Semi-Tarrasch

Anyone play the Semi-Tarrasch? It fits my repertoire nicely but there doesn't seem to be a lot written about it, even though it was a favourite of Fischer's.

I just checked and it turns out that here I played it once as white and once as black.  I like that black doesn't defend passively and tries to counter-attack. 

Fischer used the semi-tarrasch  a lot. It arguably suited his classical style more than the KingsIndian. Hungrian players like Ribli and Pinter who wrote a two volunme set on it, were also keen. It was out of favour for a long time at top level, before Kramnik started playing it.

As I recall, about three-quarters of Fischer's 1. d4 games (as Black) were King's Indian, Gruenfeld or neo-Gruenfeld. He also played a few other lines, such as Nimzo and Semi-Tarrasch... perhaps twenty of each plus a few Benonis. Early in his career he played quite a few QGD Ragozin games; a hybrid between the QGD and Nimzo. In fact, he stuck to it with a devotion worthy of a better opening system, but he eventually ditched it for... a better opening system.

Some Fischer games in Semi-Tarrasch

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1128884 

9...b5 was novelty at the time, from 1972 match. 

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044717 from candidates final versus Petrosian

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008403

Match versues Reshevsky

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1028410 against Bisguier

Instead of 9...b5, which isn't played much these days, there are several classic white wins after 9....Bb4ch 10bd2 etc a few involving Spassky. These are maybe why opening wasn't very popular for sometime, and opening viewed as a poor man's Grunfeld.  Kramnik plays differently not playing Nc6, but Nd7 after bb4ch etc. Black can deal with d4-d5 better, can't say I really understand it. 

That's a modern trend too. It used to be thought that 6....c5 7a3 or 7Rab1 preventing bb4ch exchanges gave white some advantage. (Although Fischer annotated one game where played 4....Nxd5, with 4...pxp leads to the kind of woodpushing always found boring.) In those days semi-tarrasch more commonly arose with 3Nf3, or some move order with early Nf3.

Yes, in the classic games with Nc6 instead of nd7, d5 happened much earlier. Looks like something was miscalculated with 30Bd3, maybe 30Nd3 Qa5 31a3 to try and slow down the pawns a bit. On otherhand not nice making backward knight moves, at least I don't like doing it.

Kramnik was mostly using the opening in this tournament, for example http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1915068 with Rb1 line, and game against Karajakin with early h4 for white. So plenty useful for people playing opening. The chessbase annotations are a bit hit and miss. There are links to interviews with the players though.

https://www.chessdirect.co.uk/acatalog/Play-1.d4-d5-2.c4-e6--x8818.html

New book- black QGD repertoire based on the Semi- Tarrasch a-la Kramnik.

No official name.

In Greece we used to name it "the Bousios variation" after NM and IA Christos Bousios, who used to employ it pretty frequently.

So far I have played the Semi-Tarrash "Kramnik Style" only in correspondence games, and solely against strong opponents, where a draw as Black is no problem. I equalized in all games extremely easily.

Here are all the games so far.

Sinisa Loinjak is the pending IECG/LSS correspondence WC, and after the game he told me that it was a very good lesson to him, as he spent a lot of time analysing, and could not find any real advantage, anywhere.

I think it is an easy variation to play as Black- his (counter)play is quite simple and straightforward, and tactics are really few (although they did appear in my game against Van Seben).

Oh yes. White has a STATIC space advantage, but not a real attack anywhere, nor any useful way to break with d4-d5. So, Black can organize pressure against white's Achilles heel (d4) at his leisure. Of course precision is required, but Black is under no urgency to do so.

In regular OTB conditions things are certainly not so easy, but at correspondence level, where there is plenty of time and engines to ensure that nothing is blundered, Black is fully equal, and risking nothing.

Stunned at all these replies - thank you. (There were none for the first day or two, and I forgot all about the post.)

What didn't know before looking at the book mentioned by IM Pfren was after 1.d4 d5 2c4 e6 3Nc3 Nf6 4pxp Nxd5 5Nf3 c5 6e3 that 6....pxp 7pxp NxN 8pxN Qc7 has become popular with top level players rather than the traditional IQP positions after 6...Nc6.  It's still useful knowing something about the IQP positions because can arise from many different move order and openings. "Play 1.d4 d5 2c4 e6!" only looks at those semi-tarrasch lines useful for tackling the exchange variation. Can use the semi-tarrasch in more universal way if feel like it.

This opening is suddenly very trendy, there is now a two part series by Tibor Karolyi "Play the semi-tarrasch" https://www.chessdirect.co.uk/acatalog/Play-The-Semi-Tarrasch--Part-2-c9304.html.  The first part has a big overlap with Kornev book mentioned earlier with the e4 lines, whilst the second has all the rest, including the more "universal" IQP positions, which can be reached by other openings.  From the example pdf's quite an user friendly book with example games, and quite detailed explanation of ideas.