• Re: Two Knights/Max Lange Question?

    From Richard Bean@21:1/5 to RICHARD BEAN on Wed Jan 18 13:49:06 2023
    On Thursday, 2 November 2000 at 16:13:00 UTC+11, RICHARD BEAN wrote:
    Amarande <ava...@concentric.net> wrote:
    (After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.0-0 Nxe4 6.Re1 d5 7.Nc3
    dxc3 8.Bxd5 f5 9.Ng5 cxb2...)
    : 10. Bxb2 is simplest. Black now has no good guard against 11. Nf7. A
    10. Bxb2? Qxg5 just wins.
    The idea of 9. Ng5 is probably one or more of:
    - clear the d1-h5 diagonal for the WQ so it can go to f3 or h5
    - play f3, pinning the knight against the king (not possible here)
    - swap off the knight on e4 - one less piece between the WR and BK
    So I would think that since
    (a) 10. Bxb2? Qxg5
    (b) 10. Qh5+? g6 and there's no followup
    (c) 10. Bxe4? fxe4 and no pin can recover the piece
    that 10. Nxe4 is forced, then black must play 10...fxe4 because
    of the 11.Nf6# mate threat. Then White plays 11. Rxe4 and after
    either ...Ne7 or ...Be7, 11. Bxb2.
    It's not immediately apparent how White wins but it's a pretty great attacking position for White. If you set up the position after each of
    ...Ne7 and ...Be7 (a computer chess expert, Hans Berliner, recommends
    doing this sort of thing in difficult positions) a computer will find its score dropping continually.

    Resurrecting my 22 year old thread with Stockfish, I see this was rubbish in one variation.

    1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 5.O-O Nxe4 6.Re1 d5 7.Nc3 dxc3 8.Bxd5 f5?
    ( 8...Be6 9.Bxe4 Qxd1 10.Rxd1 cxb2 11.Bxb2 f6 )
    9.Ng5 cxb2 10.Nxe4 fxe4 11.Rxe4+ Be7
    ( 11...Ne7? 12.Bxb2 Bf5 13.Qf3 c6)
    12.Bxb2 Bf5 13.Re2 Qd7 14.Bxc6 bxc6 15.Ba3 O-O-O 16.Qxd7+ Rxd7 17.Rxe7 Rhd8 18.Rxd7 Rxd7 19.Bc5 a5

    This position is heading towards a draw with opposite coloured bishops.

    The book was right that 8... f5 is worse than 8... Be6, but 7. Bxd5 which is the main line is also better than this 7. Nc3 side line.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)