Hyper Accelerated Dragon Against Early 4.Qxd4

Greetings chess friends!

Like I said in my previous blog post, there are pros and cons with adopting the Hyper Accelerated Dragon move order. I have mentioned that the move order allows white to steer the position into a Maroczy Bind but these days Black is not afraid to face it. In this blog post let us look at another early deviation by white with an early 4.Qxd4 and find out if black will still have a playable game.

The opening move order in discussion is 1.e4 c5  2.Nf3 g6  3.d4 cxd4  4.Qxd4

With 4.Qxd4 black is really forced to play 4...Nf6 to address the threat on the h8 rook.

After 4...Nf6 white needs to decide wether to play e5 now or later because of black's obvious next move ...Nc6 chasing the white queen away from the a1-h8 diagonal.

Lets see a game I had recently here in chess.com against a 2000+ player and put attention on how black can neutralize white's pressure on the a1-h8 diagonal.

Please take note of the movelist pane on the right for other variation analysis.

So we saw from the game, black has a promising position and should not be afraid of the early Qxd4 by white.

For a more detailed analysis of this variation I refer you to Lev Alburt's book, Chess Openings for Black, Explained: A Complete Repertoire.

In the hyper-accelerated dragon move order, what is the best line for white?

 Apparently the Marcozy Bind set-up, but in my experience most white players dont like the slow manouvering demanded by the position and so they dont go for it.

Also, I feel more comfortable facing the Maroczy Bind than the Yugoslav Attack in the Classical Dragon where there are mating threats here and there against black king. In the Maroczy white has a slight edge but no more. Yes play can be dull often but black can still play for a win if white over extend himself.

In my later blog posts I will write a topic for the Maroczy and investigate if black is OK.

very interesting.  Thanks for the analysis

maybe you should bring a more proper example for this interesting variation (I like it as white), because as per my knowledge, the better continuation for white after 4...Nf6 5.e5 Nc6 is 6.Qc4 first to prevent black's Nd5 then it goes: 6...d5 and now only 7.Qh4 against which, black has 7...Ne4 (not 7...Nh5 losing the knight after 8.g4) and there are some very nice positions arising in that key position. I advise you and everyone interested in this to take a look at Jeremy Silman's website, where he has answered this in detail... 

Thank you for the feedback. On your analysis instead of 7...Ne4 I prefer 7...Nd7 pressuring the e5 pawn followed up by moves now or later...Bg7 and ...Qc7 to further pressure e5. I believe black here too is doing OK.

But actually, 6.Qc4 is a mistake because of 6...Qa5+  7.Bd2 Nxe5 8.Qxf7+ Kxf7  9.Bxa5 Nxf3+ and black is simply better.

Thanks for the enlightenment.

The main problem for Black in this 4.Qxd4 variation is not 5.Bb5, nor 5.e5 (Black can deal with both of them quite easily) but rather 5.Nc3!

The "big" idea is covering the important d5 square before playing e4-e5. White usually goes about gaining the bishop pair, and rapid piece development. There are several lines, the main ones go like that:

White's advantage is small and technical, but persistent.

Dominate? What is that?   

You can "dominate" your opponent with pretty much any sound opening, provided that your understanding of the resulting positions is better than his. There is no Holy Grail opening, I can assure you for that.

The Hyper-Accelerated (as well as the Accelerated, which I have played many times as Black) are objectively low risk, low expectations openings. They do hide many traps, but a good opponent falling into them is not at all likely.

Re: For a more detailed analysis of this variation I refer you to Lev Alburt's book, Chess Openings for Black, Explained: A Complete Repertoire.

I couldn't find any recommendation in this book for a line against 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.Qxd4, which prevents 3...g6, so I played 3...Nc6 and just seem to be struggling to complete development.  Any recommendations, or point out where in the book that line is dealt with?

Why should one need a book to meet such lame play by White?

After 1.e4 c5 3.d4 cxd4 3.Qxd4 Nc6, Black's development is already slightly superior to white's, so what you're talking about "struggling to complete development"?

Simply take advantage of your superior development with something like ...Nf6 and ...d5 in the next moves. Qxd4 can be a serious option only when Black can challenge the center with loss of time, e.g. 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Qxd4 is a respectable line, but under your move order it's totally harmless.

Well, because I'm not such a hotshot IM yet, and do need the assistance of repertoire books (which presumably are not aimed at IMs), I played ...Nf6 and ...e6 and wasn't able to get in ...d5 and as a result  (this is a correspondence game) have achievedd IMO uncomfortable position where I'm not able to get all my pieces to good squares.   I am unfamiliar with Sicilian positions, which  is why I was using a repertoire book in the first place to get an introduction.