The Eleventh Commandment

Yesterday I met for a short chess session with Gjon Feinstein, Mike Splane, and Eric Montany. Mike showed us a game he played at the Kolty Chess Club last week that features a new variation he is exploring in the French. He played it against an expert named Lev (I don’t remember the last name, I’m sure Mike will fill us in) and won in very nice fashion.

I hope that it’s okay with Mike to show what he’s thinking about these days… It’s not as if we’re grandmasters who have to keep our preparation super-secret. And no one reads this blog, right? So here we go.

Mike says that everybody at the Kolty Chess Club plays the French as Black, 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5, and he’s been playing 3. Nd2 for a long time but is getting tired of it. He decided to look for something new. He said something else that I thought was interesting. His personal record against the French is somewhere above 75 percent, with zero losses. If it was you or me, we’d say, “Why change anything? It looks as if what we’re doing is working.”

But Mike, as always, looked under the surface, and saw that even though he was winning a lot, it was not because he was getting good positions out of the opening. Even though his results were good, he thought he could do better.

So he started looking at an idea that looks crazy — not because it is so wild, but because it is so tame that nobody has ever taken it seriously before. That idea is the Exchange Variation with 3. ed ed 4. Be3?!

If you look it up on ChessBase you’ll find that this variation was played exclusively by (a) masters in the early 20th century, before opening theory had really developed, and (b) by “fish” (let’s say, players rated under 2000). This fourth move violates the spirit with which White is supposed to play the opening. He has the right to play for an initiative. The move 4. Be3 looks like a passive, defensive move that commits the bishop too early.

But Mike, as always, looked under the surface and saw that 4. Be3 is in some sense a way to transpose to the Black side of the Exchange French with a tempo up. That is, after 4. … Nf6 5. Bd3 Bd6 6. Nc3, we get a situation that usually arises with colors reversed: usually White deploys his bishop to d3 and Black replies … Nc6. Black will almost certainly play 6. … c6 and now White plays 7. h3!?, which was Bodnar’s idea.

Position after 7. h3. Black to move.

FEN: rnbqk2r/pp3ppp/2pb1n2/3p4/3P4/2NBB2P/PPP2PP1/R2QK1NR b KQkq – 0 7

White “wastes” yet another move on defense. What is the point behind this? Well, the idea is that White wants to bring his queen to f3, but if he does it right away he loses the queen: 7. Qf3?? Bg4. Oops!

In the stem game Golinka played 7. … Qc7?! (not the best) 8. Qf3 O-O? (this really castles into the attack) 9. g4 b5 (Black is trying to counter White’s kingside attack with a queenside attack, but there’s one problem — White hasn’t castled! Black’s “attack” has no target, and therefore only White has an attack.) 10. g5 Ne8 11. Nge2 g6 12. h4 Ng7 13. Ng3 (diagram).

Position after 13. Ng3. Black to move.

FEN: rnb2rk1/p1q2pnp/2pb2p1/1p1p2P1/3P3P/2NBBQN1/PPP2P2/R3K2R b KQ – 0 13

Mike’s comment on this position was something along the lines of: “Who wouldn’t want to play this for White every game?” All of White’s pieces are deployed actively, while Black’s queenside pieces are still undeveloped. White has a huge, risk-free attack on the kingside while Black has nothing on the queenside. White’s king can happily remain in the center until he needs to get his second rook into the attack. (I think he ended up playing Kd2 and castling by hand.)

So this is the development Mike decided he wanted to aim for. Knights on c3 and g3, bishops on d3 and e3, queen on f3, pawns on h3 and g4. To me, this variation shows all the hallmarks of Mike’s thinking, both pluses and minuses.

1. Deep willingness to question established wisdom. (4. Be3)
2. The variation is based not just on one move, but a whole developmental scheme that only reaches completion 9-10 moves later.
3. Tricks based on transposing to positions Black would normally play, only a tempo up.
4. Formation thinking — that is, deciding on move zero where your pieces are going to go.
5. Few if any direct tactical threats. (After all, you can’t predict on move zero where your opponent will place his pieces.)

For what it’s worth, I disagree with some of these principles. But it’s more important, I think, that Mike is consistent with his style of chess. And let’s face it, if he gets the position he wants, he’ll have an easy game and he won’t get into time trouble the way that I always do.

Anyway, when Mike tried this for the first time in chess club, his opponent was not quite as cooperative as in the above game. Starting from the position in the first diagram, Black played 7. … Qb6. A definite improvement over 7. … Qc7 because it makes a threat. This is one way to beat a formation player: try to make threats that he has to react to. Disrupt his scheme. White has lots of possible responses to 7. … Qb6, some of them possibly quite good. In the analysis session we liked 8. a3 or perhaps even 8. Rb1; if White isn’t going to castle, why not move the rook? Nevertheless, most of White’s ways of meeting the threat of … Qxb2 do involve some change of plans.

However, Mike found an ingenious way to keep the plan going. He played 8. Qe2! I have no idea whether this is objectively best, but it is definitely psychologically best because it stays on track for his plan. Of course Black can’t take on b2 because 8. … Qxb2?? 9. Bc1+ wins the queen. The game continued 8. … Be6 9. O-O-O O-O (I may have the order of Black’s 8th and 9th moves wrong) 10. Qf3. Ta-dah! White has gotten his queen to f3 just like he wanted.

Position after 10. Qf3. Black to move.

FEN: rn3rk1/pp3ppp/1qpbbn2/3p4/3P4/2NBBQ1P/PPP2PP1/2KR2NR b – – 0 10

Although I may have the move order wrong, this is the gist of what happened. It may seem as if White has lost a tempo by playing Qd1-e2-f3, but he is undoubtedly going to win the tempo back, because Black’s queen on b6 is in the way of the projected pawn storm with … b5, … b4, etc. We could in fact end up in a line similar to Bodnar-Golinka, only with one huge difference. White has committed himself to castling queenside, and therefore Black does have a target for his counterattack. This makes the position much more competitive, and in fact Mike won primarily because of mistakes by his opponent later in the game.

So, was the variation a success? I’ll let you be the judge. If you like the position that White got out of this variation, perhaps a more critical test of 4. Be3 would be 4. … Bf5. This is what Eric, who has himself played the French many times, suggested. Usually the Eleventh Commandment for White is “Thou shalt punish your opponent for playing … e6 by denying him any opportunity to activate his bad bishop.” With 4. Be3 White seems to be saying, “Sure, bring your bad bishop out, I don’t care.” Can White really afford to be so easy-going? I don’t know. After 4. … Bf5 White could suddenly abandon his mild-mannered façade and play 5. g4!? “Ha! Fooled you! Now you’re going to pay!” That, however, would not be Mike Splane chess (in my opinion).

Although we were not able to reach any definite conclusion, Mike deserves credit for shaking up our assumptions on how White should play against the French Defense, and as a result we learned something new. Who could ask for more?