Move 12. Conditional Move Thread

Rd8 will be our 11th move. Onischuk can go with Ba3, the primary move in databases, or can of course try something different. I am reposting my list of possible moves from the previous forum, to discuss any possible deviations.

12. Ba3 - 12... b6

Other moves that still are in the chess.com database are

12. Qe2; 12. Ba2; and 12. Bb5 - all of which we respond with 12... b6.

If pulls something out of a hat, our responses are mostly the same.

12. h3; g3; Re8; Qc2; Qb3; Bb2; Bd2; Rb1; Ra2; Ra3; Be2; Bd3 - b6

12. Ne1; Nd2 - possibly e5 -- without the knight covering the square, pushing the e pawn early may be beneficial

12. h4; Ng5 - h6? - not sure, but makes sense -- attack g5/prevent the knight from getting to g5

Some blunder moves have obvious captures -

g4 Nxg4; Ne5 Nxe5; a5 Nxa5; d5 exd5; Ba6 bxa6

12. e4 - looks like an interesting pawn gambit, but instead of capturing the e pawn, cxd4 gives black a significant advantage

I believe that covers every possible move after 11... Rd8. Double check any errors and possibly see if e5 makes sense for any other of his possible moves.

I am going to change Ne1 and Nd2 to cxd4 cxd4 then e5

In Chessbase the most played move are 12. Qe2

was the typical response still b6?

Yes after Qe2, Qc2 and Ba3 the most played response is b6.