But gradually other moves were tried, chiefly 4.Bc4 (Carl Mayet - Wilhelm Hanstein, Berlin 1839, 1-0 19 moves) and 4.Nc3 (Henry Bird - Paul Morphy, London 1858, 0-1 29 moves).
The former never really caught on, although it is still occasionally tried by grandmasters, but 4.Nc3 was to overtake 4.dxe5 as White's main choice.
Vitaly Tseshkovsky (2595) - Ventzislav Inkiov (2495)
Minsk 1982
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 f5!? 4.Nc3 exd4!?
Philidor would presumably have preferred what is today overwhelmingly the main line, 4...fxe4, as he was a great believer in exchanging a bishop's pawn for a central one. After 4...fxe4 play can become very sharp, eg 5.Nxe4 d5 (5...Nf6 may be safer) 6.Nxe5!? (Bird retreated with 6.Ng3 in his loss to Morphy) dxe4 7.Qh5+ g6 8.Nxg6 hxg6 (better than 8...Nf6, according to Stockfish10 and Komodo10) 9.Qxg6+ Kd7 10.Qf5+ Ke8 11.Qe5+ Qe7 12.Qxh8 Be6 13.Be2 Bg7 14.Qh5+ Bf7 15.Qg4, with a large advantage to White in Aarno Eskelinen - Heikki Susimaa, Finnish Championship 1995, and Spanton (1982) - Oliver Jackson (2182), Hastings 2008-9, although both games were drawn.
5.Qxd4 fxe4 6.Bg5 Nf6 7.Nxe4 Be7 8.0-0-0 0-0 9.Nxf6+ Bxf6 10.Bc4+ Kh8 11.Bxf6 Qxf6 12.Qxf6 gxf6
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| Exchanges have not solved Black's problems - White is ahead in development and has the better pawn-structure and safer king |
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13.Nd4 Bd7 14.Rhe1 Nc6 15.Nxc6 Bxc6 16.Re7
Simple chess by Tseshkovsky. Inkiov's next does not help Black's cause, but he was lost anyway.
16...Bxg2? 17.Rg1 d5 18.Bd3 Be4 19.Bxe4 dxe4 20.Rgg7 Rfe8 21.Rxh7+ Kg8 22.Reg7+ Kf8 23.Rxc7 1-0
Black's only semi-decent move is 23...Kg8, after which 24.Rcg7+ Kf8 25.Rxb7 etc is hopeless for him.
Good to see a name check of Oliver - anyone who has read his privately published chess reminiscences "Forever a 180" won't be surprised to see him having played this line against you! Martyn
ReplyDeleteHa! That's interesting, especially as a check of the ECF grading database shows as he has never been as low as 180! To be fair, the online database only goes back to 1994, but even so …
ReplyDeleteHe certainly seems to like sharp stuff. I see from my own database that when we first played, in 1993, he essayed the King's Gambit against me (and was graded 197)