Accelerated Dragon Reflection Part 3: Dark Complexities

In Part 3, I will discuss one strategy where black can strike back if white is not careful, and why I abandoned the Accelerated Dragon for another opening.

This strategy for Black revolves around the Marozy Bind and the Bc4-b3 line.

The concept centers around neutralizing White's light squared bishop to a oversized pawn and using Black's knight to exploit weaknesses around the board. Without further ado, here are the examples!

Note in the second game diagram, only the opening was played out. If white is careless enough to exchange dark-squared bishops, which is good for Black. Black will get a very good version of the Marozy Bind, where he holds all the trump cards.

Nevertheless, I had some challenges with the Accelerated Dragon. To improve and increase rating, a player must hold his own against higher rated players and beat lower rated players. However, beating lower rated players as black with the Accelerated Dragon started to be very difficult.

For me, at the master level, experts knew what not to do against the Accelerated dragon. Additionally, pushing for strategic complications where I could show my ability was very difficult: for White it is very easy to stay put, unlike the Ruy Lopez, for example. Positions would get very dry and lower rated players would be able to draw me without difficulty, which led me to switch openings.

Without further ado, here is an example:

Due to my dislike with the positions after the opening in the marozy bind and general difficulty with winning games with the black side when I reached expert level, I began to learn the Kan, which may be covered later.