Defeating the Petroff Defense

Check out this cool attack against the Petroff Defense!

Material is about even (in most games where I have two pawns for a knight I win) and white's position is clearly better.

Here's what happens if black isn't so careful.

EDIT: Feel free to post advice and/or constructive criticism.

This is NOT how you "defeat" the Petrov, and 4.Nxf7 is hardly "amazing". The Cochrane Gambit is a speculative sac that should lead to no real danger for black against correct play. Plus, after 5.Bc4+ black should reply with the freeing move 5...d5. After the main continuation 6.Bb3 Be6 7.e5 Ne4 8.d4 c5 9.Qf3+ Ke8, black has a very good game.

This opening is playable if white is well prepared and especially if it is a blitz game, but one thing is for sure: the Cochrane Gambit is not the best way to play against the Petrov and certainly does not "defeat" the Petrov with some sort of "amazing attack". Be careful with your wording.

Your amazing attack?  lol.  We're playing a Cochrane Gambit tournament right now...we didn't know you came up with it.

Personally I think 5. Nc3 is the most testing move. The idea is then to castle kingside and slowly prepare the advance of the e and f-pawns (these are the pawns white has for his knight sacrifice). Over the whole however the gambit is very dubious.

Bystanderz: Here's what happens after 5... d4

AfafBouardi: I did come up with it. I wasn't the first to do it, but I did do it without finding it in a book or something.

Dude, will you at least spend some time to do a little bit of serious work before posting stupid analysis like this one? Only idiots play 6...Nxd5. Anyone who has a little bit of chess skill would find that 6...Bd6 is the correct path. The line continues: 7.O-O Rf8 8.d4 Kg8 with a clear advantage for black.

Good work! Here's an opening trap I just came up with!

After 6... Bd6

Where's black's clear advantage now? The position is even (point out things that give black the upper hand if you disagree with me). Material is White: three pawns BLack: one knight. I would much rather have three pawns than one knight.

PS: I analyzed this a short while after posting my previous comment. Sorry about that.

PPS: Tricklev: Can we be a little more serious about this. Post your jokes after you've shown why this is definately bad for white.

Nc3 is fine, but delaying it does no harm and gives white more options. d4 is a move that needs to be played sooner or later if white wants to develop the c1 bishop. The problem with d3 is that it cuts off the c4 bishop from the kingside. It is crucial to be able to transfer this bishop to the kingside for defense because the bishop is virtually useless on the queenside as it bites on the d5 pawn and because black has the potential for a kingside attack. And by the way, in the final position you give, 5...Nxe4 6.dxe4 Bxe4 simply loses a pawn.

Okay, I understand that material is even and your personal preference for three pawns over a piece, but you should realize that even material does not mean an even game, and this does not have anything to do with anybody's preference.  In the continuation I gave (which, according to theory, is the best continuation for both sides after 6.exd5), material is even, but black is better because he has a positional edge. Black has a lead in development, the open f-file, two active bishops, greater control of kingside space, and the potential for a dangerous attack against the white king. White's extra pawns aren't so useful, because 1) They don't cover many important squares except e5 and e6 2) The d5 pawn blocks the a2-g8 diagonal, blunting white's c4 bishop 3) It is not at all clear how white can push the pawns down the board to make a queen as we are not yet in the endgame (even if we are in an endgame, the fact that white's d-pawns are doubled and weak would still cause a lot of problems for him). In this middlegame, black, the side with the extra piece and a dynamic position, should be preferred.

If you ask me why I'm so confident that black has a clear advantage, well, it is for two reasons: 1) Grandmasters aren't idiots. Modern opening theories are so deep that almost everything before move ten has been thoroughly analyzed, and the Cochrane Gambit is no exception. This opening is not discredited without a reason, and if the theory developed by grandmasters says that this line is bad for white, then the odds are: this line is bad for white! .....Okay, it's perfectly fine if you don't believe me, but you should have some faith in all the grandmasters' analysis 2) Just for the sake of this post, I put the final position I gave on my chess engine for over an hour and yielded a score of roughly -0.85, indicating a large advantage for black. True, computer analysis aren't alway accurate, but this should give you a sense of how well black is and will be doing, at least for the next 10 to 12 moves.

Sometimes three pawns are equivalent to a piece, sometimes they can even be worth more than a piece, but this is not the case. Here, black's extra knight is considerably more important than white's extra pawns in this dynamic middlegame position, thus he has the upper hand despite the material equality (this doesn't mean black can just crash through, but that he probably will win in the long term if he plays correctly). If you so like to trade a piece for three pawns, just make sure the trade doesn't put you in a bad position. Also, you may wanna study the following games:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018838

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1033887

In the first, white gets three pawns and a big attack for the piece; in the second, white trades the piece for three connected passed pawns in the endgame. In this line of the Cochrane Gambit, however, white trades his knight for three pawns, and, a bunch of agonizing problems!

