The Aitken Variation in the Italian Game

Italian Game is considered as one of the most popular chess opening on any level, from beginners to grandmaster level. The theory itself had been developed for more than 500 years since Pedro Damiano published his chess book in the 1512. Popularized by Gioachino Greco in the 1600s, the Italian Game, or "Giuoco Piano" had known to be one of the strongest weapon in chess. Variations developed in the Italian Game has been studied deeply just like other openings such as Sicilians or Spanish. Nowadays, maybe the most popular line in the Italian Game is the Fried Liver Attack with Nf7 sacrifice, the Greco attack with aggressive e pawn sacrifices, or the slower/quieter "Giuoco Pianissimo" for more tactical and strategic play. But beyond those many variation, i recently studied one of the variation that i think is pretty strong in the beginner-intermediate level, that is the Aitken Variation.

This is a game played by Levon Aronian and Sharma K.. White played with higher accuracy than white, and played all of the variation's forcing moves such as Re1+ that leads to checkmate, or at least guarantees you a Queen.

The most important move in the variation (10.Ba3) , is actually a top computer move from stockfish, replacing the old mainline of the Greco attack (10.Qb3), because in the old mainline, white could strikes back with (10..d5) initiating the Bernstein variation, which is threatening white's bishop and rook at the same time. The move Ba3 is very important because it prevent black to castle immediately, and also minimize black's pieces movement and also black's king. In this position, we are sacrificing the rook, but if black dares to capture the rook, white could hit back with the important 11.Re1+ and forces black to block with the knight or move the king and never castle.

In my opinion as a human player, the most natural move is to block with the knight, that move completely lose a knight, and maybe the queen, and the position is losing for black whatsoever. Black could move the king and never castle, but it leads to forced checkmate or black should give up the queen. I think the Aitken variation could be a dangerous weapon especially if the opponent doesn't know how to deal with it

The Counter for Aitken variation

If you playing the Giuoco piano with black, and your opponent initiate the Aitken, you have to know how to deal with it. There are no single opening in chess that guarantees you a win and refute-proof. In my research, i found one move that deemed to be the "anti-Aitken system" which is the move 10..d5 , similar to the Bernstein variation in the old mainline of the Greco attack. This system is also similar with the Steinitz variation but in a different move order. By playing 10..d5, black could prevent the immediate rook counterattack and upcoming disaster in the black position. We see this system played in the previous Corte-Bolbochan 1946 game.

In this game, black equalize with 10..d5 and take white's bishop after white plays 11.Rc1 offering an equal trade.