Welcome to the October 2003 Update
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To download the October '03 French games directly in PGN form, click here: 
Advance Variation
Volkov pushes his luck a little too far.
Regular subscribers will know by now that the inventive Russian Grandmaster Volkov wins a lot of games in hair-raising style in the Advance Variation. Unfortunately for him players like Svidler are difficult to trick with enterprising, but not quite sound, play. Here Volkov pushes his luck a bit too much and is punished in brilliant style.
Check out Svidler - Volkov.
The Tarrasch Ngf3 System
Old fashioned greed by Black
In top level chess the pawn snatch line 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.c3 c5 6.Ngf3 Nc6 7.Bd3 Qb6 8.0-0 cxd4 9.cxd4 Nxd4 10.Nxd4 Qxd4 has gone completely out of fashion for Black: theory has decided that White gets at least sufficient attacking chances. Still, it is worth refreshing our minds as to what to do against a materialistic opponent. A clever little pawn move has revitalised White's play in this line: check out Mellado Trivino-Maus.
Tarrasch 3...Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4
A variation played by McShane and Adams
Subscriber Franck Steenbekkers has sent me another very interesting email. I have included three of his questions in this update. The first is about the Tarrasch Variation.
«Hi Neil,
What do you think is the best solution for black in the follow position: 1 e4-e6 2 d4-d5 3 Nd2-Nf6 4 e5-Nd7 5 c3-c5 6 f4-Nc6 7 Nd2-f3 -Qb6 8 a3!?
There is not much info about this move and if black plays not well he get a very bad position. A couple of weeks ago I had this experience in a tournament in France (La Fere)
With friendly greetings,
Franck Steenbekkers»
Well the variation with 8.a3 should be good as it has been played recently by the English players Michael Adams and Luke McShane, and they both know what they are doing in the opening!
There are a couple of games on ChessPub with 8...a5 9.g3, but Adams and McShane both prefer 9.b3 now. For an investigation into this, have a look at McShane - Zarnicki.
Classical Variation 4.e5
More doom and gloom for Black
It's about time that Morozevich or some other 'big' player came to Black's rescue here. At the moment there only seem to be two sorts of game in this variation: Black keeps the queens on the board and loses in 25 moves; or else he exchanges queens and loses in 45 moves! Admittedly it isn't much fun for the black side when players like Grischuk, Kramnik and Anand are frequently on the other side of the board, but to see what I mean check out the games Grischuk - Iljushin and Timoshenko - Jakab.
Winawer 3...Bb4 4.e5 b6 and 4...Qd7
A repertoire for White against some tricky customers
Subscriber Leo Martinez writes:
«Hey Neil,
I was wondering if you could look at the line 1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 Bb4 4 e5 and now either 4...b6 or 4...Qd7. They are solid lines and I'm not sure exactly what the right lines are against them. Since I don't think you've covered them yet I was wondering if you could look at it. Thx a lot for your site! cya
Leo»
I agree that these lines are tricky: if he plays a series of 'normal' moves White can suddenly find he is positionally busted without having done much wrong. So here is a little repertoire I have devised for White:
If Black plays 4...Qd7, then the mainline is 5.Qg4 f5 6.Qg3 b6 7.a3 Bxc3+ 8.bxc3
            
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See Korneev - Alekseev (by transposition).
If instead Black prefers 7...Bf8,
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then see Alekseev-Sawadkuhi.
If he plays 4...b6 then Black also has the choice of taking on c3 or retreating his bishop back to f8 after 5.a3. In either case, if Black plays a subsequent Qd7, it is likely to transpose to the Alekseev games above.
For lines in which he plays 5...Bf8, but not Qd7, check out the game Cheparinov - Gallego.
Finally, that leaves lines with 5...Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 in which Black doesn't follow up with ...Qd7. The usual move is 6...Ne7, otherwise the threat to g7 after Qg4 is awkward to meet, when 7.Qg4 leads to an unfashionable line of the Winawer Mainline for Black. Meanwhile 7.Nf3 would be similar to the games in the Winawer C19 section: check out the chapter 7.Nf3 Qc7 ...b7-b6 ideas. For example the game Fierz-Hochstrasser, as given by Mr Mo- though make sure you play one of the improvements if you are White!
Well I hope this gives you some idea of how to take on these offbeat lines.
Winawer Mainline 7.Qg4 0-0 8.Bd3 f5 - no 1
Good for Herr Fritz and Mr Shredder
Two more interesting observations from Franck Steenbekkers:
«1.) Question one about the game Dominquez-Arencibia
Is in this game instead of the move Qf8 also e5!? possible?
I think the sacrifice in the game after Qf8 is very unclear.(maybe if you are mr.Fritz/Schredder the position is good for black but for just normal players...)
I have spent a couple of hours on e5 and I think the position is very unclear.»
I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't made head or tail of this game!
The game featured in the May Update. You can see it again, with the suggestion of 12...e5 [thanks] incorporated into the notes, by clicking on Dominguez - Arencibia.
Winawer Mainline 7.Qg4 0-0 8.Bd3 f5 -n o 2
Sudden death of the Kindermann Variation
«2.) Question about the so called Kinderman variation (Hracek-Kinderman!):
I saw today the game Lutz-Pelletier Bienne/Biel and I think that the move 15 dxc5!! is very good for white what do you think?
I think that move 15 dxc5 makes this variation unplayable»
Yes, I agree this looks very bad for Black: as a chess purist it always annoys me in the Winawer that White can sometimes give himself tripled pawns with d4xc5! and have a great position. I guess White has never tried this method before because it looks so anti-positional: but if you feed it to a computer it soon shows you that White is doing very nicely. Here is the game that may bury the Kindermann Variation- have a look at Lutz - Pelletier.
Well that's it for now. My thanks to Leo and Franck for their contributions. If you have anything you want to discuss then drop me an email. Meanwhile I hope you get some good scalps with the French!
Best Regards,
Neil