Move 5

Brian-E · 2015-02-04, 11:52

Well, you'd almost think they had some sort of telepathic skills, wouldn't you? They've played the fairly rare move 5.b6 which is precisely what was causing a difference of opinion, at least between WMHalsdorf and me.

To start the discussion, perhaps it's helpful to list all reasonable moves we could make at this point. I'm getting help here (legitimate for a correspondence game!) from [URL]http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html[/URL] which is a great site for listing openings. I simply played the 5 moves of our game on the board at that site and it came up with the following:
[CODE]5...d6 498 games
5...e6 377 games
5...Qxb6 368 games
5...g6 124 games
5...a5 84 games
5...Bb7 31 games
5...e5 1 game
[/CODE]And here's davar55's latest question from the other thread:
[QUOTE=davar55;394314]I'm not married to (b6)..a5, just thought it looked playable.

If we delay ..Qxb6 by playing ..d6 or ..e6 instead, what follows?[/QUOTE]
The same site is useful for answering that. White has various continuations after either move. I would say that our strategy with 5...e6 is an immediate attack on their advanced centre pawn. 5...d6 is a slightly more conservative move preparing ...Nbd7 and the fianchetto of the f8 bishop.

5...Qxb6 gets on with taking the pawn back and places the queen on an offensive square, but it is less good from a general opening principles consideration (not developing minor pieces, not directly contesting the centre).

5...a5 has been discussed before in the other threads. As WMH pointed out, it prepares ...Ba6 which is the move we wanted to play if they had accepted the gambit.

What are people's current preferences?

WMHalsdorf · 2015-02-04, 19:02

i\I"m going to assume that they also have access to same information. I'm not currently home as I write this message and don't have full access to my chess materials. Will have to dig up all the games I have involving this line. Oddly I have more information on this openning in electonic form than I do anyother openning which is one of the reason I decided to go with it over any other. I'll digc deeper and post various lines.

WMHalsdorf · 2015-02-05, 19:10

Did some stats on the games I have in my database.
[CODE][B]
5... Bb7 70 34(48.6%) 10(14.3%) 26(37.1%)
5... Qxb6 876 371(42.4%) 209(23.9%) 296(33.8%)
5... a5 136 58(42.6%) 30(22.1%) 48(35.3%)
5... d6 951 375(39.4%) 249(26.2%) 327(34.4%)
5... e5 3 1(33.3%) 1(33.3%) 1(33.3%)
5... e6 665 235(35.3%) 229(34.4%) 201(30.2%)
5... g6 240 103(42.9%) 55(22.9%) 82(34.2%)
[/B]
[/CODE]

If we want to be agressive then 5... e6
if we want to be conservative the 5... d6
if we want something in the middle 5... Qxb6
5... a5 and 5... Bb7 are more on the theoritical side and I'm willing to concede to any of the first three I mentioned above. If you have a PGN reader I could send you the file it's 1.8 megs uncompressed for this line.

davar55 · 2015-02-05, 20:54

My initial thought then is we can reduce to Brian's ..d6 suggestion or ..Qxb6.

I originally asked, if we go with ..Qxb6, what would they do to take advantage of
our traditionally premature foray with the Queen. But I don't see how they can
take advantage of this. To heck with this particular principle, in this position I
think we should grab the pawn, THEN develop the minors and the Kingside
fianchetto. The Q at b6 is still attacking part of the center, is decently safely
positioned, as far as I can see. The reason for starting the minor pieces first
is that too often a premature queen move is wasted when the Queen can then
be attacked a few times and forced to just move around. I think our gambit has
already paid off and we gain both position and points via ..Qxb6.

Brian-E · 2015-02-05, 21:13

5...Qxb6 would be fine by me too. I agree with what davar55 writes above, and I note that it's one of the moves WMHalsdorf would be willing to play.

