Even number gets white and odd gets black

I figured numbers like 1,3,5, 9, and especially 7 were more attractive so I allowed an odd number choice get black. Heh heh heh.

Good luck

having been a lifelong sicilian devotee (first dragon, then Najdorf/Scheveningen, then classical) I want to broaden my horizon and finally get into the open games a bit more. I'm willing to contest a classical Ruy here. I've played Nikachu in a recent 2+2 open and he played the 8. a4 line in the closed Ruy, to which i reacted badly and had to fight hard not to lose. Nikitheone played the same line and again i went wrong. I booked up a bit on that line prior to the game and hope i get it right this time, but i would prefer seeing a main line Chigorin Ruy because i figure i could learn a lot from this game by analysing and verbalizing my thoughts.
I hope this spoiler impresses Nikachu a bit and makes him worry

I'm really hoping he won't play a petroff. I cannot stand that opening. I'm hoping to go into a Ruy Lopez.

"Don't give away pawns in the opening" was one of the basic principles Edmar Mednis formulated in his book about general openings and that stuck with me. So i won't blunder a pawn with moves like f5, d5 or Nf6 (lol) and continue on my path straight to the spanish torture chamber.

Felt a pretty huge wave of relief seeing 2.Nc6. I'm generally a very aggressive/tactical player. Solid drawish positions usually leaves me overextending to fight for a win which costs me most of my losses.

Toyed a bit with 3. ...Nge7 here, but with mediocre success in terms of positions and results. Staying with the classics here.

not a fan of Bxc6 because it goes against my philosophy as white. You have the initiative so you must keep as much tension on the board as possible. After dxc6 the position will feel like a Berlin wall with queens on the board except mine is suffocating behind pawns. Of course white is fine but it's not the game I want to play. You can't play any opening because it's popular or is easy to remember theory. I have to play positions that suit my style.

as far as i know, the only decent alternative at this point is 4. ...d6, the improved Steinitz-defence. I have no knowledge of this line, so Nf6 is an automatic move for me at this juncture. The big split of lines comes after 5. 0-0, when there are Nxe4 (the open defence), Bc5 (i never know if this goes by the Archangelsk, the Neo-Archangelsk, the Moeller or some other name) and Be7 (the closed Ruy). I'll elaborate on these options when it's time for it.

This is where I'll fake a huge spoiler for the fun of it.






















heh heh

Wow that's a huge spoiler, but he didn't take long to write, so i assume it's some naked chick.

As promised, a quick overview of Black's options:
- Nxe4, the open Ruy. Black wins a pawn but has to give it back soon to complete development and not run into trouble on the open central files. Can lead to lively play, but also quite technical positions where white tries to convert the better pawn structure, which arises after white plays d4, gets his pawn back on e5 and puts a minor piece on d4 which black has to take sooner or later, moving white's c-pawn one file to the right. Pics or it doesn't happen, so it looks like this:



I've never played nor studied the line, so i'll steer clear of that.

- The Bc5-lines:

I know even less about them (like i said, not even the proper name). I've seen some Shirov and Caruana games from Wijk aan Zee that suggested that Black sacs a pawn on b5, plays Bg4-xf3 and tries to make something of the weak dark squares in white's camp. If i remember correctly, there were some piece sac for 2.5 pawns lines and novelties tend to come around move 27 and change evaluations a lot, so i'll steer clear of that line also. Maybe Smilingbill can chime in if i'm right or wrong, he posted a nice win over a GM not so long ago.

- Be7, the closed ruy. Tried and tested since 200 years, and one of those lines where every deviation has the name of an all-time great like Chigorin, Rubinstein, Breyer, Smyslov or Keres. Comparable to the Rubinstein (4.e3) Nimzo where you have variations named after all the post-war greats like Botwinnik, Hübner, Fischer, Taimanov and many others. I like those systems because you get touched by a breeze of history that doesn't smell slightly stale like in the King's Gambit. These systems are ancient, but present problems and mysteries that are far from solved today.
This is not an opening for "better burn out than fade away" players, if you die here it's a slow and painful death.

I suspect Noir might know my style and tried to make an even larger fake spoiler than mine.

Here we enter the realm of concrete tactics. 6...b5 is necessary to keep the e-pawn protected. Earlier Bxc6 followed by Nxe5 wasn't a problem because Black gets his pawn back by Qd4, attacking both the Ne5 and the pawn on e4. Now white has protected this pawn and thus Qd4 can be answered by Nf3 in above sequence.

The other way to protect e5, namely 6. ...d6, is worse because it allows 7. Bxc6 and Black can no longer take back with the d-pawn which is preferable in the exchange Ruy because it allows Black easy development and keeps his pawn structure more intact than bxc6. Additionally, white can also just play 7. c3, keeping the extra option of retreating the Ba4 to c2 in one move instead of the usual two-step b3-c2. The usual reaction in other lines (for example the Giuoco pianissimo where white often plays Bc4-b3-c2) would be an early d5 by black, but here black has already played d6, thus losing a tempo. And after c3 and d4, Black cannot do forever without b5 because giving up the centre completely by exd4 is generally not favourable if he cannot drum up concrete counterplay after that which i don't see here.

