art of planning (Pirc) part 21/25
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Please note that all the info. in this post are taken from outside sources, they will be mentionned in the last section (special thanks and others sources section)..AND DON'T FORGET TO ALWAYS LOOK FOR COMMENTS UNDER EACH DIAGRAMS!!!
Pirc
The Pirc Defense is a really strange opening. It looks almost like the Sicilian Dragon, except White has a strong center and Black has no open 'c' file for counterplay! Yet, it is a sound opening played by many great chess players. Still, seeing such obvious similarities with the Dragon variation, I cannot help but remember the famous Fischer plan of dealing with the Dragon: just push the 'h' pawn, check, check... mate! Let's see if such a crude method works in the Pirc
The 6.e5!? idea is not new of course and was relatively popular in the 1960's. In the next game GM Leonid Stein showed that White doesn't really need to burn his bridges by sacrificing a piece as early as move 9, (like Nakamura did in the previous game). Still his attack was so vicious that his opponent GM Leonid Shamkovich didn't last long.
Maybe Black should just take the annoying pawn by 6...dxe5? In the following game a strong Armenian GM and a namesake of the great World Champion Tigran Petrosian shows that even in this case Black is not out of the woods.
The 6.e5!? plan doesn't refute the Pirc Defense, but does pose serious problems for Black. In the resulting positions one wrong move spells disaster for Black. Therefore, many chess players prefer to play 5...c5, delaying castling and immediately attacking White's center. In the next brilliant game White still managed to achieve a strong attack with a surprising sacrifice.