All you voters have until 11:59 pm the 26th to vote, I will be posting my fifth move on the 27th at some point.
Monday, August 24, 2009
3. ...Nf6 4. Nc3
So once again we had a tie, and the first tied move suggested was ...Nf6, so that is what will be played. For those of you who do not have an entire room at your house dedicated to the current position of this game (don't worry, I don't either) here is where we are:
All you voters have until 11:59 pm the 26th to vote, I will be posting my fifth move on the 27th at some point.
All you voters have until 11:59 pm the 26th to vote, I will be posting my fifth move on the 27th at some point.
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5 comments:
4. ...Bb4
I'm going to wait for Jason to vote. I'm inclined towards 4...Bb4. 5.Qa4+ Nc6 looks ugly but I believe it is much better than it looks. I could go along with c5 to get activity, or waiting moves to see where the c1 bishop is going.
4...c6 reaching the semi-slav is my vote, based on personal taste. 4...Bb4 is also a good move and has been played by the likes of Fischer, Kramnik, Aronian, Morozevich, etc. White has a range of different options he can use, but play could become pretty sharp or very positional, just depending on the approach White takes. The top players don't seem to have a consensus on the best way to meet 4...Bb4 -- 5.Bg5, 5.cxd5, and 5.Qa4+ all look plausible and have been played by the world's top players with success. I actually don't know much about 4...Bb4 since as White I only reach the semi-slav if Black plays c6 first before e6, going with the Catalan and avoiding all these various QGD options if Black plays e6 + Nf6 first. If Black plays the 3...c6 I voted for earlier I'm still not sure what I do. Either play 4.Nc3 and hope they don't answer 4...dxc4, reaching the Noteboom Variation, which is generally thought good for Black, or play 4.e3 and eventually play a Meran but with my knight on d2 instead of c3, which I think is an improvment since it deters the typical dxc4 semi-slav ideas. Anyway, after 4...Bb4 we could still reach a Kramnik-Anand world championship game (by transposition) and that would be kind of fun, but White would have to play along and has lots of other options he can go for.
Oh, of course the 4...c5 idea is good too, played by Fischer and Ivanchuk. The flavor of the game kind of depends on if Black wants to meet the likely 5.cxd5 with 5...exd5 or 5...Nxd5, getting activity but agreeing to either an isolated pawn (5...exd5) or a big White pawn center (5...Nxd5). So anyway I think all 3 moves suggested thus far are great.
I vote for c6. I felt bad stealing the tiebreak last move, but I would like to see where the dark square bishop goes before I get all committal. The only thing I don't like about 4..Bb4 is 5.Bg5 transposing to the Ragozin variation where I think White can grind for a whole.
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