1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 c5 Any studies?
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Demolith123
Feb 28, 2023
0
#1
I play Nf6 against d4, and have become pretty decent with King's Indian and other openings.
I've been told by several players much stronger than myself that if white plays Nf3 on the second move, c5 is a strong move for black and it looks like the opening database agrees.
It seems to transpose into a lot of different things. The main response for white is pushing the pawn to d5. I can't find any videos online specifically for this line. Can anyone direct me to some material on this opening line, especially for black, but even for white.
I don't agree that it's all that great. After 3. d5 b5 4. c4 e6 you're in the Blumenfeld Countergambit, which isn't a good opening, but that's the best way for Black to play the position. Learn the Duz-Khotimirsky Spielmann variation of the Blumenfeld if you want to play 2... c5 against the Knights Indian, but I really would just recommend playing 2... e6/d5/d6/g6 instead.
White can play 2. Nf3 for lots of reasons.
After 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 c5, White can go d5
Then white can follow with Nc3 and e4 without c4 preceding Nc3, so it's a different pawn structure compared to 1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3. d5, as the c4 square is vacant and ie a knight can be routed there ( 2. Nf3 c5. 3. d5 e6 doesn't force a modern Benoni either )
So play is a different, and can steer into old Benoni ( 1. d4 c5 2. d5 ) waters.
Note that white doesn't need to push 3. d5
Here's a game from the Kasparov-Beliavsky match
. Kasparov used this move order to avoid Beliavsky's preparation in the Benko ( at least according to Gufeld in an ancient book he had written on Kasparov ). But 2. Nf3 is not just for avoiding the Benko, White keeps his cards closed this way, it also allows them to avoid the Albin, and gives a lot of flexibility in general ( including 2. ..e6 and 2. ..d5 responses, remember you know you want to play ..c5 but your opponent doesn't ).
After 2. ..c5 White can also go into English water teritory or even try something "crazy" but entirely playable, eg if for whatever reason they wish so, they could go even in a reverse schlechter Slav structure.
I don't know if there's a book for this but ultimately an opponent who's well versed in transpositions, plays both the English and d4 openings as well as reverse setups is something you can worry about at a later stage. For starters in your shoes I'd play some flavour of the old Benoni if white pushes to d5 and also have some preparation for the symmetrical English.
Ultimately one can't prepare against everything, Kramnik's 1. Nf3 ( which is even more flexible) transpositional possibilities were a headache even to strong GMs and Khalifman wrote a bunch of dense volumes that nobody read for their Black repertoire, because ..one cannot prepare against everything.