Brno: Typical Mistakes & How To Avoid Them (Part Three)

IN round three of the Brno Open I had a largely uneventful draw with white.

The full game can be seen at B3 but here I want to concentrate on a key moment in the opening.

Spanton (1771) - Axel Moser (2138)

The game began 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 d6 4.0-0 Bd7 5.c3 Nf6.

What should White do about the attacked pawn?

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There are three obvious ways to protect the pawn, 6.Re1, 6.Qe2 and 6.d3, and grandmasters have played all of them.

But overwhelmingly most popular in ChessBase's 2022 Mega database is 6.Re1, which appears 1,572 times, compared with 67 for 6.Qe2 and 34 for 6.d3.

It is not hard to work out why 6.d3 is unpopular. White's set-up is geared to establishing a classical centre with d4, and 6.d3 delays this.

In the game I played 6.Qe2, which defends e4, develops a piece and prepares to move the king's rook to d1 to shadow the black queen and support the push d4.

We went down the mainline, viz 6...a6 7.Ba4 b5 8.Bc2 Bg4!? The point of Black moving the light-square bishop for the second time is to inhibit White's plan of getting in d4.

We continued down the mainline in Mega22, 9.h3 Bxf3 10.Qxf3 g6, and now I played 11.Rd1, which Stockfish15 and Komodo13.02 much prefer to the slightly more popular 11.a4.

Black replied with 11...Rc8, and I temporarily gave up on trying to get in d4 by going  for queenside play with 12.a4. The engines reckon the game is equal.

After 6.Re1 Black's most popular move is, as in the game, 6...a6, but White is not obliged to play 7.Ba4 and so allow further black queenside expansion with tempo.

Instead the main move is 7.Bf1!?, after which Black usually tries to discourage d4 by playing 7...Bg4!?

Now 8.h3, as played by Kasparov, Topalov and others, is easily the commonest move, with play normally proceeding 8...Bxf3 9.Qxf3 g6 10.d3.

White gains the bishop-pair but has not got in d4. The engines give White a slight edge, although in 422 games in Mega22 Black scores a very respectable 49% with 10...Bg2.

However it seems White can get in d4 after all by playing it immediately, ie 8.d4!?, as played by Korchnoi, Anand and others.

After 8...cxd4 9.cxd4 Bxf3 10.gxf3 White's kingside is smashed, but Black's pieces are not well-placed to exploit this and meanwhile White has a strong centre.

The most popular continuation in Mega 22, 10...e5, scores just 30%, while the engines' recommendation, 10...d5, barely betters this with 31%.

The story does not end there, though, as it turns out White can get d4 in much earlier, namely with 6.d4!?

After 6...Nxe4 7.d5 Ne5 play usually continues, albeit from a small sample size, 8.Bxd7+ Nxd7 9.Re1 Nef6, when White has full compensation for a pawn, but no more, according to the engines.

They suggest 8.Na3!? as a possible improvement.

It is probably not fair to give either 6.Qe2 or 6.d3 a question mark, but it does seem 6.Re1, and possibly 6.d4!?, are better.

If you have ever wondered why strong players spend so much time over the opening, I hope the above, most of which flew way over my head during the game, gives some insight as to the depth of what they may be thinking about.