Benedictus, if you can't figure out how black gets an advantage in the final postion (in post 8) you might want to hold off on giving other people opening advice, and get stronger first.

Bystanderz: Thanks for making it clear to me why this is not a good attack. I might choose to try it out a couple times, but other than that, I will take your advice.

MeteoricMike: I'm pretty strong in most my openings. This topic was an (unsuccessfull) attempt at strengthening my opening when facing the Petrov Defense.

AnthonyCG: When did I say grandmasters are idiots?

Where did you get these ideas from, huh?

Oh yeah, of course it is unclear how black can achieve equality! What a great discovery, maybe you should go convince all the GMs to take out 4.Nf3 from the book and make Cochrane Gambit the main line!

Sure this gambit is useful in a blitz game (if white is well-prepared), but in one with classical time control? Nah-ah......Sure you can be nervous of facing the Cochrane, but that's your personal issue, and should have no effect on the overall quality of this opening.

So what? Are you saying your personal experience of merely 400 games should be more meaningful than the opening theories GMs developed over the years?

I have seen that game before, Topalov played impressively (though I believe that against 5.Nc3?!, theory suggests 5...Qe8! 6.Bc4+ Be6 with a good game for black), but you are not trying to tell me that the result of a single game could prove modern theories wrong, are you? Like I said earlier, preparation is paramount in this line, if white is very well prepared (like Topa was), he can be fine. But until you can prepare as well as someone like Topalov and until you are at least as knowledgable as most GMs in the world, you have no right to claim that this gambit is sound.

Okay, a few GMs like Bisguier have played it, so what? Should the fact that a few good players used it against you imply that it is just a good opening?! It could be that they just like to play wild sacrifices against weaker opponents. Who plays what opening should not have any effect on the quality of the opening itself. If an opening is good just because a few GMs have used it, then by your logic, 1.e4 a6?! should also be a good opening, because Kamsky, Gelashvili, Miles, and Kasparov all have played it.

Look, current opening theory is very deep, and 4.Nf3 didn't become the main line for no reason. If you are so "brilliant" as to disregard the century-long analysis and theory done by GMs all over the world and base your judgment on the results of a few games, then I don't know what to say.

Gonnosuke, you always seem to be arguing the "psychological merits" of unsound openings, regardless of which boring opening the thread is about.

The only way you won't put your game in peril by playing these is if the opponent plays the Sicilian!

Signed,

1.e4 c6

That is true. Psychological component...if my memory is correct, that's the reason Kasparov gave when he was asked why he playd 1...a6?!. However, in this post, I'm only discussing the objective quality of the opening, not its practical value. And you need to be very careful when claiming things like psychological component screws your opponents' heads. Psychological factor definitely ought to be considered when playing gambits like this, but whether or not it would actually have an effect on your particular opponent and exactly how much impact it can have remain iffy.

Nonsense. If I start playing the Petroff and my opponent plays the Cochrane gambit, I am already at a psychological advantage since he is afraid to play the mainline and is going for a swashbuckling win. It seems more desperation than confidence to me.

Well......I agree that psychology shouldn't be underestimated, but I also think that it shouldn't be overestimated, either. In fact, it is just difficult to estimate. You see, the human mind is a very complex thing. To get a fairly accurate assessment of the impact a stimulus has on a person, professional psychologists often have to conduct a vast amount of examinations for a period of several weeks or even several months. When all these things are unclear, it may not always be wise to play an dubious opening just to shake your opponent a little bit (okay, it may occassionally be wise, but that's kinda like gambling). What if your opponent isn't affected by your move? Or what if he/she is affected, but the trouble you get from an unsound move outweighed the psychological advantage you get? In my opinion, unless one is very sure that he can throw off his opponent completely, it probably isn't worth it to play such an outragous move.

But, Bystanderz, if white is well prepared, even if black is able to handle everything, can black win? If not, then white hasn't lost his half point, and he probably wasn't going to get a full point anyways, so what has he lost really? And I rather doubt whether black can get a decisive advantage out of the Cochrane with regularity. Therefore, I wouldn't call it an "outrageous" move - with proper play, white gets a "worse" draw, but he still gets better chances to actually win. That's why I'll usually throw the Cochrane out there if I come up against the Petroff, though I've also played the 4.Nf3 lines a good amount and occasionally gone with the 3.d4 lines.

One move and you have all kinds of assumptions about your opponent (he's afraid, he goes for a swashbuckling win, he's desperate). None of this needs to be true. You're bound to be affected by having these thoughts.

So to me it seems you're proving his point - you're making irrelevant assumptions about your opponent, which means you're at a disadvantage.

lol nxf7 is bad