Lessons From Transylvania II

IN round two of the Brașov International I had black against a 1786.
The full game can be seen at B2 but here I want to concentrate on the opening, which featured an important line of the Scotch.

The game began 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Qf6!? 5.Be3 Bc5, a position normally reached via the move-order 4...Bc5 5.Be3 Qf6.

After the further moves 6.c3 Nge7 the main continuation in ChessBase's 2022 Mega database is 7.Bc4, but my opponent played a popular alternative, 7.g3.

Position after 7.g3

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White's seventh move is clearly playable, but it first appears in Mega22 as recently as 1955. Even so it has attracted big-name followers, including Garry Kasparov, Hikaru Nakamura, Vassily Ivanchuk, Evgeny Sveshnikov and Jonny Hector, all of whom can be thought of as attacking players. The move scores 57% in Mega22, five percentage points more than 7.Bc4.

Nevertheless White is falling behind in development, which is presumably why the most popular reply in Mega22 is 7...d5. After 8.Bg2 dxe4 the recapture 9.Bxe4?! can be met by 9...Bh3 or 9...Bxd4, both of which give Black an advantage, according to Stockfish15 and Komodo13.02. However the most popular move in Mega22 is 9...Nxd4!?, which the engines reckon is only good enough for equality after 10.cxd4.

Kasparov and Ivanchuk preferred 9.0-0, although the engines reckon Black equalises with 9...Bxd4 10.cxd4 Bf5, when Black is a pawn up but White has the bishop-pair. One can see why an attacking player might like White's position, especially as the mainline continues 11.Nc3 0-0-0.

Position after 11...0-0-0

Two moves in Mega22 appear more often than 9.0-0.

One is 9.Nb5!?, when 9...Bxe3 10.Nxc7+ Kf8 should probably be met by 11.fxe3 (11.0-0?! is marginally more common but 11...Rb8 12.fxe3 Qe5 gives Black the upper hand, according to the engines). After 11.fxe3 the engines reckon Black should again reply 11...Rb8, meeting 12.Nd5 with either 12...Qe5 or a move not in Mega22, 12...Nd5, with a position difficult for both sides.

My game saw 9.Nd2, which has come to be the mainline. The game continued 9...Nxd4?! 10.Nxe4 Qg6 11.Bxd4 Bxd4 (the engines prefer 11...Bb6!?, which is not in Mega22) 12.Qxd4 Nc6 13.Qc5!?, when the engines reckon Black needs to find 13...Bh3!? to get a decent game.

Almost certainly better than my ninth move is 9...Bxd4, when 10.Nxe4 Bxc3+ wins a pawn but leaves White with sweeping bishops. Much more popular is 10.cxd4 Bf5 11.Nxe4 Bxe4!? 12.Bxe4 0-0-0, when again White has the bishop-pair but Black has an IQP to work against. The engines reckon it is a game with equal chances.

CONCLUSION: 7.g3 may be slow but it leads to sharp play with a battle for the initiative that should suit attacking players.