Maroczy Bind Idea

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Highimsam

I was recently looking at the theory behind the Maroczy Bind, as I am a relatively new chess player and quit a beginner at that. While I was going down the most common line I found that a very common position occurs from the following:

 

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 NC6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. g4 Bg7 6.Be3...

 

From this position, the overwhelmingly most popular move appears to be Nf6, which seems very sensible. It develops the knight, attacks the pawn on e4 and prepares black to castle. This is a very obvious. However in this position, my first instinct was a move that the chess.com database shows no recorded game of being played. While I'm sure my move will do no more than assert my meager 1k rating, I still feel like the move opens up a very interesting game, which might actually be very strong in blitz formats. And the move is f5. A sacrifice. With the idea that after exf5 playing d6.

 

Now, I've gone down tons of lines from here, and I've seen all of the computer analysis and I understand there are a LOT of reasons why f5 is not advised. And there are a lot of threats that black opens themselves to. BUT... what I found, is that if white does not play this position absolutely perfect, then black can absolutely blow the entire position wide open and start putting some very serious threats on the board. While I would probably not play f5 in longer game formats, in blitz it actually seems very playable, and will immediately take book players out of their comfort zone. Could be useful to implement since this seems like such a common varriation.  

 

Let me know if any of you guys have every tried this move! I'm curious to see how well it actually fairs in a match. Feedback appreciated!

aggressivesociopath

Black does not have any threats or positional compensation for the pawn. It may have "shock value" for blitz, but White's moves are natural and there is no reason to think that White is out of his comfort zone.

penandpaper0089

If White has trouble here it's because he has problems with tactics not the opening. This is definitely not a good way to play but if you think your opponents won't be able to calculate well then I guess it can be played.

MickinMD

Black doesn't get enough compensation - Stockfish 8 says Black is about 1.5 Pawn Equivalents down after 8 fxg6 Qa5+ 9 c3 hxg6 10 Bd3 Nxd4 11 Bxd4 Rh4 12 B-moves from d4 Bf5 - which may give Black some Blitz chances but fails against easy to see White moves.

penandpaper0089
DeirdreSkye wrote:

It is doubtful if there is any kind of reasonable compensation for Black.

After 8.fxg6 hxg6 Black has a very weak g6 pawn that can be a serious problem.

So white gets the pawn and Black gets what?Weaknesses?

In blitz everything works.That is why it's more a variant than chess.


 

This is just a four knights with the random move a4 thrown in. I don't really know why Black even let that happen lol.