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English Defence: 3 e4 Bb7 4 Nc3 Bb4 5 f3 f5 [A40]
We begin by seeing Simon in action with a Daring Defence, where 1 d4 e6 2 c4 b6 3 Nc3 (3 Nh3!? was a recent innovation from Parham Maghsoodloo; full marks for creativity, but English Defence players shouldn’t be losing sleep over it) 3...Bb7 4 f3 Bb4 5 e4 f5 reached one of the main lines via a slightly unusual move order. After 6 exf5 Nh6! 7 fxe6 Nf5 an important tabiya was reached:
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White has tried quite a few moves here and 8 Bf4! seems best or at least doesn’t leave Black with anything better than 8...dxe6, as we’ll see in Wanyama, H - Williams, S.
English Defence: 3 e4 Bb7 4 Nc3 Bb4 5 Ne2 [A40]
Doesn’t 1 d4 e6 2 c4 b6 3 Nc3 Bb7 4 e4 Bb4 5 Ne2!? just lose a pawn? The answer is: yes, and no! After 5...Bxe4 6 a3 Bxc3+ 7 Nxc3 Black must decide where to go with the bishop:
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I quite like 7...Bg6!?, aiming to take the sting out of Qg4 ideas, although after 8 h4! h6?! 9 h5 Bh7 10 Qg4 Black has to go 10...Kf8, which left White with decent compensation in Rubes, J - Harsha, B.
The alternative is the arguably more natural 7...Bb7 8 Qg4 when 8...Nf6!? 9 Qxg7 Rg8 10 Qh6 Rg6 feels quite in the spirit of the English Defence to me:
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From an objective perspective, Black may be worse, but he certainly has some practical chances and quickly stirred up effective counterplay in Itkis, B - Bruned, Y.
English Defence: 3...Bb4+ [A40]
A trend in recent years has been for Black to meet 1 d4 e6 2 c4 b6 3 e4 not with 3...Bb7, but rather 3...Bb4+!? 4 Bd2 Bxd2+ 5 Qxd2:
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Here 5...d5 still looks best and has been seen a fair bit on the site, whereas I’m far from sold on 5...Ne7!? 6 Nc3 d6?!, despite Black’s eventual success in Chu Wei Chao - Peng Xiongjian, which was actually very well played by White until a horrible collapse when winning.
Benko Gambit: 4 cxb5 a6 5 Nc3 axb5 6 e4 b4 7 Nb5 d6 8 Bc4 [A57]
Igor Zaitsev’s 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 d5 b5 4 cxb5 a6 5 Nc3 axb5 6 e4!? remains a dynamic try for White, who after 6...b4 7 Nb5 d6 has a few different options:
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This month I’ve elected to focus on 8 Bc4!?, the famous (or infamous!) Nescafe Frappe Attack. The big idea is 8...g6 9 e5!? dxe5 10 d6 exd6 11 Bg5:
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This has been shown to contain a great amount of practical sting over the years, but after the calm 11...Nbd7! the engines prefer Black, and not without good cause. Instead, 11...Ra5 12 Nf3 Be7!? was a new idea in Williams, S - Gelman, A.
It’s long been known that Black can attempt to kill the Nescafe Frappe player’s fun with 8...Nbd7 when 9 Nf3 still looks at least equal for Black after 9...Nb6 to me. Instead, 9...g6 was somewhat more provocative and eventually led to typical and good Benko counterplay for Black in Trost, E - Mrozowski, P.
Benko Gambit: 4 cxb5 a6 5 bxa6 g6 6 Nc3 Bg7 7 e4 0-0 [A58]
After 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 d5 b5 4 cxb5 a6 5 bxa6 the trendy line is still very much 5...g6 6 Nc3 Bg7 when 7 e4 0-0 8 a7! Rxa7 9 Nf3 d6 10 Be2 is both classical and sensible from White. A standard Benko follow-up for Black would be 10...Ba6 11 0-0 Nbd7:
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However, can Black really claim to be OK even after 12 a4! Qa8? I’m not so sure, as we’ll see in Roberson, P - Clarke, B.
Will there be some more trendy gambit ideas, as well as Ginger GM games to explore next month? Let’s hope so!
Richard
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