Wow. This is like the Queenside version of the Ruy Lopez.
Richter-Veresov Attack
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No opening can be called aggressive (or solid) at move 3; there is always room for both things. The mainline for black is 3...Nd7 (but he has a lot of good alternatives; you might find 3...h6 annoying since the usual move is 4.Bxf6 leading to a slow technical grind rather than a sharp mess.). A popular way to play the veresov is a plan including 4.e3 and later f4 setting up a sort of stonewall with the bishop outside the pawn chain; it's a rather solid approach unless black allows a textbook stonewall kingside attack. The variations 4.f3 and 4.Qd3 are more aggressive, both aiming at a quick e4.
How would you respond to the mainline, 3...Nbd7?
after 3 ... e6 white can transpose to a mainline french with e4.
I have played this quite a bit some 25-30 years ago, and have teached it to my students as a decent way to achieve e4 positions whithout having to learn sicilians and ruys.
Since the trade Bxf6 is more of a bluff than a REAL positional threat, Black has many good replies as long as he knows how to react if white swaps on f6. I have mainly played the sharp 3...c5 line, but after having understood the ins an outs of this system, I believe that Black's best move is the simple, solid and ambitious 3...c6.
Feel free to disagree.
3...h6 is also logical, as the consistent reply 4.Bxf6 ef6 leads to nowhere if white plays routinely 5.e3 (actually Black may have a mid-term advantage!). So if you take on f6, you have to continue with 5.e4, which opens a big can of worms, and which I have not properly analysed (shame on me). On the other hand, if white goes 4.Bh4, then 4...e6 is IMHO perfectly acceptable- white can't play e2-e4 now, and white has to play speculatively to prove any sort of advantage.
3...Nbd7 is the old minline indeed, since it deals with white's positional threat of taking on f6 and doubling pawns. However, since I have already stated that this "threat" is more dangerous for white than for Black, IMHO there is no need to play this move that early. 3...c6, which ambitiously aims for a quick queenside expansion with ...b5 and such, is my current preference.
The real probelm with the Bxf6 early exchange is simple: Black clamp on the e4 square by ...f5, develops sanely with ...Be6, ...Bd6, ...h5 (to stop white's g2-g4), short castling, and then taking space on the queenside. White having no attacking plan, can't afford opening the game to Black's bishop pair- so what does he do? He simply sits back and watches, passively, his only hope being a total blockade on the queenside.
Answer to post 5: The main options are, I think, those already discussed: 4.Qd3, 4.f3, 4.e3. I played the aggressive 4.Qd3 a couple of times (the idea should be to try for a quick e4 and O-O-O, but this is not going to happen (at least not in a favourable way for white!) against black's more active answers) with decent results, but i dropped the opening since I didn't like much the resulting positions.
I have not a book on this subject and you should probably refer to avdlegitimate (edit: and pfen of course :) ) for the details/concrete theory, but i never liked 4.f3 due to 4...c6 5.e4 dxe4 6.fxe4 e5 7.dxe5 Qa5 which looks absolutely unappealing for white to me, and white's score in my database is somewhere around 35% (but as I said it might be that white has a totally satysfying answer i'm completely unaware of). 4.e3 was the subject of a relatively recent book written by an englisch GM (Davies? Not sure).
By the way, a potential issue with the veresov is that you need something vs the caro and french by trasposition. I don't know if it's an issue for you, but it's worth knowing that you still need a bit of 1.e4 theory to get your repertoire going.
Against those I usually just exchange at d5, then develop and castle, to keep the games open.
Against 3...Bf5 it seems I can do 4. f3, then against 3...e6 I can go immediatly 4. e4 because the f knight is now pinned. Blacks other main response seems to be 3...Nbd7, this is also the response that scores lowest for white, what would be a good response for this?
Whites main responses seem to be f3, Qd3, Nf3, or e3.
For anyone interested, the most current book on the Veresov is by IM Cyrus Lakdawala (A ferocious Opening repertoire). The book is not very good, simply because the author has never played the opening at the time he wrote the book (his brother did though, and Aagard proposed him writing a book on the subject without knowing that the author had no authority on the opening).
True enough, he has done a lot of work on it, but it's also true that he does not really understand the positional subtleties, so he does miss the whole mountain, sometimes.
Jan 4, 2024
0
#11
My opinion - Nf3 seems the most consistent option. f3 I think too many people at higher levels know the moves for it to be a main weapon, and once you know how to respond to it there's not alot more to it. If you're not a high level player though f3 is probably the best option, it's less subtle than Nf3 and people will not know the refutation, whites winrates are very good with f3 at low levels. Qd3 is a good aggressive option, very chaotic obscure positions, but I think it will require alot of effort to really know all the positions, a mistake can have brutal consequences for white, and if black plays correctly you're struggling to equalize (though admittedly black will probably not play it correctly), but to me this just isn't very appealing ... but still if I had to choose a move other than Nf3 I'd probably choose Qd3. e6 is a viable option it just doesn't really apply the same pressure, it kind of allows black to develop and get a game going. But there are some tough decisions black has to make and the player won't be very experienced in these lines, so it's an interesting option. Nf3 though... is my preferred choice, it can be punishing of mistakes by black, but not as risky / punishing of whites mistakes, and there's also not an easy move order solution to it the way there is with f3. for example, look at the main line of Nf3 with leela, go about 35 moves deep or so... the whole way there's 1 move that gives black a slight advantage, but practically any move other than the engines preferred move returns the advantage to white. Which probably explains why, of these 4 moves, white has the best winrates with Nf3 on lichess (at higher levels). also Nf3 can transpose into the french, burn variation which is a useful move order.
I have recently been considering playing this opening. Here it is:
What do you think? Is it sound, is it aggressive, would it be good? Is there anyone who has had experience with this that can give me tips?