The Weekly Reti #2: How to CRUSH the Chigorin: Part 2!

The Weekly Reti #2: How to CRUSH the Chigorin: Part 2!
 
Hi again! Every Friday at 10:30 a.m. CST I post about the Reti. It's one of my favorite ways to
start a game. Not because it's super solid and easy to play, but because it's deceptively TRICKY.
If you haven't seen the rest of the series yet, I recommend you do so by looking through my topics on my profile.

With that being said, today we'll be looking at the traps laid out in the following line 1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nc6 3. c4 Nf6 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4:

Already Black is feeling uncomfortable. After all, your two pawns in the center are very annoying to deal with! Currently, the knight has to move to one of three safe squares: b4, b6, and f6. All of them aren't great for Black, so let's start with the worst one:

So moving to b4 was a blunder! Perhaps we move back to f6? Well, it's certainly better, but we have TONS of traps that Black can walk right into! Let's see how fast Black can LOSE:

Wait a minute! What if we take the f3-knight first? Still losing!

Yikes! Perhaps the bishop was better left on c8. Let's just develop and castle instead. Unfortunately, they can't ignore their problems!

That was BRILLIANT! But how are so many traps coming out of this opening? Bobby Fischer says "Tactics flow from a superior position." Since we have an unchallengeable space advantage, we have the freedom to do whatever we want with it.

So far, we've looked at what happens after Nb4 and Nf6. But how about Nb6? This is the best move, according to the engine. But it still doesn't evade our endless traps!

For this final trap, we will see what happens if Black brings their knight back to b8:

helped me in retu