Jul-29-13
 | | FSR: 4.Qe3+ is book, and better for White according to theory. That move has been played by GMs like Huebner, Azmaiparashvili, and Schussler. White meets 4...Qe7, 4...Nge7, or 4...Be7 with 5.Nd5, while Black's king is awkwardly placed after 4...Kf7 5.Nf3. After 4.Qe3+ White indeed scores well, though not overwhelmingly - 63.3% in 87 games (not a huge sample size) in Mega Database 2013. (FWIW, White scores 69.2% in just 12 games with 4.Qd3.) Houdini 3, which considers nearly any position playable, is underwhelmed by 4.Qe3+. Here's a quick win for White with Houdini's suggested improvements: <Alexander Chernin (2475)-Aloyzas Kveinys, Mikenas Cup, Klaipeda 1983 <1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 f5 3.d4 exd4 4.Qxd4 Nc6 5.Qe3+ Qe7 6.Nd5 Qxe3 7.Bxe3 Bd6 8.Nf3> (8.c5 Be5 9. Nf3 Nf6 10. Nxe5 Nxd5 11. Nxc6 dxc6 12. Bd4 O-O 13. e3 Be6=) <8...Nge7 9.O-O-O> (9.Nc3 Bb4 10.Bd2 a6 11.a3 Bd6 12.e4 O-O 13.Bd3 b6 14.O-O Bb7=) <9... a6?> [9...Nxd5! 10.cxd5 (10. Rxd5 O-O 11.g3 b6 12.Bh3 g6 13.Rhd1 Ba6 14.b3 Ba3+ 15.Kb1 d6=) 10... f4 11.Bxf4 Bxf4+ 12.e3 Bd6 13.dxc6 dxc6 14.Rd4 Rf8 15.Bd3 h6=] <10.Nb6! Rb8? 11.Rxd6! 1-0> (After 11...cxd6 12.Bf4, Black will end up a pawn down with a wretched position.) |
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Jul-29-13
 | | perfidious: <FSR>: Black came unstuck pretty quickly in Chernin-Kveinys. This is the only game in which I did not play 4.Qe3+ in this line and one of two losses, the other to Frank Sisto after 4....Kf7, which looks strange, but I did not manage to find a way to exploit it. Even before I made a habit of playing the English, I recall Shatskes' monograph stating that 2....f5 was dubious because of 4.Qe3+. At the 1977 National HS Championship, one of my teammates beat Yasser Seirawan with 2....f5, but for the life of me, I don't recall how Seirawan responded. |
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Jul-29-13
 | | FSR: <perfidious> I miswrote the move number; it's really 5.Qe3+. I too vaguely recall some book from the 1970s (maybe Shatskes, I'm not sure; I think it was some book translated from Russian by Bernard Cafferty) saying that 5.Qe3+ favored White. In Mega Database 2013, Black responds with 5...Qe7 28 times, with White scoring 62.5%. The second most common response is 5...Kf7 (22 times, again 62.5% for White). Cf. Rohde vs Zsuzsa Polgar, 1992. That's followed by 5..Be7 (20 times, 57.5%), 5...Nge7 (5 times, 83.3%), and 5...Nce7 (4 times, 70%) (all percentages from White's perspective). |
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