Thoughts on the Benoni Defense?

He goes for tactics, tactics tactics. QGD is too difficult for him because the tactics are more hidden.
Incidentally, why are you even thinking of playing the MB when you could get him to play the Slav?

Nah, I don’t like QGD because of light squares bishop and the position feels passive to me.

i am in the process of taking up the modern benoni but only when white has played nf3, and i pair this with the nimzo. i think the nimzo is easier to play intuitively than the lines with f4 in the benoni. i know it's a whole different opening but still it is rather conceptual. even in the nimzo proper you can play for a benoni pawn structure in some lines.

i could also invite the benoni with c5 if white tried the pure catalan d4 c4 and g3 against nf6 and e6.

i don't like the 1..c5 version of it as you likely have to study c4 lines and non c4 lines.

i don't like the 2..c5 version because of the f4 lines. i have petrov's gm repertoire book and i haven't bothered reading the f4 lines section at any decent depth.

i play 1 d4 too so that somehow helps me choose which lines to avoid and which lines to pursue, for both colors.

in my mind, the only other try to unbalance the game against 1 d4 that's not grunfeld or kid would be the dutch. i think it works better against the 1 d4 sidelines but likely the main lines are the problem for black.

I was referring to the Modern Benoni. Thank you for the insights. 

Because he is a King´s Indian player and Sicilian Dragon Player and prefers sharp play. 

Paring with the Nimzo is a good alternative. This way you don´t need to study Catalan or Queen´s Indian structures.  

It isn't instant action. I'm always playing for a win but sometimes black has to let white play a drawing line in any or all openings. White even has an easy drawing line in the Frankenstein_Dracula variation of the Vienna Game. I would suggest that the light squared B isn't black's weakness but black's hidden strength in the QGD. It requires patience. I stopped playing these things only because I played in so many tournaments and it was a percentage thing. I wanted games that didn't last 75 moves, so I could stand a chance in the fifth game of the weekend.

Yeah I admit that the LSB can be a nice attacking piece (like in the french and stonewall) but when I play it I just don't see any way I can "weird things up" like I usually do. The Czech benoni allows me to be as weird as I want but still play for a win.

When I took up the MB, back around 1995, the feeling in club, county and tournament play was that the MB was unsound, failed to the f4 - Bb5+ lines etc, so I took it up because at that level I was playing at, around 1700 - 1900 FIDE equivalent, British players tended to be too cautious. They'd made it through the hurly-burly of chess at lower levels, say 1500 - 1600 FIDE equiv, where it can be sharp. They'd made it by applying positional principles and being quite cautious. It was an easy target, really, to play sound chess but to be prepared to make it far more tactical than these people liked, and I think that the MB being under-rated helped me. Especially in the f4/Bb5+ Taimanov lines and also in other f4 lines. The diminishing returns were very noticeable when it became accepted that you don't need to only play the MB after Nf3 .... that that was mistaken thinking and the MB was fine because what an MB player likes is tactics and scary variations. So they, the players of the white side, started to be far more cautious and this coincided with the highly positional modern lines. When white plays the right moves and knows when to break in the centre, and plays positionally, and restrains black, the MB becomes slightly unsound. The KID is safer, more solid than the MB. I think it's a very different opening. The KID and the MB aren't alike. I play the Classical lines against the KID, inviting the Mar del Plata. The KID is all about patient maneuvering by black. But if the MB player tries too much of that, the centre gets broken open and he dies. The Dragon Sicilian isn't, or doesn't seem to be all that aggressive. The aggression mainly comes from white.

So is the MB really the way for this person to go? Is it because you want to explore the MB, maybe?

Remind me not to play d4 c4 against you.

I play Dlugy's line.

Some lines can be reached by transposition between KID and MB. 

The Dragon was his initial rep, but he wants to trade it (we are going to change to the Najdorf - this one I have on my own repertoire). 

We have a Brazilian GM that plays the MB frequently, also. So I guess is a good try. If he doesn´t like it we can change. 

dude.

my theory ENDS after 5.f3.

I play 5.f3 as well. And 5.b6 as a sideline. 

White... playing b6?

also how do you develop pieces in the dlugy line? I usually go something like Bd3 Nge2 because I don’t really know. Only today did I come up with the idea of a4 to hold onto the pawn...

Oh. You can return the pawn. I forgot.

I play the Benoni as my main response to d4 and have for a few years now. Haven't gotten to try it in many OTB games but I have more prep than most white players and I haven't found any lines which I'm truly struggling in so far. I'm not as good as your student OTB, but I think if you just study a couple lines you'll be fine.

I don't normally win the pawn. I have my own line in the Volga gambit which always gives white the advantage. The reason is that the game does not revolve around what happens on the Q-side and whether white has an extra pawn there. The game is won or lost according to what happens in the centre. So 4. Nf3 as a constructive waiting move. Black has to reveal his hand ...... g6, e6, bc, whatever, and then white plays the correct fifth move according to what black just played. In some lines, white plays a very early b3.

+ 1.5 is equivalent to a loss and yet it's played at the highest levels. Therefore it's the computer that's unreliable.

With Bd3 and Nge2, as you. 

Let´s say Black plays 5...axb5 6.e4 Qa5 7.Bd2 b4 8.Na3 (heading for c4 as the b4 pawn is pinned). This idea of Na3-Nc3 is useful too.