A London Counter

Introduction

The London System (d4/Nf3/Bf4) is well known to be a very solid system for White, and at the same time, quite flexible. It offers good attacking chances for White in the middlegame, due to his very active pieces (Bf4/Bd3/Ne5).

So it was intriguing for me, when reading the 'Chennai Olympiad' issue of the New In Chess Magazine, to see a different opinion to mine on a line of the London System.

How The Game Went

The game in question is Caruana-Abdusattorov, which went as follows:

https://lichess.org/study/n0WXv5ON/3nLBiGj3

When watching this game live, I assumed that, despite the favorable result, Abdusattorov had been caught out in the opening (perhaps hoping to play the promising pawn sacrifice 7.c3 e6 8.Qb3 Bd6!, as I'd recommended to my members of The Chess Improvement System back in 2020).

However, 9...Bd3 may well be a strong practical weapon for Black, as not only did Caruana overplay his hand with 11.Qf3?! (after which Black is already better), but in the Lichess Explorer, Black is scoring 5 wins, 2 draws, and only 2 losses at the 2500+ level.

Looking Beyond The Result

Nonetheless, I didn't really consider adding this line to my repertoire, as the engine prefers White after the obvious 11.Ndxc4 Bxc4 12.Nxc4 Bb4 13.Bd2 Bxd2 14.Qxd2 Qc7 15.Ne5 0-0. But is it really that simple?

Abdusattorov gives 16.Rc1 Ne4 17.Qe3 Qa5 18.Ke2 Nf6 19.Nxc6 bxc6 20.Bxc6 bxc6 21.b3 Rfd8 in his notes to his win vs. Caruana in the New In Chess Magazine, stating that 'Black has sufficient compensation for the pawn'.

https://lichess.org/study/gSp2TdQ6

The Natural Question

But I wondered to myself, what if White instead plays 16.Bxc6 bxc6 17.Rc1, so that ...Ne4 is no longer effective (due to Qc2)?

This leads to an interesting exercise, and I'm curious to see if you can find a way for Black to maintain the balance here. (At a low depth, the engine thinks White is just better due to the weakness on c6).

https://lichess.org/study/WBxKs1pO

The First Answer

There are technically two ways for Black to equalize, though both of them have a similar idea.

The first idea is 17...Qd6, with the idea of sacrificing a pawn with 18.Rxc6 Qd5 followed by ...Nd7, exploiting the loose position of White's pieces. For instance, after 19.0-0 Nd7 20.Nxd7 Qxc6 21.Nxf8 Rxf8 22.b3 Rc8, Black has enough compensation for the pawn, due to his control of the open c-file and the weak White pawns on d4 and b3. All this even happened in a Lichess game between two IMs, which Black won:

https://lichess.org/KRM7VI8w/black

As for the more critical 20.Qc3, defending the knight and rook, Black proceeds with 20...Nxe5 21.dxe5 Rab8, when after the logical 22.Rc1, Black can choose between regaining the pawn with 22...Qa2, or playing more steadily with 22...Rb3 23.Qc2 g6. From here, Black will play ...Rfb8 and regain the b2 or e5 pawn for a decent game, thanks to his piece activity.

https://lichess.org/study/WpkJvIae/T2cy9Tmx

By the way, White is not forced to play 18.Rxc6, but 18.0-0 Rfc8 would lead us to the second answer...

The Second Answer

An even simpler answer is to play 17...Rfc8!, again offering a pawn, but this time developing a piece in the process.

If White plays 18.Rxc6, winning a pawn, Black gets good compensation after 18...Qb7 19.Rxc8 Rxc8 20.0-0 Ne4 (an important move to disrupt White's coordination) 21.Qd3 Nd6 22.b3 Qd5 23.Rd1 Rb8 24.Nc4 Nf5, and although White is a clear pawn ahead, his pieces are too passive to make good use of it. Such variations are quite typical of the 'engine' era of chess, where piece activity is more highly valued.

https://lichess.org/study/kOPIQKVg/okHgWDVw

Finally, what if White ignores the pawn and develops wth 18.0-0? Well, then we play 18...Qd6, when the IQP on d4 and the backward b2-pawn even out the isolated pawns on c6 and a7. (If White's pawn was on a2, he may well be slightly better). Black not only has the option to liquidate the weaknesses with ...c5, but can also trade off the pressuring knight with ...Nd7, or occupy the outpost with ...Nd5, potentially heading to b4 to cover the c6-pawn, or intending something like ...Rab8 and ...Ne7-f5 to eye White's weaknesses in turn.

Conclusion

As you can see, modern chess is now very concrete, where opening choices at the top level are less focused on stylistic factors, and more on 'whether the engine says it works'. Although we can conclude that 7.Bb5 doesn't succeed in obtaining an opening advantage for White (because of the 17...Rfc8!/17...Qd6 pawn sacrifice), I'd still be pretty happy playing such positions as White, since White is up a pawn and can try to grind out a win for a long time without taking any risk.

There are a lot of ways for Black to equalize out of the opening, and it's ultimately up to you which one you want to go for. There's certainly merit to a line like this one with 6...Bf5, where the engine initially overestimates White's position, as it's a lot more likely to surprise a strong opponent than just following the engine's first line. And if White sticks to normal play with 7.c3, Black will be very happy to fight for the initiative with 7...e6 8.Qb3 Bd6!

See you in the next post!

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