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Following on from last month's update, this time we will examine other ideas that can be used in a QGD Exchange with an early Nf3 for White. The relevance of this is that you can keep the option of playing a Queen's Pawn Game, for example with 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 (keeping options such as a Torre Attack after 2...g6 or 2...e6) 2...Nf6 3.c4 e6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Nc3 c6, with Black intending ...Bc8-f5 on his next move.
Last time we looked at 6.Qc2 Be7 7.Bf4 (or 7.Bg5) g6 8.e3 Bf5 9.Bd3 Bxd3 10.Qxd3 and then White playing 11.h4!? on his next move, this time we'll see some other ideas. First of all there is Artur Kogan's aggressive 6.Qc2 Be7 7.Bf4 g6 8.Ne5!?, intending f2-f3 followed by e2-e4 or even g2-g4. Secondly White can try 6.Bf4 and look to harass the Black f5 bishop once it arrives on that square via Nf3-h4. Both of these lines seem interesting and require accurate play by Black.

Download PGN of August ’24 1 d4 d5 2 c4 games

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QGD, Exchange Variation with 6.Qc2 Be7 7.Bf4 g6 8.Ne5!? [D35]

Kogan has to take all the credit for 8.Ne5!?, which poses serious and rather critical problems for Black on move 8:

Kogan was wielding this line in anger over 20 years ago, but it was not covered here at the time. Black is not losing after either 8...Bf5 9.Qd2 Nbd7 (Kogan, A - Arencibia, W)

or 9...0-0 (Schuurman, P - Bensdorp, L):

, though White certainly has dangerous attacking chances after either of these moves.

9...Ne4 (Nakamura, H - Adams, M) is thought to be a safer line:

at least by those who have thought about it at all.


QGD, Exchange Variation with 6.Bf4 [D35]

Playing 6.Bf4 without a preliminary 6.Qc2 is a new and interesting development. This looks like an Exchange Variation of the Caro-Kann (for example 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Bf4 Bf5 6.Nf3 Nf6) with colours reversed and an extra tempo for White. This is considered to be a quite harmless line for Black, could he have better prospects with an extra move?

Essentially there are two versions of omitting 6.Qc2, one where Black plays ...Bf8-e7 and one where he omits this move for the time being. I saw that Rohan Pal likes to play 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 e6 4.Nc3 Be7:

so I waited until this moment to capture on d5 (Davies, N - Pal, R).

The other noteworthy thing about this game was that I managed to evolve a serious plan from 6.Bf4 c6 7.e3 Bf4 8.Nh4 Bg4 9.Be2, rather than the more popular 9.Qc2 (Maghsoodloo, P - Adams, M).

I now feel that 9.Qc2 is probably more promising, but it's a good thing to have more than one interesting continuation. Black also has 7...Nh5 in this line:

(Sevian, S - Giri, A), which leads to the doubled f-pawn structure I examined in November and December last year.

Moving on to the version with ...c7-c6 rather than ...Be7, Carlsen, M - Ding, L is a very interesting game in which both players played well. White was probably slightly better out of the opening, but here Black should probably play 8...Bg4 instead of 8...Be4.

Finally, there is 7...Qb6 instead of 7...Nbd7, and here there is an interesting gambit with 8.Bd3 (Spielmann, A - Fressinet, L):

The score of this game was evidently messed up by whoever entered it, but I consider it to be important so have reconstructed it as well as I can.



See you next month! Nigel Davies

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