SOS: Are you ready for Gunsberg's Surprise?

Anyone who enjoys chess openings should eagerly await every volume from the New In Chess publication "Secrets of Opening Surprises". The 9th, for example, contains a number of gems.

I'm going to look at one opening that might be of special interest to the scholastic crowd. It is a line in Polerio's Defense (5...Na5) in the Two Knights Defense where White's bishop retreats to d3 and blocks the d-pawn. It gets kicked around, but in the end Black still is missing a pawn. The author is the Dutch GM star Daniel Stellwagen. I present the key lines but urge you to read the whole thing.

The "SOS" series brings back forgotten ideas and presents new ones, with good analysis and a clean presentation, allowing authors to use their preferred formats (games, outline formats etc.) This allows authors to make their points clearly. Good research and computer checking makes it hard to seek out "flaws". So what? Just enjoy winning with the openings.

Note: in my Caxton Openings project I often assign names based on the SOS titles, but sometimes my research turns up a worthy analyst. This time I'm sticking with NIC. http://www.newinchess.com/