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The general consensus is that if you play the Queen's Gambit Declined Exchange as White, you do not want your knight on f3 too early, for example via 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 d5 3.c4 e6 4.cxd5. This is inconvenient for those of us who play 1.d4 followed by 2.Nf3, hoping to wheel out some kind of Queen's Pawn Opening against 1...Nf6 2.Nf3 g6, 2...e6 or 2...c5.
Having said that there are a number of players who just ignore this view, Magnus Carlsen has played this way and England's Keith Arkell has done so for years. Arkell just seems to like White's pawn structure and tests his opponents' positional understanding as the game meanders along. Carlsen, on the other hand, has been trying an idea which seem to enliven the whole line.

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

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QGD, Exchange Variation with Nf3, Bf4, Qc2 and 11.h4 [D35]

It all started with the game Carlsen, M - Aronian, L, from their game in Norway in 2020. Carlsen played the surprising 11.h4!?:

and went on to lose. As the World number one often experiments in the opening, his choice in that game may not have been taken very seriously.

This, however, was not the end of it and Carlsen repeated 11.h4 in his game against Lazavik (Carlsen, M - Lazavik, D), Black varying from Aronian's play with 12...Qb6:

rather than face an inevitable improvement on Aronian's play.

The final indication that 11.h4 is a serious move was his game against Vincent Keymer (Carlsen, M - Keymer, V ). In this case Black varied with 11...Qa5:

and had a reasonable position until he later went astray.

I've covered some other tries in the game Kuzubov, Y - Bulmaga, I, and note White's willingness to accept doubled f-pawns for dynamic compensation.


QGD, Exchange Variation with Nf3, Bg5, Qc2 and 11.h4 [D36]

Having seen Carlsen's 11.h4 with the bishop on f4, I wondered if it would be possible with the bishop on g5. Sure enough there have been games Boris Spassky having first essayed this move against Tigran Petrosian back in the 1950s (Spassky, B - Petrosian, T ). Petrosian answered it with the cold-blooded 11...0-0:

More recently the young Belgian star, Daniel Dhardha, used 11.h4 against a very strong opponent (Dharda, D - Grigoryan, K) and Black castled there too. I have my doubts about Dharda's committal 12.0-0-0, but this certainly didn't cost him the game.

The Hungarian GM Josef Pinter essayed it in a couple of games (Pinter, J - Michalczak, T) and his compatriot Peter Horvath used it against a player named after one of my favourite beers (Horvath, P - Taylor, T ). In these games Black took 11.h4 more seriously by delaying or avoiding short castling. Here too some murky and little explored positions were reached.

Both these 11.h4 lines seem to offer interesting play in what has hitherto been considered a rather dull and technical position type. For this reason I think they're well worth playing, as surprise weapons at higher levels and on a regular basis at club level.



See you next month! Nigel Davies

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