Friday, December 4, 2009

Block with the Rook

I am not sure how the publishing companies reason about the matter, but as an author it seems an obvious advantage to be able to build on other authors' analysis; that is to have a recent work on your subject available. In order to do so, you need in practical terms to publish your work 3-4 months later than your competitor. This may seem a lot but you must calculate at least six weeks for typesetting and printing and you will frequently need one week to get hold of a newly published book.

I have for some time been curious about what Everyman would offer in their Dangerous Weapons: The Dutch: Dazzle your Opponent! Some of the answer is now available as downloadable pdf-files at their website.

I was not very surprised by their suggestions of 1.d4 f5 2.Nh3!? and 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.h3!? as weapons for White. While it was obviously impossible to devote much attention to these lines in 'Win with the Stonewall Dutch', I noted that both lines had some sting while researching the book. The Everyman team probably will poke some holes in our very limited coverage of these lines but that's the nature of chess analysis (and I doubt that either of the lines will become very popular at master level).

More of a surprise was their suggestion of 1.d4 f5 2.Bg5 h6 3.Bh4 g5 4.e4 Rh7!? (Dia) for Black.

In our Stonewall book we decided to recommend 2...g6 as it seemed less theoretically volatile, so in this line there is no overlap between the books. However, in the forthcoming revised edition of Summerscale's 'A Killer Chess Opening Repertoire' we recommend exactly this line for White.

Before agreeing to update the Summerscale book I set the condition that if it turned out that his 2.Bg5 analysis was getting shaky, I would replace his analysis with something less tactical (4.e3/4.Bg3 and 3.Bf4!? were the obvious candidates). However, I could find no major problem with his recommendation of 4.e4 and sent Gambit a manuscript based on 4.e4, including some analysis on 4...Rh7 (which Summerscale didn't mention in his original book). My conclusion (based on Rybka 3.0 and a friend who for some time hoped that 4...Rh7 solved all Black's problems in the 2.Bg5 variation) was that 4...Rh7 was close to lost for Black.

Now I must say I am a bit anxious to see what Williams' 21 pages of analysis offer. Unless I am very unlucky I will have his analysis available for the final proof-reading stage of the Killer book. In the meantime, here is a game that Williams needs to improve upon in his analysis:

Daniel Gormall - Simon Williams
EU Union Ch (Liverpool) 2006

1.d4 f5 2.Bg5 h6 3.Bh4 g5 4.e4 Rh7 5.Qh5+ Rf7 6.Nf3 
6.Bxg5 hxg5 7.Nf3 probably is less exact. Black was somewhat better after 7...Nf6 8.Qg6 Nxe4 9.Ne5 Nd6 10.Be2 e6 11.Bh5 Qe7 in Alzate-Rodi, Buenos Aires 2005.
6...Nf6 7.Qg6 Nc6 8.Bxg5!?
8.Bc4 seems promising.
8...fxe4 9.Ne5 Nxe5 10.dxe5 hxg5 11.exf6 exf6
11...e6 may be better. The chances after 12.Nd2 Qxf6 13.Qxf6 Rxf6 14.Nxe4 Rf5 15.Bd3 Bg7 16.c3 was roughly equal in Kharitonov-Gajewski San Agustin 2003.
12.Nc3 Bb4 13.0–0–0 Bxc3 (Dia)

14.Bc4!
This seems to secure White the better chances.
14...Bxb2+ 15.Kxb2 Qe7 16.h4! d5?! 17.Bxd5 Qe5+ 18.c3 Be6 19.Bxe6 1–0

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What about 11...e6 as in Kharitonov-Gajewski San Agustin 2003?

Sverre Johnsen said...

OK

I will update the game with some game fragments and Rybka evaluations.

Anonymous said...

You might also be able to see what Simon Williams has to has to say, although, admittedly it is the Classical Dutch

http://www.gingergm.com/2009/12/03/the-classical-dutch-dvd-promo/

Sverre Johnsen said...

Thanks

The Classical Dutch is an interesting option for Black, but I didn't see anything directly related to the 2.Bg5 in the video clip.

Anyway this is an interesting web page. I added it to my favorites and will have a closer look later.

Signalman said...

As an addendum to my pointer to the Simon WIlliams site.

I recently bought his book "Play the Classical Dutch", and very good it is too, in my opinion better than the Pinski book that came out about the same time. Williams offers more about the strategic concepts of the opening, which is always good for us club players.

He also references both of Robert Bellin's offerings on the Dutch (themselves wonderfully written and informative ) so it was interesting to see what happened when the old and new Dutch experts met in the recent London FIDE open.

Simon Williams as Black had a try for a Dutch with a blatant 1...f5, but it looks like the main lines were avoided !

It was, though, a nice finish by Williams after the mistake on move 20.

[Event "London Classic FIDE Op"]
[Site "London Olympia"]
[Date "2009.12.11"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Bellin, Robert"]
[Black "Williams, Simon K"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "A04"]
[WhiteElo "2388"]
[BlackElo "2550"]

1. Nf3 f5 2. d3 d6 3. e4 e5 4. Nc3 c5 5. g3 Be7 6. Bh3 g6 7. exf5 h5 8. Bg2
gxf5 9. Bd2 Nc6 10. Qe2 Be6 11. h4 Nf6 12. Ng5 Bg8 13. f4 Nd4 14. Qd1 Ng4 15.
Nd5 e4 16. dxe4 Bxg5 17. hxg5 Bxd5 18. exd5 Qb6 19. c3 O-O-O 20. cxd4 Rde8+ 21.
Kf1 Qb5+ 22. Kg1 Qxb2 23. Be1 Re2 24. Bf3 Rh2 0-1

Sverre Johnsen said...

Nick,

An interesting encounter indeed!

'Win with the Stonewall Dutch' recommends 2...Nc6 which I still prefer. However, I must admit I like Williams' 4...c5 which has been scoring very well for Black and seems to stop all White's d4 ideas (which was quite unpleasant for Black in the Carlsen-Dolmatov 2004 encounter).