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Friday, January 4, 2019

An Opening To Shy Away From

     As I have posted before, I have a macabre fascination with Alekhine's Defense and even own a book on it, The Alekhine For the Tournament Player by Lev Alburt and Eric Schiller. 
    Alburt has long advocated and played the Alekhine and in the book he wrote that it was important to pay close attention to the sorts of strategies that are successful because there "are no golden rules or maxims, no universals, simply tendencies which fall out as a result of P-structures and piece placements." 
     He also observed that thematic breaks can be disasterous if played at the wrong time and "ugly" moves can prove effective when the position demands them. Alburt wrote that familiarity with the defense is important and even inferior positions can be played with confidence against opponents who are unfamiliar with the strategic ideas of the opening. 
     My database shows I have played the defense in over the board tournaments 13 times, scoring + 3 -3 =7 and I have faced it six times, scoring +1 -1 =4. The six times I faced it, I played 2.Bc4. Nobody ever played 2...Nxe4 and allowed 3.Bxf7+ which is the line I wanted to take a look at in the below game. Every time I played 2.Bc4 my opponents disappointed me and transposed into another opening with either 2...e5 or 2...d6. Alburt called 2.Bc4, known as the Krejcik Variation, "reckless" and concluded that after the capture 2...Nxe4 "black has nothing to worry about." He is correct because in my Chessbase database white has only scored +1 -14 =3 with it. That's not very encouraging! 
     The following game was played in the Nova Gorica (Slovenia) Open in 1998.  The event was won by IM's Boris Golubovic and Simon Jeric who finished ahead of several GM's. 
     Golubovic's play in this game is a fine example of how to meet 2.Bc4 against the Alekhine.  It's also an instructive example of how to nurse a seemingly small advantage into a win. Chessdom has an interview with Galubovic HERE.  His opponent has since this game was played became a 2600+ GM and is also a GM in problem solving.

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