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I found out about the line 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.g3 0-0 5.Bg2 d6 6.0-0 Nc6 7.Nc3 e5 8.d5 Nb8! the hard way, IM James Jackson wheeled it out against me at a boutique GM tournament in Hull, just at the start of my return to competitive chess. I thought I played good moves but he equalized with ridiculous ease, and this was when I started to realize that some new fangled and promising variations had appeared in the time I was away. In this month's update I'll take a closer look at how White might challenge this move, firstly with 9.c5!? and secondly with 8.dxe5.

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King's Indian Fianchetto, Uhlmann Variation with 8.d5 Nb8 [E62]

Reaching the position after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.g3 0-0 5.Bg2 d6 6.0-0 Nc6 7.Nc3 e5 8.d5 Nb8 is not a new thing, in fact Sir George Thomas had it back in 1923.

Yet he and other players often got there via 7.d5 Nb8!? 8.Nc3 e5, when White also has the option of 9.dxe6. Imre Koenig, on the other hand, appears to be the first to have played it via the 7.Nc3 e5 8.d5 Nb8 move order, and he did so in 1925.

Moving the knight back to b8 makes a lot of sense from a strategic point of view, the knight has an ideal square on c5 which is a long away if Black had played 8...Ne7. Moving the knight back to b8 costs Black two tempi, but the position is closed so this may not matter that much.

How should White continue? Well he will often want to open the c-file in such positions, so what about playing 9.c5 immediately?

Black's most frequent response has been 9...Na6 after which 10.cxd6 cxd6 produces a critical position for the whole line:

White then has three possibilities that I think are interesting, namely 11.Nd2 (Aravindh, C - Salem, A), 11.a4 (Gledura, B - Theodorou, N) and 11.h3 (Nikolic, P - Stojanovic, D).

Besides 9...Na6 Black can also play 9...Nbd7 (Repka, C - Kulaots, K) and 9...Ne8 (Baryshpolets, A - Theodorou, N), but in neither case do his problems disappear.


King's Indian Fianchetto, Uhlmann Variation with 8.dxe5 [E62]

The apparent success of 8.d5 Nb8 has helped foster the search for alternative approaches to 8.d5. Of these it seems that 8.dxe5 has been the most poisonous, White gaining a slight initiative in a position in which he is rather safe:

Black's traditional response has been 8...dxe5, though this is under some pressure after 9.Bg5 Be6 10.Qc1 (Plat, V - Nevednichy, V):

A more trendy way for Black to proceed is via 8...Nxe5, but here 9.b3 has been creating some problems after 9...Nxf3+ 10.Bxf3:

and now 10...Bh3 (Nyzhnyk, I - Chen, R) or 10...Ne4 (Nabaty, T - Kovalev, V).

In conclusion there is no refutation of 8...Nb8, though after 9.c5 some problems need to be solved. If White plays 8.dxe5 the game proceeds along quieter lines in which White maintains a rather safe position and some slight pressure.



See you next month. Nigel

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