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Queen’s Gambit Accepted with 7.Be2 [D27]

First of all, I should provide some context. White's best move against the Queen's Gambit Accepted may well be the principled 3.e4, but Black has a plethora of ways to meet this, many of which are highly theoretical. There's also the issue of transpositions, for example 1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 Nf6 3.c4 dxc4 and 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 d5 will enter a Queen's Gambit Accepted but without 3.e4 being available.

What can White do? Well he can hope for a slight edge in lines such as 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 e6 5.Bxc4 c5 6.0-0 a6 and now 7.b3, 7.Nbd2, 7.dxc5 or indeed 7.Be2:

There's a case to be made that this latter move is the most flexible of them all, for example in the 7.dxc5 line the bishop will often be repositioned on e2 and maybe f3 in the endgame. From a practical point of view there's a strong case for playing this way.

How should Black answer? Well 7...Be7 would certainly be answered by 8.dxc5 because the bishop would have to move again to recapture the pawn. This was covered here previously in the game Ding Lirin - Yu Yangyi, which White won.

It turns out that 7...Nc6 and 7...Bd7 can also be met by 8.dxc5, as in the games Erigaisi, A - Kacharava, N and Keymer, V - Fedoseev, V respectively. White can also meet 7...Nc6 with 8.Ne5.

In his coverage of 7.Be2, Glenn Flear suggested that 7...cxd4 was the most principled line after which 8.Nxd4:

8...Be7 was played in Gukesh, D - Mamedov, R but can also be met by either an immediate 8...e5 or the preparatory 8...Bd6. It seems that this too is not easy for Black as White can get active squares for his minor pieces (see Sevian, S - Hakobyan, A ).

This leaves Black with the cautious 7...Nbd7, when White's original try was 8.Nc3:

Wesley So had previously played this in a game from 2018 against Niklas Huschenbeth, but in his game with Abdusatotorov he varied with 13.e4 (So, W - Abdusattorov, N ). Black looked well prepared with his 17...Bf4, exchanging dark square bishops, but White still had chances of an edge.

Another try for White is 8.b3:

, when Black's most solid option is 8...b6. White did not get very far with 9.Ne5:

in Ragger, M - Huschenbeth, N but 9.Bb2 and a delayed Ne5 caused more trouble for Black in Can, E - Grigoryan, K.

Finally there is the 8.Nbd2:

of Praggnanandhaa, R - Giri, A, which again looks annoying for Black after 8...Be7 9.dxc5.

It looks like there's plenty of mileage left in 7.Be2, certainly there are plenty of pitfalls. And this line has the important advantage that Nf3 is included!

See you next month, Nigel

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