Alexander Alekhine's Forgotten Weapon Against The Italian Game (conclusion)

THE position after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 is a very common one, and one that can get very sharp very quickly.

There are more than 107,000 games in ChessBase's 2021 Mega database with the reply 3...Bc5, and almost 80,000 with 3...Nf6.

Even when White does not go for the sharpest lines after these moves, there is a lot of theory to learn.

By contrast the move 3...d6 occurs fewer than 5,300 times.

Position after 3...d6 - relatively rare but with a prestigious pedigree

A list of big names who at one time or another have won from the black side of the diagram reads like a Who's Who of chess: Capablanca, Alekhine, Donald Byrne, Grob, Tal, Keres, Petrosian, Korchnoi, Karpov, Averbakh, Mestel, Dreev, Pachman, Hector, Ivan Sokolov and Spanton.

There is little theory to learn with 3...d6 for the simple reason that the Semi-Italian, as it is called in Wikipedia, has largely been left alone by theoreticians.

At present it is still very much an 'ideas' opening, and I hope I have covered in this series the important ones for both sides.

The only preparation necessary is by players thinking of meeting 4.c3 with 4...Bg4, when the reply 5.Qb3!? has been criticised by some annotators but is liked by analysis engines and is the one occasion sharp variations are likely to arise.