Dutch Defense

Sort:
Jed_Leland

In the New York 1924 tournament book, Alekhine called the Dutch "unsound and antiquated." Do you agree?

RomyGer

To help to form an opinion after 90 years, I want to quote Alekhine's original texts from the book : 

" All three games played with this antiquated and, in our opinion, fundamentally unsound defence ( because of the insecure Pawn Skeleton, the constant breakthrough threats with P-K4 or P-Q5 and, in the event of P-Q4, the hole at K5 ! ) took an unsatisfacrtory form for the second player and it was only with great care that he was able to rescue one of them through a draw !  And this despite the in no way energetic handling of the opening on White's part."

"In two games White played 4. B-KKt5, through which the command of the square K4 was left to the second player at least for a while."

" Despite the fact that the tactical skill of Dr Tartakower (...who was Black in the three games, RG...) enabled him to eventually equalize matters, the Dutch Stonewall Defence can be considered even less satisfactory than ever."

The Oxford Companion to Chess in 1996 says : "... in the 19th century this was the only standard alternative to 1. ... d5  as a response to 1. d4.   After the advent of the Hypermodern Movement in the 1920s many other defences gained popularity but the Dutch has retained its place in the master's repertoire. 

TheGreatOogieBoogie

I thought Alekhine meant lines with ...b6 (which he himself played and I personally thought the thematic d5! move from white was worth worrying about too as it leaves d6 weak) then I read the line about the Stonewall.  Botvinnik played the Stonewall with great success, and a rook is sometimes even worth a darksquare weakness to either get at the weak color complexes or prevent the opponent's bishop from opposing yours (which is needed to defend said squares). 

TitanCG

It's a problem in all the Dutch setups except for the stonewall. There is a system for White that includes castling long and playing g4 that is unpleasant for the stonewall and it's not easy to avoid. But anyway all this won't matter for most players anyway.