Manny's Reviews > Lärobok i schack

A couple of days ago, Not and I were watching the Iran-Australia match in the Chennai Chess Olympiad. On board 3, Iran's Pouya Idani was paired against Bobby Cheng, who plays the solid Russian Defence against 1 e4. Idani is an uncompromising attacking player, and he found an unusual way to get Cheng out of his comfort zone:

1 e4 e5
2 d4!?

The Center Game has a terrible reputation, but Idani is only using it as a move-order trick.

2 ... ed
3 Nf3!

After 3 Qd4 Nc6, or 3 c3 d5, Black has no problems. Objectively, he's also fine after 3 Nf3: he can play 3 ... Nc6 to transpose to the Scotch, or 3 ... Nf6 to transpose to an unfashionable variation of the Russian. But neither of these are lines that Cheng likes. Surely there was some reason why no one ever plays 2 d4 and 3 Nf3?

3 ... Bb4+!?



After three natural moves, they've reached a position we'd never seen before. We consulted our chess library. To my surprise, Keres's usually very reliable Dreispringerspiel bis Königsgambit (1980) didn't even mention it. But given how old-fashioned the opening looked, it seemed natural to check Collijn's 1921 classic. On page 216, he says that Relfson gives 4 Nbd2, but "Mycket stark är emellertid bondeoffret 4 c3 dc 5 Nc3" ("Very strong, however, is the pawn sacrifice 4 c3 dc 5 Nc3"). Sure enough, Idani continued:

4 c3! dc
5 Nc3

Black's position isn't objectively bad - the cold-blooded computer even thinks he's slightly better - but Cheng had been completely wrong-footed. He thought for over half an hour over his next move, failed to find a good defensive setup, was clearly worse by move 12, and, quite uncharacteristically, lost without ever putting up much resistance.

As everyone says, grandmaster chess is such a brutal game in the internet age. It's just impossible to keep up with all the new theory.