I was playing a friendly match and suddenly this popped out at me.
As you can see Black has a rather passive position and I played Nxe5, whereapon he slipped up with dxc3? and I played Nxf7, winning material.
But what I want to ask is:is the idea of 2...Na6, with moves like Nc7, covering b5 from the knight and allowing the pawn advance d5, valid?
I think it's a fairly strong novelty that can be used as a surprise weapon(I haven't peered into any tactics or analysis as yet, so there may well be a line that wins a free pawn for White or something; I'm assuming there's no such line) in fast-paced games.
The main defect of 2 ...Na6, besides putting a Knight out of play and committing to a waste of several moves in the opening to bring him to any useful square, as I see it, is that after 3 d4 cxd4 White may play 4 Qxd4 with impunity. Moves other than 3 ...cxd4 are no better for Black.
2 ...Na6 is as weak as it looks, and that's rather weak.
I was playing a friendly match and suddenly this popped out at me.
As you can see Black has a rather passive position and I played Nxe5, whereapon he slipped up with dxc3? and I played Nxf7, winning material.
But what I want to ask is:is the idea of 2...Na6, with moves like Nc7, covering b5 from the knight and allowing the pawn advance d5, valid?
I think it's a fairly strong novelty that can be used as a surprise weapon(I haven't peered into any tactics or analysis as yet, so there may well be a line that wins a free pawn for White or something; I'm assuming there's no such line) in fast-paced games.
I used to play 2...Na6 with the idea ...Nc5 to pressure the e4 pawn.
Conzipe, what about supporting a b7-b5 pawn push to attack the queenside?
The main defect of 2 ...Na6, besides putting a Knight out of play and committing to a waste of several moves in the opening to bring him to any useful square, as I see it, is that after 3 d4 cxd4 White may play 4 Qxd4 with impunity. Moves other than 3 ...cxd4 are no better for Black.
2 ...Na6 is as weak as it looks, and that's rather weak.
Let's make it happen!