Wednesday 8 December 2010

Caro-Kann Defence, Panov Attack, B14 - New Analysis

Opening books, it seems to me, very often fail to include analysis of moves which are natural and perfectly playable in standard openings.

A case in point is the Panov Attack in the Caro Kann where after the standard moves:- 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Qb3 the only move given is 6...Bg7, gambitting the pawn. This is fine if Black wants to go in for a speculative pawn sac, but it is by no means forced. There seems to me to be no reason why Black cannot simply play 6...e6, holding the centre, or even 6...dxc4, though I think 6...e6 is the better of the two.
I have done some extensive computer analysis of these lines and they seem OK for Black, though almost never played. Yet opening manuals, such as Jacob Aagaard's "Easy Guide to the Panov-Botvinnik Attack" (Cadogan 1998) fail to mention these moves entirely and take it as read that Black has to go in for the gambit line. Why this omission? Probably pressure of time and space, but it can create the misleading idea that they are unplayable and thus cause players of the White pieces to consume a lot of time and energy trying to refute it at the board if they are ever confronted by it - when in fact there is no "refutation" to be found.

No sooner had I posted these thoughts on the ECF Forum than it was pointed out to me that in fact Topalov had played 6...e6 against Gashimov at the recent Nanjing Pearl tournament, getting a draw in 40 odd moves. All the more strange then for the omission of any analysis of 6...e6 in any of the manuals.