thinking of dropping the Alekhine.

Hi,

I used to really like the Alekhine and I enjoyed learning it from Timothy Taylor's funny book.

However, I'm thinking of giving it up. Most people are playing 2. Nc3 or choose the exchange variation, for example
2. e5-Nd5
3. d4-d6
4. c4-Nb6
5. exd6-exd6
(the latter move being Taylor's recommendation and Bent Larsen's choice).

Even players who have (ostensibly) not studied the Alekhine at all often  go into this since it's quite natural. Send away the knight from the centre then get rid of the e5 pawn which is very hard to maintain profitably.

Now I'm supposed to play Nc6 early to press on the d4 pawn then Be7 and Bg4 and if White attacks with d5 I have a nice Ne5 move and if not I can play ... d5 sooner or later and try to undermine white's centre. If white plays c5 over my d5, I should play Nc8-e7-f5, again pressing the d4 pawn. In practice it doesn't seem to work properly. white just retains his natural space advantage and my counterplay just doesn't seem to work. I don't have any specific games because I mostly play blitz or rapid so I don't write them down.

What I'm trying to ask is - am I doing something wrong or does it just not work?

In that opening you have to play very precisely to keep White from getting a big edge.  Defense is hard, this is not like playing the Siclian as Black where you get all kinds of tactics and counterattacking chances - not right away anyway.

I would say keep playing it if you like it, especially in blitz games, and you will learn about defense, keeping your positon solid, neutralizing White's initiative, etc etc.  You should also consider playing it in some slow games where you can really try to figure out the best moves.

In Taylor's book he talks about some master who played the Alekhine a lot, and lost game after game until suddenly his results got really good...who knows, stick with it.

Hi gwnn,

I also own Taylor's book, and I regularly play the Alekhine. The exchange is not a good variation. I wouldn't say harmless, but it's not the best way to put pressure on Black.

The Alekhine is an awesome defense, but in the beginning you have to cope with the pawn pushing and a seemingly cramped position. Don't get stressed! Don't expose your pieces! By overextending the pawns White is getting weaker and weaker, and most of the time, unless you play a very well prepared opponent, the white center just falls apart.

The best thing about the Alekhine is the fact that since white almost attack in the same way, you don't have to use very different moves according to the variation. Just the opposite, many "stardard" moves work really well.

In the exchange variation the plan you're following is perfectly valid, but if you don't feel comfortable give the Kengis set-up a try. It works really fine for me. Fianchetto your bishop on g7. This puts a lot of pressure on white's weak center, and he/she will lose one or two moves moving the rook away from the diagonal. Then the c5 blow is a killer. It simply shred white's center. If white takes, the diagonal's open, and the doubled pawn are fragile as glass. If he/she advance, once again the diagonal's open, and the pawns are not going any farther.

Just don't get stressed, really, and keep on playing it. It's an excellent defense. Don't give up.

Here you go the only 4 games I've recently played in online Blitz on the internet. They are Blitz, so just forgive the blunder, but take a look at the set-up, and I hope they may be of some help for you.

you mean treat it similarly as "the Sergeev" counterplay vs the four pawns? g6 then c5 works great there (and when dxc5, N6e7).

Yes, I mean that if you don't feel comfortable with the standard plan, just use the Kengis set-up, or as you said the Sergeev counter vs the 4-pawns.

As you've seen, I've used against that variation Taylor's recommendation, and you can see it doesn't look that bad. What do you think? Don't be afraid of d5. As you've seen in my first game d5 can be met by the inmediate Bf6, and white's in trouble.

In general that black dark-squared bishop is very powerful in the Alekhine due to the fact that the pawns are very advanced. If white keeps on pushing, the bishop's a killer.

But getting back to your question, if you don't feel comfortable with that, just fianchetto the bishop, and play c5. Go through the games, even though they are blitz. Black has plenty of "holes", weak squares for the powerful knights.

The trick is keeping the calm, not getting stressed by the nature of the position, and then strike back right on the center!

Yes, as bigdoug said, you need to play very precisely as black if you want any chance of equalizing (if this line is supposed to; personally I don't know; a lot of lines in this opening are better for white, but I'm not sure about this one; but I wouldn't trust your book's evaluation 100% either as those books written by non GMs often just try to offer up instructive, fresh, and new lines even if tecnically they're not the best), and this is because if white can develop and defend his pawns then he has consolidated his space advantage and your pieces just run into a dead end. This is probably what you end up allowing by playing maybe a tad too passively. On the other hand if you put enough pressure on the pawns you tie white down and then you're the only one who has any targets to claim.

Thanks all for helping!

Look at this nice game, I tried RiuryK's plan and came quite close to beating a 1889 ELO person (he actually scored 67% against an average of 2034 ELO)! I will never give up the Alekhine!!

Alekhine likes cats

What I like about the Alekhine is that it's pretty much guaranteed that black will have a long term positional weakness (not a big one, if say white plays the quieter lines as opposed to something like the 4 pawns attack, but still) to play against, whilst usually maintaining a pretty solid structure of his own.

Nice draw. You did it right. Nice pressure on the d4 pawn. Keep it up! 

If I don't play Rb7 doesn't he play b7 himself and then I can't win the pawn? he can arrange for two defenders and I can never have more than two attackers