WMHalsdorf · 2015-02-05, 21:26

Sent our move 5...Qxb6 giving them little more than extra day to think.

davar55 · 2015-02-05, 21:37

[QUOTE=WMHalsdorf;394584]Sent our move 5...Qxb6 giving them little more than extra day to think.[/QUOTE]

Our turn-around time is much smaller than theirs.
Perhaps we can suggest a timebank starting at
move 8?

Brian-E · 2015-02-05, 22:43

[QUOTE=davar55;394589]Our turn-around time is much smaller than theirs.
Perhaps we can suggest a timebank starting at
move 8?[/QUOTE]
We had that discussion in the public thread before the game started. Two people objected to the idea. Sorry.

davar55 · 2015-02-06, 00:00

[QUOTE=Brian-E;394600]We had that discussion in the public thread before the game started. Two people objected to the idea. Sorry.[/QUOTE]

OK, I won't bring it up again.

davar55 · 2015-02-06, 13:30

Getting on to move 6: what are their three or four most likely moves?

My first thought is 6. e4. Would we pick off the pawn with ..Nxe4, or would that be rash?

Brian-E · 2015-02-06, 14:00

[QUOTE=davar55;394691]Getting on to move 6: what are their three or four most likely moves?

My first thought is 6. e4. Would we pick off the pawn with ..Nxe4, or would that be rash?[/QUOTE]
If they played 6.e4 I would certainly advocate taking it off with 6...Nxe4. It's a vitally important centre pawn for them, needed for support of their advanced d pawn as well as central control, and our loss of time in capturing it would be less important, I think. We have not moved our d pawn, so we don't have to watch out for Qa4+ winning the knight. I would go so far as to suggest that 6.e4 is a losing move for White.

However, they probably do want to play e4. Therefore the move 6.Nc3 preparing it seems a likely one to me.

2015-02-04, 11:52	#1
Brian-E "Brian" Jul 2007 The Netherlands 2×11×149 Posts	Move 5 Well, you'd almost think they had some sort of telepathic skills, wouldn't you? They've played the fairly rare move 5.b6 which is precisely what was causing a difference of opinion, at least between WMHalsdorf and me. To start the discussion, perhaps it's helpful to list all reasonable moves we could make at this point. I'm getting help here (legitimate for a correspondence game!) from [URL]http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html[/URL] which is a great site for listing openings. I simply played the 5 moves of our game on the board at that site and it came up with the following: [CODE]5...d6 498 games 5...e6 377 games 5...Qxb6 368 games 5...g6 124 games 5...a5 84 games 5...Bb7 31 games 5...e5 1 game [/CODE]And here's davar55's latest question from the other thread: [QUOTE=davar55;394314]I'm not married to (b6)..a5, just thought it looked playable. If we delay ..Qxb6 by playing ..d6 or ..e6 instead, what follows?[/QUOTE] The same site is useful for answering that. White has various continuations after either move. I would say that our strategy with 5...e6 is an immediate attack on their advanced centre pawn. 5...d6 is a slightly more conservative move preparing ...Nbd7 and the fianchetto of the f8 bishop. 5...Qxb6 gets on with taking the pawn back and places the queen on an offensive square, but it is less good from a general opening principles consideration (not developing minor pieces, not directly contesting the centre). 5...a5 has been discussed before in the other threads. As WMH pointed out, it prepares ...Ba6 which is the move we wanted to play if they had accepted the gambit. What are people's current preferences?

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2015-02-04, 19:02	#2
WMHalsdorf Feb 2005 Bristol, CT 201₁₆ Posts	i\I"m going to assume that they also have access to same information. I'm not currently home as I write this message and don't have full access to my chess materials. Will have to dig up all the games I have involving this line. Oddly I have more information on this openning in electonic form than I do anyother openning which is one of the reason I decided to go with it over any other. I'll digc deeper and post various lines.

