Download PGN of September ’23 1 e4 ... games
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Alekhine Defence, Four Pawns Attack with 9...Qd7 [B03]
Kicking things off we have the young Russian, Saveliy Golubov essaying the queenside castling plan against the Four Pawns Attack, commencing with 9...Qd7:
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After the logical 10.Be2 0-0-0 11. 0-0 Kb8!? White comes to a key choice, and one which they did not seem to make correctly in Fedorov, A - Golubov, S.
Pirc Defence, 150 Attack with 5.f3 c6 6.Qd2 [B07]
Within both the 150 and Austrian there is a wealth of move-order nuance, particularly for Black but also for White. My opinion is that after 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Be3 Bg7 5.f3 it becomes more acceptable for Black to proceed 5...c6, than after say 5.Qd2. The game continued with 6.Qd2:
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Here Black went for the perhaps excessively prophylactic 6...h5 (which was however not exploited by his opponent) and went on to win a rather nice game in Atakisi, U - Shanava, K.
Pirc Defence with 4.Be3 c6 5.h3 [B07]
In the same sort of vein we also have Black committing one move earlier to a ...c6 setup in the Dutch league game De Rover, YH - Kerigan, D. As a result, White opted for h3 rather than f3, and after 5...Bg7 6.f4 0-0 we have a key decision:
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The fact that White has opted for f4 in place of f3, perhaps means that the typical 150-move 7.Qd2 should have been relegated to a lower priority in favour of something like 7.Nf3. Black equalised without any particular trouble.
Caro-Kann Defence with 2.f3 [B10]
This one joins the realms of creative rather than functional move orders, as after 1.e4 c6 2.f3 and the obvious 2...d5 I cannot imagine White intended anything other than 3.d4. That being said, there is of course massive temptation to prove White’s move-order a mistake, a bait Black took with 2...e5 3.d4 exd4 4.Qxd4 d5 5.Nc3 Be6:
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Inflicting the IQP on Black directly would not have been especially helpful for White, while after 6.Bf4 it transpires that Black’s development is none too easy. In Pechac, J - Polak, T there was perhaps one window of opportunity for Black to offer a queen trade, before the middlegame became clearly unfavourable.
Caro-Kann Defence, Advance with 3...a6 4.Nf3 [B10]
Via a slightly unusual move order, I reached the position after 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 a6 4.Nf3 Bg4 in one of my recent games from the Serbian league. Longer-term readers will know that I have a soft spot for early ...a6 in many Caro-Kann and Modern positions, and here it is of course useful preparation for ...c5 because it cuts out Bb5+ motifs. There followed 5.Be2 e6 6.0-0 c5:
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In all these positions after early ...c5 breaks, Black needs to worry firstly about dxc5 and secondly about c4 as immediate responses. Here, my opponent did neither and while he was not entirely without chances for an opening advantage, the momentum gradually shifted towards Black and White’s bad dark-squared bishop was eventually the cause of their demise. See Radovanovic, N - Fernandez, D.
Caro-Kann, Two Knights with 3...Bg4 4.h3 Bxf3 5.Qxf3 e6 6.d4 [B11]
It should be nothing new for anyone here that 6.d4 offers Black good chances to gain tempo off the enemy queen. That impression is accentuated after 6...Nf6 7.a3 when, in some cases, the queen could end up making 4 moves (d1-f3-e3-e4-d3) out of the first 11. What had perhaps escaped my attention is a critical try that doesn’t involve exploiting White’s queen position, namely 7...Qb6!?:
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It is worth noting that despite trying this novelty against one of the best-prepared players in the world, Black still attained equality at some stage and even declined a repetition, before ultimately coming off second-best in Caruana, F - Keymer, V.
Caro-Kann Defence, Advance Variation with 4.h4 h5 5.c4 [B12]
Finally (and it is not often that I finish with a single B12 and nothing further!) we have one of several heavyweight clashes from the Polish Ekstraliga in the form of Grandelius, N - Abasov, N. The game continued 5...e6 6.Nc3 Ne7 (not my personal taste) 7.Nge2 dxc4 8.Ng3 b5 9.Bg5, with a critical position:
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If Black wants to justify taking the pawn and allowing the pin on the e7-knight they must, at the very least, be very intentional about how they resolve this pin. That being said, the position is extremely sharp and when (a few moves later) White naturally but erroneously captured a pawn on f7 with check, the position was already back at dynamic equilibrium.
All the best, Daniel
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