Richter Rauzer 7...Be7 Old line... playable or not?

I've spent a few hours trying to make the old 7...Be7 line work for black but I have a few problem lines:

If anyone can provide insight, games in the megadatabase, or any resources that talk about this variation I would appreciate it a lot. Thanks!

Curious, why did you knight capture knight? I would prefer his knight to captures yours to open up a file to the king and strengthen your central pawn structure.

How about expanding with a6 and b5?

Where does a the a8 rook go to?

https://www.chess.com/games/view/13439399

In the 7...Be7 mainline it's just how it goes I think, trying to lure the queen into d4 so that maybe after black plays Qa5 in some positions there can be and e5 advance followed by Be6 where the queen on d4 gets hit with a tempo.

The game you referenced is in a completely different line with 6...Bd7 and takes up a completely different flavor than 7...Be7. The a6-b5 plan is very typical in the modern lines, but i'm trying to make this 7...Be7 thing work in the modern era despite scrutiny from the computers  

White is definitely never gonna take on c6, and in that position instead of taking on d4, white was threatening Ndb5 to target the weak e6 pawn so that's another reason Nxd4 is played in the mainline.

Works fine for me bro

It just looks like your giving white everything he wants and a comfortable game.

I was taught to be active and create queenside counter play especially in an opposite castling scenario where tempo counts.

Best of luck.

Yes thank you, I'm starting to think that the modern mainline is the only "playable" variation and I should just give up on trying to revive this old line :/

I wanted an alternative to the already super popular & widely analyzed modern Rauzer hahah. Kasparov used this line in the past with pretty good results back in his day, so i was curious if it was playable

Haha the Irish pawns was not a good look lol.

If you can own it and make it work, why not?

What I am seeing at the surface level is you have potential centre and queenside counter play where white has no threat to his king. Not the Sicilian way.

Be7 seems fairly natural, but after O-O-O it is consistently White who is playing for the win. Perhaps, after 17...Nb6 Bb3 instead of Rfc8 you can play Rfd8 then a4, putting some pressure on White. Of course, the engine easily refutes this but your opponents will not play precisely. So yes, it is playable if you are playing those 2200 or below, but there are much sharper lines with much better chances for Black. At most, Black equalizes, but it's very difficult to play for a win regardless. Not sure why you are so insistent on making this move work. I recommend playing this line against a high rated engine (2700-3100) and seeing how Stockfish dismantles the engine with this opening. Good luck regardless! 

19...Rd5 and Black is quite OK. Plenty of games with it.

Computer sees more space for white and claims an advantage, but it's hard to see how he can proceed- Black has no weaknesses. Ideally, he wants to trade the bishops, even with some damage to the queenside pawn structure.

The line isn't played much because it's an equalizing line, with few chances to play for the win as Black.

True, I love researching openings but I think I reached a dead end in this variation

... that's not the line i'm talking about

Very useful in the evaluation of the entire line. I knew of 19…Rd5 but immediately discarded it because the computer said +1.0, practically is a different story for sure. Maybe it’s worth trying, thanks for saving me the headache of spending countless more hours on it! 👍

is 18) Nf8 forced? If that's so I'd probably not play this line? looks too passive for me  .However if we find other ways to mitigate the queen and the bishop threat instead of Nf8 then we might be able to make it a little better. Does Nc4 work? for this Qg4 Bh6 idea you always have Qf8

Edit on second thoughts after analysing the Nc4 line it's not so great either. This Bg5 after the move Qg4 is so annoying; you can't even challenge the move with f6 due to the c5 bishop as well as the e5 pawn. Also after the exchanges down the D-file, the d8 square becomes a sitting duck in your camp waiting to be roasted. You have to make a billion passive queen moves and relinquish all control to white. I think that this Nc4 line might work against 2200-2300 players; given that I analysed with engine but as I see it; easy logical moves to find for white and black is stuck on finding the only move to not lose: a billion times after the said Bg5 and Rd1. A slow painful death for Black is my conclusion.

Posisi terakhir pun yang masuk di analisa mungkin masih bisa bertahan, buat draw (karena gajah belang), memang menang ga bisa. Kalau posisi dinamis gini, evaluasi +/- 1 itu ga menjanjikan keuntungan yang besar. Evaluasi mandiri posisi sama liat2 partai lebih cocok baru dibandingin sama evaluasi engine.

What happens if you take Bxg2 at either of the opportunities presented? 

After doing some more analysis sure white is better, but not very clear and I think that in a practical game white's not gonna play like a computer and black's plans are fairly simple (bring a rook to the d or c-files, or play Ng6 and with the queen's support to pressure the e5 pawn). The chessbase database shows mostly draws from complicated positions so maybe I have to give it a try before reaching a final conclusion. Against a computer there's absolutely no chance I do agree, a very slow & painful death.

As a note 18...Nf8 (-g6) is pretty reliable i've found to pressure the e5 pawn, I'll be releasing my analysis in video form soon and overall it's the best plan imho. I've tried analysing other knight moves like 17...Nb6 as seen in the original post, but I think it's far harder to equalize especially after 18.Bf1.

Thanks for the insight.

Hmm iya sihh, di database jg kebanyakan hasil draw setelah 19...Rd5, dan ada bbrp partai putih atau hitam menang.

Makin lama lebih percaya contoh partai daripada +1.00 yg diblg engine sih. Analisa so far ini lumayan dalam dan putih ngga unggul besar sekali sampe satu pion