Nova Daily - 23 April 2026: The Keres English—Part IV

Hi!

First of all, there is great news: a new masterpiece has been released today! Something that we've all been eagerly anticipating for a very long time! Especially me, since I'm a great fan of good work and I'm finally able to enjoy the product of decades of craftsmanship. In case any of my readers is wondering what the helvete I'm talking about: it could actually be two entirely different things, and the thumbnail kinda gave it away already.

First of all, of course, the KIMPLODES Chessable Course. This new analysis method is a collaborated effort by @KevinChessSmith and @AttilaTurzo, and it's finally there. We've all been waiting for it for a long time, and I'll happily have a look at this first installment of the series as soon as I find the time.

The second thing that's new is a Dimmu Borgir video release. The Norwegian Black Metal legends' tenth full-length studio album will be released in less than a month from now. After "Ulvgjeld & Blodsodel", today their song "Ascent" has been released. Don't worry, I won't inflict that level of auditory Damage on you. And I don't need to either. Dimmu Borgir music can do even without the metal band and the signature sepulchral voice of lead vocalist Shagrath (who derived his stage name from the LOTR orc):

Alright, enough Spielerei. Time to get going.

The Keres English—Part IV

After a bit of a hiatus in which I spent some time on other topics, I finally have the time to look at one of the most critical lines of the Keres Variation. After defending the pawn meekly with ...d6 and the space-gaining e5-e4 that the old theoretician Dietrich Vorstoss would've been advocating, the capture e5xd4 is black's other option. Eduard Abtausch would be happy with this line, of course.

For those who haven't grasped it yet: the fact that I called Abtausch "Eduard" is that in German, the short notation for a pawn capture is normally written as the file from which it moves followed by the file that it lands on. In many openings, the Exchange variation is an e-pawn capturing a d-pawn, which in German notation would be "ed".

This post will be a more strategical discussion of the types of structures that typically result from the exd4 capture.

In my previous post on the Keres English, I've covered the reasons why white's principled response to 2...d5 in the Alapin Sicilian is the immediate capture of that pawn. White's other options don't make much sense: the push effectively leaves black a tempo up as compared to the Botvinnik variation of the Caro-Kann, and 3.d3 yields black a space advantage. This last option is so strongly counter to white's basic opening objectives that I didn't even bother to cover it yet.

I also covered in Part III why pushing the challenged e-pawn makes sense in the Keres variation. That said, it's certainly not black's only option. The capture, which is almost ubiquitously played in the Alapin Sicilian, can also be played in this variation. And there is some rationale for this if you compare both lines with the engine:

In Rock Solid Chess - Volume 2, Chapter 2, GM Sergei Tiviakov covers a topic that I find very useful for this comparison: the "relative value of the tempo". In this specific case, the value (or price) of that single tempo is 0.68. That's significant, and that's a good warning for how such positions have to be approached. Losing a single tempo means that the advantage sways to the opponent. This means that we have to spend our time efficiently.

In the variation in which the challenged e-pawn is pushed forward, the position is less open and less tactical in nature, which means that the value of one tempo is significantly reduced. In both cases, the side pushing the pawn is slightly worse, but black doing it amounts to the typical "white moves first" advantage whereas in the Sicilian it's white yielding the advantage to the opponent.

The queen is safe in the centre

After the moves 1.c4 e5 2.g3 c6 3.d4 exd4 4.Qxd4, we reach the following diagram:

Principally, the fact that the c6-square (or the c3-square in the analogous Alapin Sicilian) is occupied makes that the queen is safe in the centre. This is the main difference between the Alapin and the Scandinavian: the typical tempo gain against the queen is off the table.

The queen can still be harassed, but these lines will typically involve white gaining something else in return. For example, this line is very nice for white:

In some lines, black can attempt to gain more space by advancing the c-pawn to c5, hoping to follow up with d5-d4. However, these lines are not only notoriously slow, they also come at the risk of allowing Bg2 full reign over the long diagonal. And in case of black playing 6...Be7 in the following line:

Marin follows this line up with six more pages of theoretical discussion, which means that this position is very rich indeed and deserves a closer look than I've done here. It suffices to conclude from the above discussion that the queen is safe, even if prompted to move over to a4.

Change of the pawn structure

The trade of central pawns has resulted in a glaring static positional feature: white's control of the semi-open d-file, and the potential pressure that white can exert along this file against the black d-pawn. The d6-square is potentially very vulnerable if black's d-pawn resides on d7. Of course, this potential weakness remains alive if the pawn moves to d6, when the pawn itself can become a target.

As such, it's positionally desirable for black to resolve this issue by moving the d-pawn up two squares. Strategically, the trade cxd5 (which was already introduced above) will result in a position with an isolated queen's pawn for black:

Positions with an isolated queen's pawn can prop up in virtually every opening line that's available. Normally, the side who possesses the IQP wants to keep minor pieces on the board, and this is a reason why trading off the dark-square bishops through Bb4+ is counterintuitive. Another reason is that it really weakens the d6-square, which makes pushing d7-d5 practically forced, and especially the absence of dark-square bishops makes play remarkably easy and intuitive for white, as you can see below.

Sidelines

In many cases, black will eventually want to push d7-d5 to get rid of the nagging pressure against the d6-square. Black doesn't have to do this right away, and there are sidelines. One of them involves the knight manoeuvre Nb8-a6, which is a known idea in the Alapin Sicilian. Marin spends an entire chapter to this sideline, so it has to be taken seriously. Still, these positions would almost invariably involve black playing d7-d5 at some point, because white can become very greedy for space if left unguarded.

Whether or not the moves Nf6 and Bg2 are included is largely inconsequential: most of the time, black wants to play the knight to f6 anyway, and it's a question of when rather than if. That said, if black really wishes to refrain from playing Nf6, they have to make a significant effort to find something that has independent value. And in many of these lines, white's pawn push to e4 will be a guaranteed gain of space.

I'll leave the more in-depth theoretical discussion of this opening complex for another day.