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Caro-Kann Defence - Advance 4.h4 [B12]

We start with a quick win for 4.h4 in Balogh - Bromberger where White comes up with a strong idea after Black grabs a hot pawn on h4 in the position below:

This doesn't work out well so we've recommend some alternative ways of facing this line.

Short Variation [B12]

After 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2 c5 6.0-0 Nc6 7.c3 we see a 2700 player trying 7...Bg6 which hasn't been seen on the site before. While it seems sensible it looks like Black has to choose the right plan in the position below:

as 10...Nc8 doesn't go well in Bologan - Eljanov.

Next we see another interesting setup by Black - an early ...Nh6 allowing Bxh6, and the following position was reached in Bologan - Panarin:

where the Moldovan GM tries the interesting TN 12.Nfd2.

We finish our trio of Bologan games with Bologan - Riazantsev where again Victor plays an early c3 but Black played solidly and achieved a reasonable game.

Our next game features the trendy line 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2 c5 6.Be3 cxd4 7.Nxd7 Ne7 but we see a new move with 12.c4 reaching the position below:

This looks like a good option for White as it creates a small edge with a minimum risk. For the details see Dominguez Perez-Laznicka.

5 a3!? [B12]

Liu Qingnan-Vidit features the interesting 5.a3 that Short himself has tried on a number of occasions:

Whilst this is perhaps more dangerous than it looks I don't think it should worry Black players... if they're well prepared, of course!

4 c4 [B12]

In our penultimate game we see an early a3 in a different line, this time after 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.c4 e6 5.Nc3 Ne7 - it leads to interesting and original play but probably not an objective advantage in Najer - Michalik.

7...a6 [B12]

We conclude with Negi - Barbosa which actually reaches the same position as Bologan-Riazantsev (although from a different move-order) which we also examined this month:

Here, instead of 7...c5 Black chose 7...a6 but after going wrong in the early middlegame White was soon much better.

We'll be back next month to cover a wide variety of openings, Gawain and Tom.

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