Last year my son collected a number of prizes. Especially money he likes as he was able to buy 2 boxes of lego, a trendy step, 2 footballs,... Briefly although he earned the money by playing chess, nothing is invested to improve his chess capabilities. Therefore he was quite disappointed to find out that he got a voucher to spend at chessconsult when he won the Antwerp championship for the category of -8. Fortunately I knew how to cheer him up as I exchanged the voucher with my cash and used the voucher myself to buy 2 new books: Nadorf x Najdorf and Timman's Titans both published in 2016.
In the meanwhile I finished Najdorfs book. We all know the opening but the person Najdorf is after this death (1997) already largely forgotten. This book tries to bring him out of the oblivion and I think they managed this quite well. The books reads very smoothly and also the selected games are well analyzed. Especially the countless anecdotes make this book a real joy. One is about why Najdorf didn't play his own opening anymore in his later years. There is nothing wrong with the opening but he didn't like to fight against the much better opening-knowledge of many youngsters while his strength mainly positioned around technique and creativity.
Some will state the same about the Modern French. The theory exploded in this opening due to its enormous popularity. I got it 5 times on the board in standard-games about which I wrote in my articles (see e.g. the modern french, the modern french part 2, switching colors part 2, ...). That is really a lot if you take into account that I only play approximately 15 standard games each year. Also today several systems are discovered which allow white to put pressure. An idea which I prepared for a next encounter, was introduced a few months ago accidentally by the strong Dutch grandmaster Benjamin Bok.
Not surprisingly we see more and more players looking for new ideas in the French opening. The 20 years old strong German grandmaster Matthias Bluebaum is for sure a pioneer in this area. More and more he likes to play with the sequence of moves to sidestep the preparation of his opponents. His influence upon the hyper-modern French opening in which Nc6 is delayed or even sometimes cancelled, should not be underestimated. His fresh strategical ideas gave this hyper-modern approach a serious boost. Even some super grandmasters have noticed this and gave it a shot. This year the Indian top-grandmaster Pentala Harikrisha scored a sensational victory in Altibox Norway Chess with this line.
Forewarned is forearmed but I shamefully had to admit in the last Open Leuven that I didn't understand anything about the opening. Besides I was totally surprised that the 47 years old Jan Rogiers had such hyper modern opening in his repertoire. That explains of course why I quickly got into troubles in our game and only an incredible counterattack avoided a big rating-upset.
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1.e4e62.d4d53.Nc3Nf64.e5Nfd75.f4c56.Nf3Be7(First Be7 and only later Nc6 is the hyper-modern version of this French opening which is gaining quickly popularity since 2013. I was aware about this but as usual with new trends I did not yet study it.)7.Be30-0(The young strong German grandmaster Matthias Bluebaum famous for deciding the gold in the tiebrakes of the last chess-olympiad at Baku, is the greatest propagandist of this opening. He continuously switches with the different move-sequences which each have their own nuances but this one with Be7 followed up with 0-0 was his favorite in the last 3 years.)8.Qd2(The most popular continuation but this does not mean much as the opening is still very new. Beside Be2 which can transpose to my game played in the interclub of 2014 against Bart Michiels, dxc5 is a serious option.)8.dxc5Bxc5(Black has of course options but here I want to warn chessplayers for trusting too quickly an online openingbook which shows only wins for black.)9.Qd3N(This unorthodox move is recommended by Stockfish 8.)Qb6 (The concept used successfully by Bart Michiels in his game against the American grandmaster Samuel Sevian played at Wijk Aan Zee 2015 does not work here.)10.Ng5f5(G6 is answered by Bxc5 followed up by Qh3 and white has a clear advantage.)11.Nxd5Qxb212.Bxc5!?