Does Roman bust the ICS Scandinavian Reportoire?

I've just been flicking through Roman's dvd on the d6 Scandanavian and he starts off with a line he thinks gives White a big advantage in the ICS line 5.Nf3 c6 6.Ne5.

Roman's line is simply not covered at all in the ICS material which could be extremely annoying as I imagine a few potential opponents will be familiar with Roman's Lab series of dvd's and may well play this line.

It's Roman's Lab 68 that contains the 'bust' so worth looking at if you can, and are considering taking up the Scandanavian reportoire provided by ICS.

I'm not going to be playing it any time soon but for those of you who are learning it foreworned is forearmed.....

Roman does offer some analysis for Black as to how to correctly respond and I may add it all here when I have time if anyone wants it and can't get hold of RL 68.

What's the full line after Ne5?

Anand played Ne5 vs Tiviakov and the game was a draw!

How is the quality of Roman's dvds lately? Previously they have been horrible.

The full line is

1. e4 d5
2. exd5 Qxd5
3. Nc3 Qd6
4. d4 Nf6
5. Nf3 c6
6. Ne5 Nbd7
7. Nc4 Qc7
8. Qf3 Nb6
9. Bf4 Qd7

That's the ICS recommened line.

Here ICS considers the move 10. 0-0-0 and 10. Nxb6 axb6 11. Be5

But Roman's idea is 10. Nxb6 axb6 then instead of Be5 playing 11.0-0-0.

This exact line isn't featured in the ICS material however after 10. 0-0-0 ICS recommends for black the usual ...Qg4 trying for an exchange of queens.

Now however after the knight exchange white can gain an advantage by refusing the trade of queens and playing 11...Qg4 12. Qe3, then if black continues trying for the exchange going 12....Qe6 white can play 13. d5! which gives Black big problems as exchanging queens now leads to a bad endgame for black due to the doubled pawns.

Obviously I can't say whether they are correct or not but if you can get hold of the RL 68 then I'd say its worth checking out so you have a defense prepared against it just in case.

I will check it out and try to find some games because a quick search against Mega 2009 doesn't produce any games after 9...Qd7 for some reason. I guess Roman found a novelty - it's never been played!

Seriously, I'm far from the expert but after 0-0-0, White castled long and black has open file - a-file with rook on it and can push all the pawns on the queenside right towards the white king. With opposite side castling it's all about attacking first and it looks like Black has better prospects for attacking.

Yes it is a novelty, its part of his latest dvd series using Rybka to overturn established theoretical lines.

The novely begins with Nxb6 axb6 0-0-0.

Then if Qg4 Q e3, Qe6 d5! and the resulting endgame is bad for black.

Obviously he can explain it better than I can and I don't even play the opening so can't comment other than to say it's probably worth looking at the dvd if you can just to be prepared against any opponent who may try that line.

Thanks for the heads up. I just don't like the ICS lines. They say to exchange queens, and then give no plans after that. Well, in some ways that's good it convinced me to stick with the Caro Kann. Silly to give up an opening just because I lost some games where I was actually doing well out of the opening but subsequently blew it!!!

Gosh I am so irrational sometimes.

Blue Devil Knight wrote:Thanks for the heads up. I just don't like the ICS lines. They say to exchange queens, and then give no plans after that. Well, in some ways that's good it convinced me to stick with the Caro Kann. Silly to give up an opening just because I lost some games where I was actually doing well out of the opening but subsequently blew it!!!

Gosh I am so irrational sometimes.

It's obvious that it's better to play an opening that you are more familiar with and understand the ideas well even if you don't have good results.

Houska's book on Caro-Kann is excellent! I measure all other opening books to her book and unfortunately nothing comes close! If this whole Scandinavian thing is not going to work out well for me I might study Caro-Kann. At least with her book I will understand everything pretty well! Also, there is another great book on Caro-Kann by Peter Wells that got excellent reviews.

For Scandinavian there is not much material! I've got Michael Melts' book (1st edition) and it's not that great! Just a database dump. Nothing like Houska's book! There is a second edition now which is supposed to be more detailed with more explanations according to people at chesspub.com. I'm thinking of getting it soon.

Melts is awful (at least first ed).

The other opening book that is at least as good as Houskas is Vigus' book on the Slav. It is amazing. They work well together, as you basically play the same moves (indeed in response to 1 d4 you can play ...c6 and it may often transpose into the Caro, though more often the Slav).

Obviously, Slav and Caro-Kann complement each other and players play both. They pawn structure is similar and if you are very familiar with one you could learn the other system quickly.

I've just got ICS material for Semi-Slav for month 6 and it looks very good. So, it makes it even more tempting to take a look at Caro-Kann.

Good to hear the semi-slav stuff is good. I play the Slav, but there are some lines of the Slav where it is best to play e6 early so the ICS material will likely transpose.

I'm on chess vacation for about another two weeks, but will get back into things then.