So b5 is necessary sooner or later to avoid losing e5, and the best moment is now.

All theory so far. Boring.

ND is correct. One of the key tabiyas in the Tkachiev line with 5.-b5 6.Bb3 Bc5 arises after 7.a4 Rb8 8.c3 d6 9.d4 Bb6 10.axb axb 11.Na3 0-0 12.Nxb5 Bg4, after which White has a bunch of 13th moves. The whole thing looks a bit suspect but has held surprisingly well even against heavy home preparation. Here's an example game (prepared at home by Shirov) http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1569982. And on a lighter side note, here is the wonderful 26.-Re2 by Svidler in the Tkachiev line in case someone has not seen it yet http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1633835

It may not look so, but the position was actually a major theoretical crossroads. Black basically has two options: Play d6 or 0-0 first. The latter "threatens" to play the Marshall attack after 8. c3 d5. More often than not, white avoids that with a so-called Anti-Marshall line like 8. h3, 8. a4 or 8. d4. These are said to give white less chances of an advantage than the usual main line Ruy with 8. c3 d6.

So why did i play d6? The reason is that i have no intention to play the Marshall anyways. And most of these sidelines are less strong after d6 than 0-0. For example, after 8. a4 i can now just move the Bishop to d7 or g4 and the Ra8 is protected, taking the sting out of the axb5 threat. In the other move order, something like Bb7 or b4 is necessary. As i stated briefly earlier, i have seen Nikachu go for 8. a4 regardless in our Blitz match, i'm curious if he repeats that line or heads for the critical main lines this time. I'll elaborate on what i'm planning in either case after i see his move so i can reduce spoiler size a little.

Note that up to now i just enjoy to verbalize my knowledge about early Ruy theory. I also hope someone can learn a little from it or better still, correct me if i'm wrong so when i read the comments afterwards i gain something from this. This is not my thought process when i play games, i just blitz out the opening moves like anyone else.

Enjoying Noir_Desir's commentary so far, and looking forward to the middlegame.

I always got crushed in the 8.c3 lines. I know it was theory but I lost consistantly or struggled against weak opposition. It's just that after 8.c3 0-0 9.h3 Na5 10.Bc2 c5 11.d4 white doesn't really have any good breaks. If anything black has a lot of reasonable pressure against white's center and a lot of decent plans like playing exd4 followed by h6-Re8-Bf8-g6-Bg7. I have no f-ing clue what white is suppose to do.

However I had a great score against the Marshall by playing the anti Marshall move 7.Bb3 0-0 8.a4! and following the game up with d3-Nbd2-Nf1-Ne3 with fantastic results.

So I look at this 7...d6 position and think "whats wrong with a4 here?" if 8.a4 Bb7 9.d3 then we transpose into the a4 anit marshall line and I win. In fact I think this is an extremely underused sideline. If I recall from the shredderchess.com opening database, 8.a4 here has a very high winning score.

a4!

sounds like nikachu needs to study all those old school ruy games with knight maneuvers that take 8 moves.

studying benoni jumps can help too.

So he went for his favourite side line again.

I play Bg4, the most forcing line. The pressure on d4 and f3 more or less forces c3, after which i can attack the white Q-side where squares like b3 are seriously weakened and other squares will follow after i play moves like Na5, b4. White will get the bishop pair as compensation.

The theoretical line goes ...Bg4 9. c3 0-0 (first time around i played Rb8 here IIRC which ran into immediate problems after something like 10. a5 b4 11. Ba4. Not sure if that is right but i'm not allowed to look it up if i remember the rules correctly) 10. h3 Bxf3 11. Qxf3 Na5 (b4 was my second try here when i remembered a little bit more theory but ran into more or less similar problems) 12. Bc2 b4 with the aim of either shutting White's extra bishop out of the game or opening the Q-side favourably. White will be looking for a typical slow-burning Ruy K-side attack in the meantime.

The move is more or less force to keep out the threat of Nd4. Bg4 is the ONLY special move that may put a test to 8. a4 but in practice I didn't find anything special about this. I think the next most forcing move for black is Na5 to put a question to my bishop. The light square bishop in this position is DEADLY as ****. It single handedly is what makes any attacks on the black king work but I must keep it on the a2-g8 diagonal. There is some potential with Bc2, d4, Bd3, Qe2 and pile up on the b5 square. If he doesn't react fast with Na5 then I'll probably play h3 putting a question to his bishop. If he goes back to h5 then I'll continue play with d3, Nbd2, Nf1, g4, and Ng3