indiana-jay
♡ 291 ( +1 | -1 ) Sicilian Najdorf (B90) I wonder if any of you are Najdorf experts. In a game between me (1550) against Cyrano (2990) on board #805498, Black is to make his 20th move.
I’ve used the game above to analyze and learn this defense more deeply. In several other games I also use this defense to learn it in different manner (With this game I make more analysis and less move, with other games I made more moves and less analysis).
Right or wrong, I found a disturbing finding in this position, which may apply to many different but similar positions in this variant (see also: Kasparov)
Here the best move for Black is Ne5! with the main idea to post the Knight on c4. This maneuver favors Black, and White only has one answer to take away that advantage from Black, and it is Bd4! Black then left with only one answer to recover himself, and it is Nc6! which lead to a draw due to move repetition.
Here again if Black is to castle to the King-side and allow White to attack, with correct attack and a correct defense Black will fail to defense himself.
If Black with Rc8?! tries to bring another backup for him to attack White’s King, with correct (but easy) defense from White, Black really has no chance, and from my games in the past I found that the Rook is rarely needed on the c-file.
Other Black initiatives on the King-side is like inviting a thief to a back door, while other initiatives in the Queen-side is not possible due to the fact that b6 square is very critical.
Because Cyrano is a lot stronger than I am, of course he wouldn’t have to answer Nc6 with Bd4. But I wonder how in an at least master level matches (of roughly equal strength), any side would have any reason to take the risk of not accepting the Knight-Bishop move repetition.
Well, of course this is just my analysis. But I found that the boring part of modern chess games is to take the “difficult” move in order to avoid draws or playing a well known positions. I believe that in the future where chess players will be better informed with knowledge, the standard world tournament time control will be less than the current standard. This is the only way to separate strong players from weak players, and to take away “fortunes” from chess games. (Well I didn’t mean that Kramnik is weaker than kasparov, but… )