TL Chess Match 4 - Page 39

Incidentally, regardless of my vote, I don't actually think that castling would have been too passive; it's an entirely viable position, with less traps and pitfalls than d4 (but the ones that exist are really subtle and dangerous) and doesn't really cost a tempo. What you did was convince me that d4 was not unsound. Once you did that, I became curious.

Continuing with the plan

pressure dat knight

It's not that I'm convinced that this is a better move than e5, but it seems to me that it's a possibility that's worth considering, so I'm voting for it before 6. e5 runs away with the vote.

6. e5 keeps the position complicated while retaining our initiative, and, at least temporarily, our space advantage in the center. On the other hand, though, such an early push of the e-pawn, before Black has committed either of the two pawns that can challenge it, and without the support of the f-pawn, can lead to Black's being able to trade off our advanced pawns down the line, dispelling a lot of our advantage there. This is a concern that Sandwhale has raised.

6. Bxc6 leads to simplification, possibly a lot of it. However, as far as I can tell, it too leaves us with a strong central position--and a stronger one in that we haven't committed either of our central pawns to an early advance. Meanwhile, it also saddles Black with the long-term disadvantage of doubled pawns. I think it's worth consideration.

Black's just taken our pawn, and assuming we don't want him to keep it, we need to take it back, optionally interpolating another move that Black will have to respond to before doing anything else, such as e5 or Bxc6.

The latter two moves are the only threats at our disposal right now, so if we don't want to go down a pawn, it seems that we have three obvious choices: 6. e5, 6. Bxc6, or the immediate 6. PxP.

The problem with 6. PxP, however, is that Black can gain time with 6... Bb4+ and then play 7... Nxe4, which doesn't look very comfortable for us. The short story is: we won't actually lose a pawn there, but Black looks to have all the fun out of that position. If you're interested in the details of this, they can be found back on page 34, in the early discussion of 5. d4.

6. e5 and 6. Bxc6 each prevent ...Nxe4: 6. e5 by moving the pawn out of the way (with tempo), and 6. Bxc6 by removing a defender of the Bishop, allowing us to gain time by blocking the check of 7. ...Bb4with 8. Bd2, threatening Black's Bishop. If he exchanges Bishops, we retake with the b1 Knight, defending e4. If he plays 8... Qe2, we can again take the pressure off us with 9. BxB QxB+ 10. Qd2.