Fashion and Blunders

It's been over five years ago I first looked at the ICS opening program, and specifically the Dutch 2.Nc3 lines. Today I did a quick look at the lines for 2016 and found 36 games between players 2300 and above which included one game between top of the elo lists W. So vs M. Carlsen.

Lines and recommendations for both the White and Black Repertoire are clearly still relevant. Although it is reckless to comment without further analysis I will say that the results after the recommended 4.Bxf6 are an astounding 60% for this very small game sample.

Also still in fashion are blunders. When I ran a blunder check with Fritz 15 (Komodo 10.1) of this mini database 17 of the 36 games were flagged with serious blunders. It's nice to know that blunders abound below the likes of Carlsen, So, Aronian, Giri, and Kamsky (whose games were not flagged) and maybe we mortals can score some upsets .

So, even though ICS has recommended the "Unusual White Second Moves" line for the Dutch it is getting some attention at the elite levels recently and the recommendations are standing the test of time.