Article: 503 of rec.games.chess.analysis Path: info!strath-cs!nntp0.brunel.ac.uk!sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk!lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk!warwick!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.ultranet.com!zombie.ncsc.mil!simtel!news.kei.com!ub!acsu.buffalo.edu!regan From: regan@cs.buffalo.edu (Kenneth Regan) Newsgroups: rec.games.chess.analysis Subject: Re: Looking for info on e2e4 b7b6 opening Date: 5 Sep 1995 00:29:02 GMT Organization: State University of New York at Buffalo/Computer Science Lines: 49 Message-ID: <42g5ke$a4u@azure.acsu.buffalo.edu> References: <41v2go$22s@osh2.datasync.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: nussex.cs.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: regan In article , David Regis= wrote: >In article <41v2go$22s@osh2.datasync.com> steve_johnson@psilongbeach.com (Steve Johnson) writes: --and there have been others in this thread. I was perhaps the highest-rated person in the 1970's who made a habit of playing (and losing with) this opening. >1. It's playable but can lead to positions where Black has no obvious >active plan... e.g. 1. e4 b6 2. d4 Bb7 3. Bd3 e6 >4. Nf3 c5 5. c3 Nf6 6. e5 (6. Qe2 may be even better)... I was willing to "mix it up" in lines with e5, which made my QB feel OK. But what took much of the fun out was when White plays slowly, as if this were a Lopez: 6. Nd2 Nc6 7. a3! The poster's 6. Qe2 may be equally good, though this way White can do 8. O-O and 9. Re1 instead. White's eventual idea is to play b4, and from the Black side, this feels like a nasty clamp on both sides of the board. I've never found an effective countermeasure in my (old, buried) analysis. > >2. The line > > 1. e4 b6 2. d4 Bb7 3. Bd3 f5!? > >is I think reckoned currently to be unsound, but you've got to know it. >Basically Ray Keene published some analysis in the 1970s which said >that Black could take the rook after 4. exf5 Bxg2 5. Qh5+ g6 6. fxg6 >Bg7 7. gxh7+ Kf8 8. hxg8=Q+ Kxg8 9. Q moves, and Black can consolidate >and win. Then someone discovered that on move 8 White can play >something like Ne2(-f4-g6) and Black loses. Correct. I don't know where the final analysis is. After I played this against Lombardy in the 1973 US Open (I consolidated but didn't win), he, I, and a crowd looked at 8. Ne2, 8. Nf3, and 8. Nh3. We reached the conclusion that two of these moves win, but I forget which two :-). > I'm not saying it's a totally duff opening, and if White goes all out >on the King's-side you get lots of chances, but if White just builds >up solidly you can get horribly short of ideas. Correct, see above. >5. There is further analysis and lots of games in the following books: [snipped] A late-1970's book by Soltis had five of my wins, but none of my losses :-). From info!dregis Fri Sep 8 10:09:30 BST 1995