This year's European Chess Championships, held in Croatia, were very interesting to those of us that are interested in the Fantasy Variation of the Caro-Kann. That is a very boring first sentence of a blog post, but since humor and the Caro-Kann may never go well together I decided to stick with it. There is much more serious stuff to come so this may be a great moment to hit "back" on your browser, but on the other hand... why not stick around and enjoy 1.e4 - c6, 2.d4 - d5, 3. f3 - Qb6....!
During the tournament, from time to time, I browsed the games on the internet hoping to stumble upon some interesting opening ideas or spectacular games. After a number of rounds I noticed that white players were employing the Fantasy or Tartakower variation of the Caro-Kann more often than I was used to in "serious" chess, and actually with a lot of success! After 7 games with the Fantasy Variation, the score was 6-1 in favour of white - and although in later rounds black players were able to keep the score above 50%, in the end white had the much better statistics. The Fantasy variation is back on the radar and the Caro-Kann enthusiast may have to deal with it. Surprisingly, 3... Qb6 was the move that yielded the best result for black in Rijeka. In the Chess.com database, this is black's choice in only 11 out of 743 games. And when turning to the bookshelf, I only found material on the alternative moves...
3... e6 is recommended for being solid, and is mentioned as the logical move in "Grandmaster Secrets, The Caro-Kann" by Peter Wells - white's development is hampered by the f3 pawn and black is supposed to have a relatively easy game, aiming for c5 or e5 pawn breaks throughout the game.
Another move is 3... g6, and there are some useful ideas in Joe Gallagher's "Starting out, the Caro-Kann". Both in the e6 and g6 section he mentions the move Qb6, but then mostly as posing white some problems after the dark-squared Bishop leaves c1. But again, no mention of 3... Qb6.
Today a club-mate showed me Karpov's "Advance Variation and Gambit system" and it had 1 paragraph on 3...Qb6, featuring a game by Maia Chiburdanidze (http://www.chess.com/games/view.html?id=1241855) claiming that only the future could tell if moves like 3... Qb6 would have any added value.
Jovanka Houska in her book "Play the Caro-Kann" only recommends black to play 3... e5, so no background on 3... Qb6. And it was quite disturbing to me that the book I (still) consider my CK-bible could not help me out here! Also, 3... e5 was never played by any grandmaster in this tournament so after consulting the bookshelf I was on my own to figure out why strong GM's decide to ignore the advise I value so much and go for an obscure move like Qb6...
After browsing all the games I could find, I think I like the move. It seems that 3... Qb6 allows you to play e5 withouy as much risk as 3... e5 at once.
After 3... Qb6 white has two main continuations...
The first one is the old main line (if there is a main line already - at least you can find some games in the database of chess.com!) 4. Nc3 logical to put pressure on d5, and in those cases we are told by CK instinct to take on e4 so... 4... dxe4 is the common follow up. After this move I found that 5. Nxe4 was played most often (probably since 5. fxe4 - e5, 6. Nf3 (dxe5 gives white a useless double isolated pawn) - exd4, 7, Nxd4 - Nd7 gives black a solid position and ideas against the isolated pawn e4). The typical CK follow up is 5... Bf5, after which play usually continues 6. c3 - Nd7, 7. Bd3
From here I found two main continuations. The first is the simple 7... e6, 8. Ne2 - Nf6 with a structure that is familiar, at least from black's perspective, and the more aggressive, and to me more appealing 7... e5!, 8. Ne2 - exd4, 9. cxd4 - Bb4+.
I like this position for black and below you will find an enjoyable game, played during the European Championships between Grandmasters Artyom Timofeev and Baadur Jobava. The latter was the CK hero of the tournament and this was the first time he was faced with the Fantasy Variation in this European Championship...
During the European Championship, this was the last game that featured 4. Nc3. Grandmasters seem to do their homework, and in the penultimate round, on two boards, the move 4. a4 was played in this variation. This is also the move the electronic brain seems to like best. It chases back the black Queen, and denies black room to play.
So this is the second line, 4. a4. After this move I found a number of games with 4... e6 but that seems to be chickening out, back to the approved solid system after e6 on the third move. During the EU Championships, two variations were tried by black, 4... dxe4 and 4... e5...
Let's take a quick look at what may be the lesser choice of the two, 4... dxe4. White has a choice of captures here. 5. fxe4 brings him nowhere after 5... e5!, 6. Nf3 (6. dxe5 - Le6 seems good for black, white's extra pawn is not worth much) - 6.... exd4, 7. Qxd4 with a very level position. So the obvious and consistent move would be 5. a5! - Qc7, 6. fxe4 - e5!, 7. Nf3 and from this position, one game was played with 7... exd4 in Nabaty - Erdos, giving white a lot of play after 8. Bc4, leading to an early draw, and the following game of the same round featuring 7... Bg4! and 8. Bc4 - Nf6, 9. 0-0 leading to a pretty CK victory. Please note that 9. dxe5 - Bxf3, 10. Qxf3 - Qxe5, 11. Nc3 - Bb4 seems okay for black. Here is that game for your viewing pleasure.
In the last round of the tournament, Baadur Jobava, leading the tournament decided to go for the move 4... e5 in this position. Unfortunately for him, he was playing against Ian Nepomniachtchi, after a rest day, who was well prepared for this variation. After 4... e5, 5. exd5 - Qxd4, 6. Qxd4 - exd4 only leads to equality, so Ian went for 5. dxe5 - dxe4, 6. a5 - Qc7. Here 7. Nc3 - Qxe5, 8. fxe4 - Bb4 looks good for black, and 7. fxe4 - Nd7! even looks better for black - he has 2 silly isolated e-pawns to play against. So white went 7. f4!? and here the computer seems to like black a little better after 7... Nh6. After the game move 8. Nc3 black should maybe have played 8... Bf5 which would have given him a good game after for instance 9. Nge2 - Nd7, 10. Ng3 - 0-0-0 and he is okay - see new-in-chess magazine 2010#3 for the game, annotated by Ian Nepomniachtchi. In the game at hand however, Jobava chose to play 8. Bb4 followed by 9. Bd2 and e3?! and eventually lost. Below you will find the game that decided the European Championships of 2010 with an opening that gave me too much to type about!
To me Baadur Jobava, proud defender of the black side of the Caro-Kann and the sole leader when entering the final round, was the hero of the tournament. It is a shame he lost this last game - just one bridge too far!
(if you know about interesting reading on this variation, please let me know!)