Marc Benford wrote on 05/29/23 at 05:36:38:


Sometimes White answers the Tarrasch with an early e3. This leads to a position that is, at least temporarilly, symmetrical. Books on the Tarrasch usually cover an early e3 by White. I suspect that there are move order nuances that I do not understand.

This thread is about the following White opening system: d4, Nf3, e3, c4, in some order.

Does this system have a name?

Do you have links to articles that speak about this system?

How good is it? Objectively it musn't be very strong, but in practice it might be decent because it's a system that can be played against absolutely everything.

White is playing a QGD Tarrasch with colors reversed.

It's a bit like the Colle except that White plays a little bit more ambitiously, by moving his c-Pawn to c4 rather than to c3, and by developping his Queen's Knight to c3 rather than to d2. So it can't be worse than the Colle.

In the QGD and the Semi-Slav, Black will want to play ...c5. In the Semi-Slav, Black loses one tempo by playing ...c7-c6 (it loses one tempo because Black will eventually play ...c5 anyway) in order to threaten to play ...dxc4 followed by ...b5 winning the c4-Pawn, in order to induce White to play 5.e3 to defend the c4-Pawn at the price of locking his Queen's Bishop behind the Pawn chain. But here, in this White system, White locks his Queen's Bishop voluntarily, without Black having played ...c7-c6. So it's like a Semi-Slav where Black is one tempo up. Black will play ...c5 in one single move rather than in two.