GM scalp, thanks to Marin once again ;-)

I more or less try to follow the Marin books when playing with the white pieces. At the moment I go for Closed Sicilian Reversed instead of the lines recommended by Marin. I also need to study more the c4 e5 lines from book one. I am however getting better and better with every week in the Symmetrical English. When I first started playing the English follow "Strategical Opening Repertoire" I alway had trouble when they played completely symmetrical and  had to go for the early d4 lines like in the following game. I finally studied it some after getting the Marin books and in this game against a strong opponent in the ICC 3-minute pool I managed to put together a good game following Marin's theory and get the nice result!

Marin vs the Slav

I want to discuss the Anti-Slav line chosen by Marin in his repertoire books. The position below is the main branching point.

This is after 1.c4 c6 2.Nf3 d5 3.g3 Nf6 4.Bg2 of course there are several other move orders to reach this position. White could start with 1.Nf3 and McShane for instance reached this afte 1.g3!

Black has a choice here:



4...dxc4 5.0-0 is the gambit line which I have yet to discuss
4...Bf5 is the Barcza variation

And here I will discuss 4...Bg4

A funny thing has happened  here. I have played 2 online blitz games in the last 2 days that both went:

5.Ne5 Bf5 6.cxd5 Nxd5??



I obviously just played 7.e4 winning a piece!

The opponent on ICC somehow lasted over 40 moves and he tried to get counterplay with 7...f6 8.Nc4 Nb4 9.exf5 Nd3+ 10.Kf1 Qd4 which is probably the best black can do and hope for a miracle. The other guy, over 2400 on PlayChess went 7...Nb4 8.exf6 f6?? 9.Qh5 and resigned!!



Other than that I am mostly meeting 5...Bh5/Bf5 and only today for the first time I got 5...Be6 played against me.

Play after Bf5/Bh5 is often very similar. We go cxd5 and Nc3 and after e4 we give a check on a4 and it's slightly tricky for black. More games later!

McShane - Adams, another game in Marin territory

We are getting lots of English openings in this tournament. McShane actually started with 1.g3 but soon we transpose to an English and we get a line from Chapter 8 of English Opening 2 by Marin. Unfortunately we soon left lines discussed by Marin. The early h3 deviated a bit (Nc3 first more normal). We almost reach line B11 on page 140. But with the difference that after 11 moves, Adams had his bishop on b6 instead of on d6 as in B11.


My feeling was that it was white who to fight for the draw (although not hard) so improvements are needed early in this game. Overall this is a very solid line for black and white has to be farily well prepared to press black in this line. That being said, white as always is very solid here.

Replay the game here: http://chessbase.com/news/2010/london/games/lcc04.htm

Carlsen playing the English!

Is the English Opening gonna be his main weapon in England? Well he has used it in his first two rounds of the London Chess Classics.

In the 2nd round vs Adams:

GM_Carlsen (2802) - GM_Adams (2723) [A29]
2nd London Chess Classic 2010 London, England (2), 09.12.2010
1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e5 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.g3 Bc5 5.Bg2 d6 6.0–0 0–0 7.d3 a6 8.a3 Ba7 9.b4  

Here Adams played 9...Be6 but Marin considers ...Bf5 and ...Bg4 to be the main moves. He says "9...Be6 exposes the bishop to the knight jump Nf3-g5. There has only been on egame with this move between reasonably strong palyers 10. Bb2 Ne7 11.Ng5 Bc8 12.e3 h6 13. Nf3 we are back into the normal paths, since Black has played ...h6"


Carlsen however went for Nd2, Rb1, a4, b5 a build up on the queenside and a slow strategic struggle typical of the English was the order of the day. Carlsen managed to outplay his opponent after some inaccuracies by Adams.

Full game here in replayer: http://chessbase.com/news/2010/london/games/saunders02.htm

In the 4th round against Nakamura he again played 1.c4. Nakamura answered with 1...f5. I personally like playing the Closed Sicilian Reversed with white against KID and Leningrad setups but in the Marin books he goes for the Botvinnik system (d3/e4/Nge2 etc). Carlsen instead went for another type of English setup, with e3/Nge2 and another quiet buildup. In the end black was left with typical weak pawns on b- and d- file and Carlsen managed another win.

The game here (All 4th round games): http://chessbase.com/news/2010/london/games/lcc04.htm

 

McShane vs Carlsen

McShane played the English against Magnus Carlsen. Magnus chose the ...Nh6 line which is not as well known but still an interesting alternative. Magnus played the novelty 9...Ne5 which is not necessarily bad but at mortal level this feels like a very comfortable position for white. McShane said about the position that white wants to keep some initiative on the queenside because if black gets developed he should stand well.

I would like to add that the ...Nh6 line was well known to me because the retired Icelandic GM Jon L Arnason used to play this line and I had looked at it when preparing for a game against him in the Icelandic Team Blitz Championship. He had good results with this line in his playing days. The key stuff to know here (which I had analysed and known about before the Marin book) is to play d4 like McShane did and know about the c5 idea as in Andersson-Van der Wiel. Also ...Nh6 a move earlier can be met with h4!? as white hasn't castled. These ideas (other than h4!?) can be seen in the notes below, as is my game against GM Jon L Arnason in this line.

GM Jon Arnason recently turned 50 and a blitz tournament to honor him will be held next sunday!

Marin covers this line. ...Ne5 isn't mentioned but ...Nxd4 and ...Bd7 are covered. Also the early Nh6 (a move before Magnus played it) is given a ?! and answered with 6.h4!

Both Marin and Strategical Opening Repertoire quote a game by Botvinnik in this line against Gligoric.

It would be interesting to know if McShane booked up using the Marin books!?!?

Also I am very happy for McShane. I used to be teammates with McShane in the Icelandic league and he has visited Iceland many times as well for tournaments. He couldn't be a nicer guy, one of the most polite and sincere chess players I've met. I am also 100% positive he would be much much higher rated had he not spent so much time on his academic studies. On the other hand I think doing that is a very healthy choice so not at all criticising him for that!

Marin's English Opening

I am very impressed by the 3-volume work that Mihail Marin did on the English Opening. It really fills in some voids that I had in my English 1.c4 and/or 1.Nf3 repertoire. I have been trying some of the lines in online blitz games and will share some of that with people here on my blog. Here is a game I played against a strong IM in the 3-minute blitz pool on ICC. It's in the so called "Fischer line" where black plays 5...e6