Opening Nuance

MY round-three game at Alicante was marred by a bizarre blunder (see https://beauchess.blogspot.com/2021/12/alicante-round-three.html for details), but in round four my opponent played an interesting wrinkle for black in the main line of the Classical Variation of the Caro-Kann.

The game began 1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 c6 3.e4 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.h4 h6 7.Nf3 Nd7 8.h5 Bh7 9.Bd3

Position after 9.Bd3

Almost 22,000 games in ChessBase's 2022 Mega database have seen the continuation 9...Bxd3. But there are 158 games with what my opponent played, 9...Ngf6!? 

It would be easy to dismiss 8...Ngf6!? as simply inferior, but if so it is an inferior move that has been played by such famous names as Karel Opočenský, David Bronstein, Gedeon Barcza, Bent Larsen, Ian Rogers, Alexander Grischuk, Alexey Dreev and Šarūnas Šulskis.

After 10.Bxh7 Nxh7 the continuation 11.Qd3 Ngf6 is a transposition to a main line. However Black has independent lines, the most interesting of which might seem to be 11...e6, when the most-popular sequence in Mega22 is 12.Bd2 Be7 13.0-0-0, at which point 13...Ng5?!14.Nxg5 Bxg5 runs into 15.f4, when White has an initiative. So Black should prefer 13...Nhf6, which is a transposition to a main line, as is 13...0-0 14.Ne4 Nhf6. Another independent continuation is 11...Qc7, when Jacek Bielczyk (2410) - Miroslav Filip (2475), Rubinstein Memorial (Polanica-Zdrój, Poland) 1979, saw 12.Rh4!? e6 13.Bf4 Bd6 14.Bxd6 Qxd6 15.Ne4 Qe7 16.Qa3?! Qxa3 17.bxa3, after which a quick draw was agreed.

I played 11.Qe2, reasoning that pressure from the queen down the e file could prove significant. My opponent replied 11...e6.

How should White proceed?

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12.Bf4
This has been played by Kurt Richter, Zbyněk Hráček and Gennadi Ginsburg, none of whom is exactly a slouch, but after 12...Be7 13.0-0-0 Nhf6 14.Rhe1 Nd5 I felt obliged to play 15.Bd2. The continuation can be seen at https://beauchess.blogspot.com/2021/12/alicante-round-four.html.

Although the situation is not clear-cut - the black king's knight in the game became a target for the pawn-push c4 - it is certainly arguable that 12.Bd2!? may be a tempo-saving improvement.

It appears more than twice as often in Mega22, scoring 65%, much better than 12.Bf4's 41%.

After 12.Bd2!? the main continuation goes 12...Be7 13.0-0-0 0-0, reaching a position that occurs 17 times in Mega22.

Position after both sides have castled

One game saw 14.Ne5, but the others were evenly split between 14.Ne4 and 14.Kb1.

My main analysis engines Stockfish14.1 and Komodo12.1.1 are happy with all three moves, each time slightly preferring White, although positions with opposite-side castling are often difficult to assess with a great deal of confidence.

CONCLUSION: It is extremely unlikely there is a refutation of 9...Ngf6!? However the continuation 10.Bxh7 Nxh7 11.Qe2 appears promising for White.