkarni, Corsica blitz 2017, I linked to this game in Reply #13 
7...Qa5) 
6.Nc3 Qa5 7.a3 Be7
(7...c5 It makes more sense to wait with 8...Be7 
8.Bb5+ Bd7 9.Bxd7+ Nxd7 10.Nf3 Be7  
(1-0,29) Fries Nielsen (2394) - Hermansson (2447), SWE-chT 1314 (2) Sweden 2013 
https://www.365chess.com/tournaments/TCh-SWE_Elitserien_2013-14_2013/40331)



After 7...Be7. Maybe it's white's turn to be annoyed. Black has a considerable lead in development, and pushing the queen back with b2-b4 doesn't do anything. Compare the dance Nc3-b5-c3 (black played ...c6 and ...Na6) with the dance ...Qd8-a5-d8 (white played a3 and b4). Nobody is getting anywhere, but logically that type of game should not give white any advantage.

8.Bd3
(8.h3 compare Lubbe - Kulkarni above 8...Ne4 =)
(8.Be2 Ne4 =)
(8.b4!? Qd8 9.Bxa6 bxa6 10.Na4 These are not necessarily the best moves for white, but it shows that trying to get a bind on the queenside doesn't work. 10...a5 11.Nc5 axb4 12.axb4 a5 



Another curious and equal position. Black is in a pin on the a-file but it doesn't seem to hurt.

13.c3 O-O 14.Ne2
(14.Nf3 Bxc5 15.bxc5 Ne4 =)
14...Ba6 15.Rxa5 Bxc5 16.dxc5 Bxe2 17.Rxa8 Qxa8 18.Kxe2 Qa2+ 19.Qd2 Ra8 White is under heavy pressure)
8...c5 9.Bb5+
(9.dxc5 Nxc5)
9...Bd7 10.Bxd7+ Nxd7 11.dxc5 Bf6 12.Ne2 Qxc5 13.O-O O-O 14.e4 Bxc3 15.Nxc3 d4 16.Ne2 e5 17.Bg5?!
(17.Bg3 =) 
17...f6 18.Bc1 Rad8 19.c3 Nb6 20.cxd4 exd4 21.Nf4 Rfe8 22.Nd3 Qc6 23.f3 Nc5 24.b3 Nbd7 25.Nb4 Qb5 26.Nd5 Rc8 27.Qxd4 Nxb3 28.Qb2 Ndc5 29.Rb1 Rcd8 30.Bf4 Rxd5 31.exd5 Qc4 32.Bd2 Re2 33.Rfd1 Qxd5 34.Qc2 Nxd2 
(0-1) Bromann (2452) - Hansen,S.B. (2578), DEN-ch (5) Svendborg 2016 
https://www.365chess.com/tournaments/ch-DEN_2016_2016/41461

Edited:

1.d4 Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 3.Bf4 c5 4.e3 cxd4 (4...a6? 5.dxc5) 5.exd4 a6!? as recommended by Avrukh and Ntirlis always seemed a very safe and sound reply. What is IM Lubbes idea in this line?

My impression is that the regular London remains a serious theoretical and practical challenge, v ...e6 and v ...g6 lines. And one sees dozens of Carlsen games here over the last five-ten years or so, particularly at the faster speed limits. 

Looking at the frequency of the lines being played at high levels, certainly the Nc3/Bf4 (Bertram / Jobava - The Jobertie? - The Berjava? ) approach is played significantly less. Played on occasion, yes, but less. We can agree on that, right? One does not see Carlsen wheeling it out systematically as he has done with the regular London.

It's nice to see when players discuss openings they actually play a lot, and I would be interested in what IM Herr Lubbe has to say. One sees much of the other when rent-an-author punts on anything and everything. 

For me the lines with quick ...e6 and ...Bb4 look to be the most annoying. Guess that is chapters 7-11 - tough to make out.

Let's get on eh. I tend to remind myself of Carl Sagan's 'pale blue dot' at such times. 
Stay masked, stay safe. 

Best,

B

MNb wrote on 04/28/21 at 05:04:33:


alyechin wrote on 04/29/21 at 15:00:46:

I didn't write it wasn't. I wrote that after 3...a6 and 4...e6 the stratgey marketed by IM Lubbe doesn't work.

LeeRoth wrote on 04/29/21 at 16:07:51:

IM LUbbe does acknowledge that in the advertisement linked to in the first comment.

an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 04/29/21 at 16:40:25:

If 

Naiditsch-Harikrishna, Tata Steel 2014
Jobava-Caruana, Tata Steel 2015
Rapport-Giri, Tata Steel 2019
and Caruana-Giri, Tata Steel (!) 2021

aren't top level I don't know what is.
As reading things in commennts that aren't there has become too popular in this thread I add this disclaimer:

I don't conclude that amateurs like me should stay away from 2.Nc3 and 3.Bf4.

LeeRoth wrote on 04/29/21 at 17:00:25:

Well if your post had said initially what it says now, I wouldn't have replied that way.

As for getting my facts straight, it's certainly true I don't know everything, and in certain topics I don't know anything. But I did *not* accuse you of being misleading, I asked a question. If you are saying "played by top players" then you could easily say where/when, as you did in your edit, and then the question would never arise.

alyechin wrote on 04/29/21 at 17:52:54:

Sure, good. I only looked at chessgames.com, but I also stated that up front.

I see by posting facts I have stirred up a lot of controversy, with people *afterwards* posting counter-facts and claiming I somehow did something wrong. How about we try something different, and people post their counter-facts *first*, instead of waiting. The way I see it, everything I posted was factual. That's not the same as being true, but I have a clean conscience about what I posted.

I also don't dismiss this opening, nor did I ever in this thread. But it's not as good as the Catalan, I'm pretty sure of that.

an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 04/29/21 at 15:21:53:


He answered this question in the show. In tournament games he plays many openings, because openents are prepaired. He wants to be unpredictable. This is modern chess. Bertramisch is his favourite opening.

LeeRoth wrote on 04/29/21 at 16:07:51:

Now are you being misleading? Does "played at the top level" mean played in top tournaments against other top players? Or what exactly does it mean? I didn't notice this opening making an appearance at the Candidates.

Going back to IM Lubbe, I looked at his white games at chessgames.com. It's a small sample, but I don't have any reason to believe it's not representative. He first played this system in 2011. Since then he has had white 29 times, of which 5 were this setup.

• 2011 1-0 Christoph Zill (2278) https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1624153 
• 2011 0-1 Jan Gustafsson (2646) https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1624157 
• 2015 1-0 Jakob Pfreundt (2251) https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1837896 
• 2017 1-0 Edmund C Player (2202) https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1886089 
• 2017 0-1 Rakesh Kulkarni (2281) (blitz) https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1897082

If we leave off the result in the blitz game (I'm not sure we should), that's a 2544 performance, which is pretty good. If we include it, that's a 2411 performance, which is not so great for an IM with white. But as I suspected, it looks like an opening he occasionally plays against slightly weaker opponents. Mostly he plays 1.e4, 1.d4, or 1.c4. When he plays 1.d4 he sometimes plays this, sometimes not. I did notice he played the Najdorf as black against Anand. It seems IM Lubbe has a similar opinion to mine, that against the best opponents one needs to play the best openings. Against not the best opponents one has a wider choice.