Nova Daily - 23 January 2025

Hi!

A very interesting game in the Caro-Kann today, and a really testing line at that. I was faced with a variation of the Advance in which white took on c5 and I didn't see the pawn back on short notice. The game became very tense after that, in which I sadly had to discard a tempting and very interesting Exchange sacrifice.

My thoughts during the game:

A good game in the 6...cxd4 line would be this:

Here are the results of the check I did with my sources:

Overall the variation isn't too much of a big deal to play with black. White went overboard in this game on several occasions, but had a hard game to play anyway.

What can I take away from this game:

1. It's useful to grab the extra options with 3...Bg4 and 6...cxd4. In case of the latter, developing the knight to d7 instead of c6 prevents a lot of pressure against black's queenside.

2. When there is tension between c5 and d4, it's often best to trade on d4 before playing Nge7. It just prevents a hanging pawn along the way.

3. I should have evaluated the kingside attack to be completely winning for black, which it was.