(White can choose between several fantastic continuations.)12.Rd1!?Nc613.Nxe6Ndxe514.fxe5!?Nb415.Nxc5Nxd3+16.Nxd312...Qxa1+13.Kf2Nc613...Nxc5?14.Ne7+Kh815.Nf7+Rxf716.Qd8+Rf817.Qxf8#14.Bd6Qc115.Ne38...b69.Nd1(Ik was not prepared for this opening so I wanted to experiment with a concept which I had seen in a similar position. I am thinking about the game Anish Giri - Bart Michiels won by Anish in the Belgian interclubs of 2012. I hoped it was playable and throw my opponent out of book. The latter was a wrong assessment as later I discovered Nd1 is the most popular move in this position. It explains of course why Jan still blitzed several moves. Be2 to transpose to my games of 2012 and 2015 against Bart Michiels is an alternative. However the eccentric h4, played earlier this year by nobody less than Vladimir Kramnik, is maybe the most critical test. Finally f5 of which I only found one game in the database, deserves also study. Just like Nd1 white tries to profit from the omission of Nc6.)9.h4!?cxd4(The strong German grandmaster Rainer Buhmann played Nc6 in Dortmund against Kramnik.)10.Nxd4Bb4N11.a3Bxc312.Qxc3Ba613.0-0-0Nc5∞9...a510.Nf2!?(I was not aware that normally they play c3 here.)10.c3!? (White scores miserable according to my openingbook but an analysis of Anish Giri at schaaksite suspects this score does not reflect the right evaluation of this position.)a4!?11.Bd3Ba612.0-0Nc6!?13.f5(Earlier this year Anish Giri lost without a fight after Bxa6 against the Indian super-grandmaster Pentala Harakrisha in Stavanger, 4th Norway Chess.)exf514.Bxa6!Rxa615.Bf4!Ndb816.Ne3Qd717.Qd3g618.Bh6!Re819.g4!fxg420.Ng5Bxg521.Bxg5(Anish often laughs at the superficial preparations of the reigning world-champion Magnus Carlsen and this beautiful analysis nicely demonstrates why this reaction is not exaggerated.)10...Nc611.Bb5Qc712.0-0a413.Rac1Ba614.Bxa6Rxa615.Qe2Qb716.c4?! (Optically this looks good but a bad surprise awaits me. C3 is still correct with a position maybe giving slightly the better prospects for white at the king-side.)dxc417.Qxc4b518.Qe2c419.d5?!(I was not eager to allow a piece jumping to d5 but this gambit is based upon a hallucination.exd520.a3(Only now I realized that blacks last move covers c4 if black continues with b4. However allowing a3 is neither an option so after a long thought I played anyway a3 at the same time fearing a quick defeat.)Nc5 (After this move I get some hope again as I feared mostly b4. The engine shows there is little difference between the evaluations of both moves.)21.Rcd1Rd8?(Afterwards Jan admitted that he completely underestimated my attack at the king-side. During the game I thought Qd7 is strong which the engine later confirmed.)21...Qd7!(It is not easy to position your queen in the line of the rook but black can not ignore f5.)22.f5Nb323.Ne4Qxf524.Nc3Nxe525.Nxe5Qxe526.Rxd5Qe627.Rxb522.f5Nb3?(Way too slow as whites attack is much quicker. D4 and Nd7 are still just enough to maintain the balance.)22...Nd7!?23.f6Bf824.fxg7Bxg725.e6fxe626.Ng5e5∞23.f6Bf8?!(The engines sacrifice a piece to slow down the attack. After the played move white goes like a knife through the butter.)23...Nxe5!24.fxe7Qxe725.Nxe5Qxe526.Ng4±24.fxg7Bxg725.Ng4Ne726.Ng5Rg627.Nxf7Rf828.Ngh6+Bxh629.Nxh6+Kg730.Rxf8Kxf831.Qf3+Ke832.Qf7+Kd733.Nf5Re634.Nxe7(An incredible conclusion as around move 20 I still was thinking about quickly losing the game.)1–0
My analysis causes doubts about the full correctness of this hyper-modern system but I expect we will still see new developments. Besides those rich strategical positions are excellent to play for a win with both colors. A noteworthy statistic is that all my 6 standard-games in this opening had decisive results while always respecting the rating-logic.
Brabo
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