Abdel Irada: If further evidence were needed that black was not cheating in Mamedyarov-Kurnusov 2009, it can be found in this game, in which white's 15. 
h4 is a hyperambitious attempt at an instant KO that is met with the same ... 
d6 that prompted Mamedyarov to cry foul.Taken together, these two games suggest that black's critical defense against the Neo-Grünfeld is an early ...f5, as we also see in some variations of the Exchange Alekhine with c1, where both ...e5 and ...d5 fail to achieve full equality.
If white really wants to refute this line, however, I think further study of the calm recapture on e4 is in order; also, while d5 has the merit of removing black's target pawn from d4, it also cedes the active e5 square to black's knights, enabling ...
c4 with counterplay.
Such positions don't necessarily demand a quick kill; stifling counterplay, if at all possible, should come first. As a Grünfeld player, I must regard this continuation as the most dangerous threat to the integrity of the defense, and I would therefore find it enlightening to see how black has approached the quiet variations in which white is left with hanging pawns at e4 and d4.
