Sicilian defense: Scheveningen variation with a6

BTW This is a public game, for anyone to comment on, or you'd have done it in private by messaging or something.

Why?  I said the same thing on post #73 3 days and about 10 moves ago.  I told you this was a losing line, yet you continued down it because you saw a game between 2 IMs and did not bother to analyze it for yourself.  As we have stated many times already:  the reason these lines are not played often is because of the Keres Attack.  It simply gives White too large of an advantage, which is why the elite prefer to enter the Scheveningen structure through the Najdorf move order (where the g4 push is less strong, but you do have to deal with Bg5 options).

You and Pawn Tsunami don't get on very well, do you.

I think it's a very intersting game. I sometimes miss 1. e4 openings from the white side but I just get better results with 1. d4, with far less work, because most people under about 1900 don't know them.

Surely you would have seen that a4 is an obvious move? White's pawn breaks are a4 and e5. Why get upset at PawnTsunami for pointing out a move that I would have made?

I do not know why he was so upset to begin with.  I said the same thing several days and several moves ago.  I was just surprised he continued following this game when he was told that White blundered into a draw well before getting here.

I don't know about this other game where white allegedly blundered into a draw but was it on the next move? If so, what did white play? e5 is an obvious move which allows white to feed another knight in, most probably, but it upsets the dynamic of the game. However, a4 forces a weakening of black's pawns and it is a move which I thought should be played immediately, since it not only forces a weakening but also is a kind of waiting move.

In Golubev-Barskij 2018, White played 23. c4.  There are several ways for White to convert, but that is not one of them since it opens up lines to the White king allowing Black to force simplifications into a roughly equal endgame.

OK I missed that diagram. I looked at attacking with the c pawn but I didn't like it, for probably all the wrong reasons. I want my N on a4 to strongpoint c5 .... it seems to be no use on c4. Also I want to be able to play c3 to allow the rooks onto the a file.

@Fizzyband In the mainline Keres attack black will be able to get the move d5 is a liberating move, and the attack has essentially lost its venom as in the mainline white will actually offer a trade of queens and black will decline as white's king is less safe. In the endgame, black will get an isolated pawn on c6 but he has compensation as white has an isolated pawn on h5 with black's rook staring at the pawn. Black gets excellent activity with the pawns on the kingside messed and open files to attack on the pawns on the queenside. At the end of the day, black has more space and better rooks while white has an excellent bishop, it's an equal position and the reason people play the najdorf is simple. Either greater flexibility to be able to play e5 or if they play e6 after is to simply learn less theory as I will admit the Keres is scary. But a prepared player will always be fine just as in the Yugoslav attack. You will lose a ton of games but then you will be able to hold. I play the Scheveningen occasionally with my main weapon being the dragon, its completely fine. And you may look at my profile and see how low rated I am but I switched to lichess and I'm 1800 classical over there so I am quite experienced playing the Sicilian at any opportunity. Black and white both get structural weaknesses and both get active pieces. Saying black is worse is just wrong, learn some theory in the Keres I recommend this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G9jKtm8Sds and try it for yourself. It gives you more options especially against the classical.

How is the best way for black combat the simple move a3?

...b5 + ...Bb7

So after 7...b5 8. g4 Bb7 9. Bg2 then 9...h5, 9...Nfd7, or something else?

These lines with e6 > e5 immediately actually look alright. At first leela hates it, and thinks it's like +0.45, but by the time you reach move 14 it's dropped all the way down to +0.25 or so. To put that in perspective it's basically 3 100ths of a pawn worse than the main lines in the richter-rauzer. But something I do like about these lines is they're relatively forcing, the variation isn't exploding in lines really... usually white just has 1 or 2 good moves.

Looking at the masters database black actually is scoring alright here, better than the dragon scores against the yugoslav attack, and we still see pros play the dragon... nakamura played the dragon for quite a while.

Seems to me with this it's a viable option... people write it off and don't prepare for it nowdays which probably makes it even better at club level.

Looks like against the delayed keres the same thing works, too.