After 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 the commonest continuation is 7.Bc4, but when Garry Kasparov reached the position in a 2022 rapid game, he preferred 7.Nxc6, and this is what my opponent played.
After 7...bxc6, 4,173 games out of 4,567 (that is 91.4%) in ChessBase's 2026 Mega database have the continuation 8.e5, but my game saw 8.Bc4!?
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| Position after 8.Bc4?!, a move new to me |
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It was perhaps naive of me to think an FM may not have properly considered Black's possibility of relying on the well-known central fork trick to capture on e4.
However, it seems he had not, as after 8...Nxe4?! 9.Nxe4 d5 JB failed to find, or perhaps failed to properly evaluate, 10.Bd4!, instead playing the 'normal' 10.Bd3, when the position is equal, according to Stockfish17.1 and Dragon1, although I still went on to lose.
10.Bd4!. however, causes Black problems, eg 10...0-0 11.Bxg7 Kxg7 12.Qd4+ f6 13.0-0-0, when White has a huge lead in development, and Black has still not regained the sacrificed piece.
After 13...Qb6 14.Rhe1 Qxd4 15.Rxd4 e5! 16.Rd2 dxc4 Black has got the piece back and, temporarily, won a pawn into the bargain, but 17.Rd6 shows who is in charge.
Instead of castling, Black could start with 10...Bxd4, and after 11.Qxd4 0-0 12.0-0-0 the engines reckon 12...Qc7 is marginally better than 12...Qb6. Black will again get the piece back, but White has the upper hand, according to the engines.
Capturing on e4 in the diagram position is tempting, but as always one cannot just play by analogy - the specifics of a position have to be properly considered.
LESSON: 'similar' is not 'the same'.
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