Openings for Tactical Players: Alekhine Defense

The Alekhine Defense has always been the opening that has puzzled me the most.  Since I was a child, I was taught that the goals of the opening were to occupy and control the center while bringing my pieces out as quickly as possible, and while facing the Alekhine Defense I could do all of these with the gain of time chasing my opponent's Knight all around the board! How can it be good for Black?  This proves to be an example of the complexity of chess, and just how hard it is to refute many seemingly dubious ideas in practice ("The Poisoned Pawn Variation" in the Najdorf Sicilian is another good example). However, let's try to accomplish this impossible mission and destroy the Alekhine! In order to do this we need to take maximum advantage of the above mentioned factors, namely:

1) We need to develop as many pieces as possible

2) We need to grab as much space with our pawns as possible

3) We need to use these advantages to launch an attack as quickly as possible, before Black has a chance to catch up in development.

4) We should be ready to sacrifice some material to maximize our advantage

Now let's see how we can implement these principles in practice.  The move sequence that meets all the above mentioned criteria is as follows:

1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. c4 Nb6 4. c5 Nd5 5. Bc4 and after the natural move 5...e6, we play 6.Nc3! offering a pawn sacrifice. Black must be very careful in order not to lose right away as the following game demonstrates:

(Remember that you can always replay a game from the first move if you click "Solution" and then "Move list")