The Liberated Bishop Defence has become popular over the last four years, at least at club level, thanks to a New in Chess book of the same name by Russian grandmaster Alexey Bezgodov.
The book was generally positively reviewed, eg American coach Jeremy Silman declared that it "fills a void in chess literature and can be strongly recommended."
The basic idea of the defence is that after 1.d4 d5, Black meets both 2.c4 and 2.Nf3 with 2...Bf5. The former, at least, used to be known as the Baltic Defence.
This is supposedly because it was a favourite with Paul Keres and other Baltic States players. In fact, if you consult ChessBase's 2018 Mega database, you will not find a single example of Keres playing 2...Bf5 after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 (but there are five examples of him playing 2...Bf5 after 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3).
This is not very surprising as Keres, along with many of his contemporaries, overwhelmingly preferred 1...Nf6 to 1...d5.
Silman has some interesting words on move orders in his review: "Most of the grandmaster games with 2...Bf5 come from the sequence 1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 Bf5. The more direct 1.d4 d5 2.c4 Bf5 is not seen as often. What keeps more players trying 1.d4 d5 2.c4 Bf5 is 3.cxd5. After 3...Bxb1 4.Qa4+ Qd7 5.Qxd7+ Nxd7 6.Rxb1, or 4...c6 5.dxc6 Nxc6 6.Rxb1 Qxd4 7.Qxd4 Nxd4, the queens come off the board and the first player has the potential advantage of the two bishops."
It was by Silman's 'approved' move order that I faced the Liberated Bishop for the first time in round eight at Bad Wörishofen.
1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 Bf5 3.c4 e6 4.Nc3 c6?!
Easily the most popular move in this position, played by the likes of Shirov, Short and Morozevich. However, strong players have also chosen 4...Nc6, 4...Nf6 and 4...Bb4.
My punctuation of Black's fourth move may seem provocative - impertinent, even - but more on this later.
5.Qb3
It makes sense to pressure Black's queenside when most of his pawns there are on light squares and the light-square bishop has been developed outside of its pawn chain.
5...Qb6
Again the most popular move, and again it has been played by Shirov, Short and Morozevich.
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| Position after 5...Qb6. How should White treat the position? |
A key point. White's second-most popular move, 6.Qxb6, helps Black as his a pawn is promoted to a more-central b pawn and he gets pressure down the a file.
After 6...axb6 the pawn on b6 is doubled, but is not really weak - after all, how can White attack it?
I am tempted to give 6.c5 an !, but that would be a bit rich as the idea is well-known.
6...Qxb3
It should not surprise that White is for choice after this.
But the alternative 6...Qc7 runs into 7.Bf4!, which is even better for White.
I do not have Bezgodov's book, but a friend does, and he reports that Bezgodov calls 4...c6 "unnecessarily passive."
Silman wrote in his review: "One major revelation for this reviewer is that after 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Bf5 3.c4 e6 4.Nc3, Black’s best move is not 4…c6. [typos corrected]"
7.axb3 h6?!
Giving his light-square bishop a refuge on h7 is only Black's fourth-most popular move. It scores much better percentage-wise than the more frequent 7...Nd7, 7...Na6 and 7...Nf6, but I find it hard to believe Black can afford to play so slowly when behind in development.
8.Bf4 Nd7 9.e3 Ngf6 10.h3?!
Analysis engines want me to get on with it with 10.b4.
My choice, like MB's at move seven, is typical of club players' obsession with structure over dynamism.
10...Be7 11.Be2?!
Again it was probably better to get on with White's thematic 11.b4 attack.
11...0-0 12.0-0 Rfc8
I guess the idea is to organise an exchange of bishops by ...Bd8-c7.
Komodo9 suggests an immediate 12...Ne4, but prefers White after 13.Nxe4 Bxe4 14.b4.
13.Ra4
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| Position after 13.Ra4. Black would love to be able to place a rook on b8 to make his defence easier |
The idea of ...Bd8-c7 is too slow, eg 13...Bd8 14.Rfa1 a6 15.b4 Bc7 16.Bxc7 Rxc7 17.b5 cxb5 18.Nxb5 Rcc8 19.Nd6 Rc7 and now comes the second b pawn: 20.b4.
14.Rfa1
White's pieces are well-placed for a queenside attack. The game continued:
14...Nxc3 15.bxc3 a6 16.b4
...with a large advantage.
Later, I was winning, but a series of weak moves in which I lost the thread of the position saw the game drawn after 47 moves.
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