Remember the criticism of 3. d4? it was that we were trading a central pawn for a wing pawn, and black had a central pawn majority. With 14. cxd3, we rectify that problem and pave the way for a CENTRAL pawn advance - d4! - of our own, since the c3 Knight so nicely controls e4.

<kwgurge> But doesn't N1d2 protect e4 as well? If he replies...Nxd3, we can play cxd3 and have the same CENTRAL pawn set up as if we had played Nc3. But with the N on d2, after cxd3 we can grab control of the open c-file with one of our Rooks.

This discussion now is purely theoretical because Nc3 will clearly be our next move. Once a move gets ahead by more than the combined total of the next two moves it won't be caught.

I'm afraid I have switched allegiance to <13.Nc3>. I think we can cope with any reply we get to that.

Hopefully we can steer it into an exchange on -d3-, although that may be wishful thinking. Lines on my website in a few hours.

On my forum I am looking for< help after 13....Bd7 14.f4 Nc6 15.*>

If anyone can supply sound advice, (PC assisted would help as well), I'd be very grateful.

(Sorry Dom, I'm poaching your staff.
That will be the end of another beautiful friendship. :-)

Sample line: 13.N1d2 Bd7 14.Nc4 Nxd3 15.cxd3 and now Black has to be a little careful:

click for larger view

15...d5 looks dubious to me because of 16.Nb6 Rb8 (dxe4!?) 17.Bf4 wins the exchange

15...Rc8 looks reasonable; I can't find a really good line against it but lots of lines where White dictates the tempo of the game, e.g. 16.Nb6 Rc7 17.Rac1 Re8 18.Rxc7 Qxc7 19.Rc1

But what's the OBVIOUS problem with N1d2? Well, it doesn't cover d5. Can Black play ...d5 immediately if we make this choice?

Here's one line that I don't like for White: 14.f4 Nxd3 15.cxd3 Bd7

click for larger view

To me this looks pretty fine for Black, esp. since there is a threat e.g 16.Rac1 dxe4 17.Nxe4 Nxe4 18.dxe4? Bb5 skewering.

If not 14.f4 then what?

When I have determined which engine is most positive and which is most negative for the given position, I let the positive one play White, and the negative one play Black. I must manually switch the engines every half-move, which is a slow and tedious process, but it is a great way to discover which engine has the better evaluation. One or the other engine usually ends up making a major change to its evaluation.

<But has <any> engine been configured to play (or even evaluate the strength of) a Hedgehog-type setup?>

Maybe not, but Shredder 8 sees our position as equal. (Shredder is very successful against other engines.)

<monad: <Angus Canuck: > How do the engines solve the problem of 14. Qxd3 versus 14.cxd3? Do they agree? And what length of time are we talking about?>

Fritz 8 originally preferred 14.Qxd3, but Shredder 8 outplayed Fritz and forced Fritz to downgrade the move. Switching to 14.cxd3, Fritz is holding on to its evaluation longer, but I must let Shredder keep playing Fritz because we have not looked at all the variations yet. The problem is, there are so many reasonable looking variations.

I've put a plea on the main page asking voters not to jump the gun, and to wait and see what analysis comes up with.

I'm going to keep looking at 13.N1d2.

I still regard 13.N1d2 as our best option. The argument that Black can exploit it with ...d5 doesn't really hold up. After 13.N1d2 d5, one idea is 14.Bb6 (not an occupation of b6, more an intermezzo or zwischenzug to nudge the black queen to a weaker square).

If, for example, then 14...Qd7 (14...Qd6 allows 15.Bc5, chopping off the DS bishops and leaving permanent holes in the black position), black's queen occupies a square which his knights and bishop might otherwise use. And we have the interesting (if engine-esque) idea of 15.Bd4 - hitting black's exposed Ne5 without the weakness that f4 would create, and contesting the long diagonal.

This line is 13.N1d2 d5 14.Bb6 Qd7 15.Bd4 Nxd3 16.cxd3, which looks good for white. Our pieces are flexibly developed, can be deployed anywhere on the board, and we can quickly contest the open c-file.

Let's have some team spirit here, please. It's the game we want to win together, not individual skirmishes within the White team.[ Knuckles duly rapped].

I was hugging my sulks for 24 hours after not getting my way with Bg5 earlier, but that doesn't get us anywhere. Another good night's sleep, and you will come and help the Nc3 contingent?

Lots of branches need looking into. And that is only in the garden:-) Leaves and twigs all over the place. Sigh.

<I'm afraid I have switched allegiance to <13.Nc3>. I think we can cope with any reply we get to that.>

Wrong Nielsen, Chris. Denmark is full of chess-playing Nielsens. This guy's name was Bjorn Nielsen, a master-strength player in the 1940s. I think he's in the CG database.

The book was published in either 1945 or 1947. Its title is Nimzowitsch: Danmarks Skaklaerer [= 'chess teacher']; it's long out of print.

I actually tracked down a 2ndhand copy online. It wasn't too hard - the book isn't a huge rarity or anything, and the price range was about 50 euros. But I don't have the online source details, as it was done in Danish and I got a fluent friend to make the transaction for me.

<Sneaky>
<Sneaky: Don't ever make the mistake of falling in love with a move just because you spend a ton of time analyzing it. It's easy to do, especially if the move isn't half bad--but other moves may deserve our love more.>

Nothing personal, I hope. :-)

That's the spirit ;-)