Jim West On Chess: Austrian Attack in Pirc Defense with 5...c5

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Austrian Attack in Pirc Defense with 5...c5

After the opening moves 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.f4 Bg7 5.Nf3 c5, the following line of analysis was shown by a grandmaster to a player at the Marshall Chess Club.

According to the player, the GM claims that it refutes the 5...c5 variation.

6.Bb5+ Bd7 7.e5 Ng4 8.e6 fxe6 9.Ng5 Bxb5 10.Nxb5 Qa5+ 11.c3 Qxb5 12.Nxe6 Qc4 13.Qxg4 cxd4 14.Nxg7+ Kf7 15.f5 Kxg7 16.Be3 Nc6 17.O-O-O.

The grandmaster's analysis ends here. Now the player gives the possible continuation 17...Qxa2 18.Bxd4+ Nxd4 19.Qxd4+ Kg8 20.Rde1 when Black is in dire straits.

Instead Shredder prefers 17...b5 18.Bxd4+ Nxd4 19.Qxd4+ Qxd4 20.Rxd4 gxf5 21.Rd5 a6 22.Re1 Kf6 23.Rf1 Raf8 24.Rfxf5+ Kd6 25.g4 Rhg8 26.h3 Kd7 with approximate equality.

"My study of chess was accompanied by a strong attraction to music, and it was probably thanks to this that from childhood I became accustomed to thinking of chess as an art, and have never regarded it as anything else, for all the science and sport involved in it. And, moreover, an art which in some ways is closer to music than it is customary to think. Perhaps chess and music are drawn together by laws of harmony and beauty which are difficult to formulate and difficult to grasp, or perhaps by something else." - Vasily Smyslov