2015-02-05, 19:10	#3
WMHalsdorf Feb 2005 Bristol, CT 3³×19 Posts	Did some stats on the games I have in my database. [CODE][B] 5... Bb7 70 34(48.6%) 10(14.3%) 26(37.1%) 5... Qxb6 876 371(42.4%) 209(23.9%) 296(33.8%) 5... a5 136 58(42.6%) 30(22.1%) 48(35.3%) 5... d6 951 375(39.4%) 249(26.2%) 327(34.4%) 5... e5 3 1(33.3%) 1(33.3%) 1(33.3%) 5... e6 665 235(35.3%) 229(34.4%) 201(30.2%) 5... g6 240 103(42.9%) 55(22.9%) 82(34.2%) [/B] [/CODE] If we want to be agressive then 5... e6 if we want to be conservative the 5... d6 if we want something in the middle 5... Qxb6 5... a5 and 5... Bb7 are more on the theoritical side and I'm willing to concede to any of the first three I mentioned above. If you have a PGN reader I could send you the file it's 1.8 megs uncompressed for this line.

2015-02-05, 20:54	#4
davar55 May 2004 New York City 5·7·11² Posts	My initial thought then is we can reduce to Brian's ..d6 suggestion or ..Qxb6. I originally asked, if we go with ..Qxb6, what would they do to take advantage of our traditionally premature foray with the Queen. But I don't see how they can take advantage of this. To heck with this particular principle, in this position I think we should grab the pawn, THEN develop the minors and the Kingside fianchetto. The Q at b6 is still attacking part of the center, is decently safely positioned, as far as I can see. The reason for starting the minor pieces first is that too often a premature queen move is wasted when the Queen can then be attacked a few times and forced to just move around. I think our gambit has already paid off and we gain both position and points via ..Qxb6.

2015-02-05, 21:13	#5
Brian-E "Brian" Jul 2007 The Netherlands 2×11×149 Posts	5...Qxb6 would be fine by me too. I agree with what davar55 writes above, and I note that it's one of the moves WMHalsdorf would be willing to play.

2015-02-05, 21:26	#6
WMHalsdorf Feb 2005 Bristol, CT 1000000001₂ Posts	Sent our move 5...Qxb6 giving them little more than extra day to think.

2015-02-05, 21:37	#7
davar55 May 2004 New York City 10213₈ Posts	[QUOTE=WMHalsdorf;394584]Sent our move 5...Qxb6 giving them little more than extra day to think.[/QUOTE] Our turn-around time is much smaller than theirs. Perhaps we can suggest a timebank starting at move 8?

2015-02-05, 22:43	#8
Brian-E "Brian" Jul 2007 The Netherlands 2×11×149 Posts	[QUOTE=davar55;394589]Our turn-around time is much smaller than theirs. Perhaps we can suggest a timebank starting at move 8?[/QUOTE] We had that discussion in the public thread before the game started. Two people objected to the idea. Sorry.

2015-02-06, 00:00	#9
davar55 May 2004 New York City 10213₈ Posts	[QUOTE=Brian-E;394600]We had that discussion in the public thread before the game started. Two people objected to the idea. Sorry.[/QUOTE] OK, I won't bring it up again.

2015-02-06, 13:30	#10
davar55 May 2004 New York City 1000010001011₂ Posts	Getting on to move 6: what are their three or four most likely moves? My first thought is 6. e4. Would we pick off the pawn with ..Nxe4, or would that be rash?

2015-02-06, 14:00	#11
Brian-E "Brian" Jul 2007 The Netherlands 110011001110₂ Posts	[QUOTE=davar55;394691]Getting on to move 6: what are their three or four most likely moves? My first thought is 6. e4. Would we pick off the pawn with ..Nxe4, or would that be rash?[/QUOTE] If they played 6.e4 I would certainly advocate taking it off with 6...Nxe4. It's a vitally important centre pawn for them, needed for support of their advanced d pawn as well as central control, and our loss of time in capturing it would be less important, I think. We have not moved our d pawn, so we don't have to watch out for Qa4+ winning the knight. I would go so far as to suggest that 6.e4 is a losing move for White. However, they probably do want to play e4. Therefore the move 6.Nc3 preparing it seems a likely one to me.