Expert: Len Molden - 3/21/2011

Question
After 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Na4 Ashot Nadanian recommends 5...Bg7. What is wrong with 5...Bf5 or 5...f5, preventing 6.e4?

Answer
Hi Donald,

The problem with both of these moves is the weaknesses it creates on the white squares:

5...Bf5 6.Nc5 Bc8 (b6 is not good because of e4) 7.e4 Nf6 8.e5 Nd5 9.Bc4 b6 10.Qf3 e6 11.Ne4

5...f5 6.e3 (Nb6 is not good because of 7.N:b6 followed by Bc4 or even just 7.Nc5) Qd6 7.Bd2 Nc6 8.Nf3 Bd7 9.Bb5 O-O-O 10.O-O a6 11.Bc4

...and White is better in both lines.

One question to ask yourself in an opening like this where obvious moves aren't being played by Grandmasters, is what has changed based on the last move?  In both cases Black does prevent an immediate e4, but at what cost?  

The Bishop move weakens b7 and allows the Knight to get back into the game in a forceful way.  Meanwhile, f5 allows a move like e3 which will allow the Bishop to come to c4 attacking the d5 Knight, and there's no good way to prevent this.

Regards,

Len