In the Gunderam defense, black may surprise the attacker after 1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.f3 exf3 5.Nxf3 Bf5 6.Ne5 c6 7.g4 and now, insteading of retreating to g6, black plays the anti-positional move 7...Be6 (diagram)
In my book "Attack with the Blackmar Diemer", I had suggested 8.Bc4, but this seems not optimal now, as black can get rid of his badly placed bishop and free his game after 8...Bxc4 9.Nxc4, eg 9...b5 10.Ne5 b4 11.Na4 and white's position resembles that of a complete beginner.
But what are the alternatives ? Let's look at 8.g5. Black has two reasonable replies : 8...Nd5 and 8...Nfd7.
a/ 8...Nd5 9.Ne4 (diagram)
Doesn't look good for white, does it ? Black has simple killer moves, such as Nd7 or g6 to develop quickly
b/ 8...Nfd7 9.Nd3 (diagram)
A strange position occurs. It looks like white's game is that of a complete beginner, with black also not doing very well... One thing is for sure - black has made less committing moves than white ! Na6 and g6 seem once again simple development moves that give black the advantage.
So dear BDG friends, how do you assess this line ? Scheerer had called 7...Be6 the main line, and his analysis confirmed that the lines are "quite solid for black, and it is difficult to find a clear way for the advantage for White here.". I would go even further and use the "R" word !
Guido, I really appreciate your hard work in critical variations! Yes, this is a very tough line. On the other hand, Black will rarely play it. I have played 5.Nxf3 about 2500 times, seen 5...Bf5 about 250 times and 7...Be6 only once. I lost to Nico Vandenbroucke in 1997. The past two months I have played 5.Nxf3 35 times and saw 5....Bf5 once: 6.Ne5 e6 7.g4 Be4. I think I did a blogpost about it. Best wishes, Tim Sawyer
ReplyDeleteHey Guido, Tim,
ReplyDeleteI'm an amateur-ish player who's been cooking my own engine lines in the BDG, and I've managed to beat some titled players with this and some other gambits. Just want to say, your blogs have really helped me out, growing as a chess player.
Against the 6.c6 Gunderam, I've been playing 7.Bc4, encouraging Black to transpose into a Ziegler Defense type of position. From there, there are a couple different move orders but 7...e6 8.Bg5 Nbd7 9.Qe2 as one example and I've looked at the resulting lines pretty heavily with Stockfish 5 and it seems like White is fine in this line (which I believe is Black's strongest), and has good practical tries at a win.
ex:
http://www.cbs.chess.com/echess/game?id=101909327
The nice thing about this is that it answers both the Gunderam and Ziegler defenses. So it minimizes theory on White's end. I submit this for your consideration. I believe you have looked at this line before, as a sort of offshoot of Lev Gutman's Ziegler line for when Black plays a pesky Nbd7 before e6.