Forums

Italian Game: Knight Attack, Polerio, Bishop Check, Bogoljubov Variation

Sort:
WangSandy

Is it worthy for black to use the 2 pawns to get a better development?

In the opening explorer black has an significantly better win rate even they are 2 pawns down.

What do you think?

WangSandy

Also a quick poll on this comment:

Thumb up if you think this is worth for black, thumb down if you don't think so.

tygxc

@1

"Is it worthy for black to use the 2 pawns to get a better development?"
++ Yes. Black has the bishop's pair, white is vulnerable on the light squares. After the queen flees, white needs 5 moves to develop his pieces and black only 2. Black has gained 3 tempi.

WangSandy

ohk

PatrickDaly

In general, if the engine says "compensation for two pawns," IE it's zeros despite a martial disparity, that means that objectively, they probably have to give the material back. Humans are extraordinarily bad about timing this properly, even when we know this and are willing to give back the material. Most humans are also very bad at giving back the material to begin with.

I take black all day. I actually prepared some of these positions once, anti-fried liver. I recognize the Qf3 thing, I think I actually prepared that precise position. I lost it once to a cheater, and quit playing it because of that game, but otherwise scored well.

PatrickDaly

If the engine evaluation doesn't match the material count, the engine really likes the side that's down material, as it's not as lackadaisical about saying "compensation"

PatrickDaly

It was in my files so I guess this is the line I recommend grin.png

wpostma

Black has still his Bishop-pair! Dump up for black!

CollatzSolution
PatrickDaly wrote:

It was in my files so I guess this is the line I recommend

what on earth is that

PatrickDaly
CollatzSolution wrote:
PatrickDaly wrote:

It was in my files so I guess this is the line I recommend

what on earth is that

SCID is the name of the program. Basically a free version of chessbase. I put a couple days into working out some lines in this opening, and the file is the variations I came up with. It's not cleaned up or annotated so I wouldn't be willing to share the whole thing, but I wanted to be able to show "Hey look, I definitely approve of this, I've seen this exact position before!"

GreenBiscuit07

Personally, I do go for this line when they play Qf3. I think I have a pretty good win percentage with it, and regardless, it just produces (in my view) fun games where you're mercilessly attacking white.