Dragon Main Line 9 0-0-0 d5!
or The Story of My Last Post...
How I found this position at home...
One year before the game I posted last we had played the same line for the first 14 moves. This was his pet line and I cannot speak for him but even if I was trying to learn a new line I'm pretty sure I would go into my Dragon if I was on board one at a serious tournament. Also, I had seen him play the Dragon in an earlier round so I was pretty sure he would play it.
After our game the year before I had shown this game to Shulman, he was not that familiar with the line but we went over it in some detail and we learned that this opening is about Black's a5 and e5 pawns, which are serious weaknesses and are easy targets. Basically Black has to try to create enough counterplay to provoke White to take on a weakness or otherwise compromise his positional advantage. So I knew this already, but I was not that sure of the exact lines, I knew to move 19 or so. But pretty much the ideas for counterplay have been tested and there is a consensus on the optimal development of forces and this is where it leads. 25.gxf6 attacks the e-pawn at the cost of the knight and doubled pawns, if there were a good answer to this move for Black one of the chess giants would have taken it up in the last 10 years, instead they are forced to find other moves. I did not use Fritz at all, and I didn't go past the moves that were already played and recommended by Golubev in Experts vs. the Sicilian and Rogozenko on his 2-volume CD on the Dragon. The Dragon is probably one of the hardest openings to learn, against Garingo I am looking at lines 15-20 moves deep but he deviates from this line on move 9 and the positions are very different.
This book Experts vs. the Sicilian suggests that this line (all the way to move 25) should be the main line of the Dragon (with 9 0-0-0, 9 Bc4 is different). This book is extremely good, it is a compilation of authors who play the various lines of the Sicilian. For instance Golubev has recently completed a book on the Dragon and has played it for years, and he is writing the article on the White side of the Dragon, it's interesting to see the lines he thinks are objectively good for White.
Here's some of the analysis I had. I probably looked at 30 games too just to get a feel for the position and the endgame.
How I found this position at home...
One year before the game I posted last we had played the same line for the first 14 moves. This was his pet line and I cannot speak for him but even if I was trying to learn a new line I'm pretty sure I would go into my Dragon if I was on board one at a serious tournament. Also, I had seen him play the Dragon in an earlier round so I was pretty sure he would play it.
After our game the year before I had shown this game to Shulman, he was not that familiar with the line but we went over it in some detail and we learned that this opening is about Black's a5 and e5 pawns, which are serious weaknesses and are easy targets. Basically Black has to try to create enough counterplay to provoke White to take on a weakness or otherwise compromise his positional advantage. So I knew this already, but I was not that sure of the exact lines, I knew to move 19 or so. But pretty much the ideas for counterplay have been tested and there is a consensus on the optimal development of forces and this is where it leads. 25.gxf6 attacks the e-pawn at the cost of the knight and doubled pawns, if there were a good answer to this move for Black one of the chess giants would have taken it up in the last 10 years, instead they are forced to find other moves. I did not use Fritz at all, and I didn't go past the moves that were already played and recommended by Golubev in Experts vs. the Sicilian and Rogozenko on his 2-volume CD on the Dragon. The Dragon is probably one of the hardest openings to learn, against Garingo I am looking at lines 15-20 moves deep but he deviates from this line on move 9 and the positions are very different.
This book Experts vs. the Sicilian suggests that this line (all the way to move 25) should be the main line of the Dragon (with 9 0-0-0, 9 Bc4 is different). This book is extremely good, it is a compilation of authors who play the various lines of the Sicilian. For instance Golubev has recently completed a book on the Dragon and has played it for years, and he is writing the article on the White side of the Dragon, it's interesting to see the lines he thinks are objectively good for White.
Here's some of the analysis I had. I probably looked at 30 games too just to get a feel for the position and the endgame.