THE HYPER ACCELERATED DRAGON by Raja Panjwani www.thinkerspublishing.com Managing Editor Romain Edouard Proofreading Daniël Vanheirzeele Graphic Artist Philippe Tonnard Cover design Iwan Kerkhof Typesetting i-Press ‹www.i-press.pl› Second extended edition 2018 by Th inkers Publishing Th e Hyper Accelerated Dragon Copyright © 2018 Raja Panjwani All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the publisher. ISBN 978-94-9251-034-1 D/2018/13730/16 All sales or enquiries should be directed to Th inkers Publishing, 9850 Landegem, Belgium. e-mail: [email protected] website: www.thinkerspublishing.com TABLE OF CONTENTS KEY TO SYMBOLS 5 INTRODUCTION 7 CHAPTER 1. CLASSICAL VARIATION (e2) 15 CHAPTER 2. 7.c4: ANTI-YUGOSLAV VARIATION 29 CHAPTER 3. 7.c4: MY SYSTEM 57 CHAPTER 4. MAROCZY BIND: BREYER VARIATION 89 CHAPTER 5. MAROCZY BIND: MAIN LINE 131 CHAPTER 6. 4.xd4 VARIATION 177 CHAPTER 7. ANTI-SICILIANS: ALAPIN AND MORRA 189 AFTERWORD 225 KEY TO SYMBOLS ! a good move ?a weak move !! an excellent move ?? a blunder !? an interesing move ?! a dubious move only move =equality unclear position with compensation for the sacrifi ced material White stands slightly better Black stands slightly better White has a serious advantage Black has a serious advantage +- White has a decisive advantage -+ Black has a decisive advantage with an attack with initiative with counterplay with the idea of better is worse is Nnovelty +check #mate INTRODUCTION It simply isn’t an adventure worth telling if there aren’t any dragons. J.R.R. Tolkien My Favorite Sicilian 8.0–0 8...xe4! 9.xc6 I was introduced to the Accelerated Dragon when I was ten years old, more 9.xe4 xd2+ 10.xd2 xd4 than seventeen years ago. It was argu- 8 ably my fi rst ‘serious’ defense against r+l+k+-tr 1.e4: prior to then I would develop 7 zpp+pzppvlp my pieces in a manner my father and 6 -+N+-+p+ I called ‘P-Play’ (the ‘P’ deriving from 5 wq-+-+-+- our family name) but which I later dis- 4 -+L+n+-+ covered is widely known as the Hip- 3 +-sN-vL-+- popotamus Defence. He and I were of 2 similar strength at the time, and we PzPPwQ-zPPzP studied the opening together from the 1 tR-+-mK-+R then recently published, and now clas- abcdefgh sic, Accelerated Dragons by IMs Don- aldson and Silman. 9...xc3!! 10.xc3 What drew me to the opening initially 10.bxc3 xd2 11.xd2 bxc6 was the abundance of cheapos I could set up for my opponents in the early 10...xc3+ 11.bxc3 bxc6 stages of the game, which even experts and masters seemed unprepared for. Beyond simple tricks like this one, Th e following was always one of my I found that the positional themes of favorites: the opening were fairly easy to digest; for example, dark square control, cen- 1.e4 c5 2.f3 g6 3.d4 cxd4 4.xd4 tral breakthrough (especially ...d7-d5), g7 5.c3 c6 6.e3 f6 7.c4 queenside expansion, as well as the a5 8.d2? typical favorable and unfavorable end- 8 THE HYPER ACCELERATED DRAGON games which tend to arise. As I have been justifi able half a century ago, matured as a player, my perspective Black has since demonstrated coun- on this opening has correspondingly terattacking prospects against the e4/ transformed, but my respect and ap- c4 clamp in a variety of structures, as preciation for its strength has only in the Hedgehog, Kalashnikov, Kan, been enhanced. Th is book is an at- Taimanov, and certainly no less in the tempt to convey my current under- Accelerated Dragon. standing and approach with black. I suspect that computers have de- I have always felt that the Acceler- terred many potential devotees away ated Dragon does not get its due re- from the Accelerated Dragon. Com- spect among the Sicilians. Even its puter evaluations in the main lines prodigal brother, the un-accelerated tend to fl uctuate between +0.25 and Dragon, had its time in the spotlight +0.5, which plausibly leads to the ra- when it was used by Kasparov to tionale that playing the Accelerated twice defeat (and twice draw) Anand Dragon instead of the Berlin or Mar- in their 1995 PCA World Champion- shall — where evaluations are closer ship match. Why then, has the Accel- to +0.15 — is like playing with a small erated Dragon — the theoretically no handicap straight out of the opening. worse off , and much safer of the two Th ings, however, are not so simple. (I like to think of it as the only Sicil- Computers evaluate each position ian where Black needn’t worry about by objective features, without regard getting mated in 25 moves) — histori- for subjective factors which are very cally been only an occasional guest in often more important in tourna- top events, and, unlike every other re- ment chess. Machines systematical- spectable Sicilian, never occupied the ly ignore the value of, for example, central battlefi eld of a World Cham- being able to follow one of a small pionship match?1 Part of the discrep- number of thematic plans, irrespec- ancy is a vestige of the old (pre-1970s) tive of what the opponent does, sav- dogma that in the Sicilian, to avoid ing on clock time as well as risk of suff ocation, Black must prevent White mishandling the position. Th is sort from obtaining a ‘clamp’ pawn cent- of human element is unaccounted er (pawns on e4 and c4). Indeed, the for by the engine, resulting in an in- Maroczy Bind (5.c4) has always been fl ated estimation of White’s chances. the bane of the Accelerated Dragon’s In this regard, there are similarities existence. However, while this atti- between the Accelerated Dragon and tude towards the Sicilian may have the King’s Indian Defense — another opening notoriously bastardized by 1 Th e only time it was played in a World the engine. King’s Indian devotees are Championship Match was Spassky-Petro- used to seeing +0.5 computer evalu- sian 1969, Game 3. ations, but they are not discouraged INTRODUCTION 9 because they recognize that there is The Accelerated Dragon a narrow margin of error for White, State of Mind and to err is human. Th e same can be said for the Accelerated Dragon. A friend of mine (a strong IM) re- Fortunately, the tide of fashion is cently commented to me that if he turning, and contemporary Accel- could be certain that his opponents erated Dragon experts like (super) wouldn’t play the Maroczy bind, he Grandmasters Tiviakov, Mamedov, would always play the Accelerated Iturrizaga, and Malakhov have dem- Dragon instead of his usual (un- onstrated that this opening can be accelerated, but I sometimes teas- a reliable counter to 1.e4 even against ingly prefer ‘un-playable’) Dragon, top opposition. Recently, in fact, because White can’t play the criti- World Champion Magnus Carlsen cal Yugoslav Attack against the Ac- upheld the Black side of a Maroczy celerated Dragon (despite this being to put a halt to Caruana’s 7-0 run in lesson #1 of the Accelerated Dragon, the 2014 Sinquefi eld Cup. I predict a surprising number of masters have a bright future for this opening, for not gotten the memo). “However”, he many reasons, but most of all be- continued, “in the Maroczy, Black is cause 1) Th e resulting positions are just playing for a draw, you can nev- diffi cult for computers to properly as- er win!” A loyal defender of my be- sess- many ‘+=’ evaluations are more loved pet opening, I insisted he had accurately ‘=’ but more important- it all wrong, and that I welcome the ly ‘easier to play for Black’, a factor Maroczy in must-win games with which should not be underestimated Black. “That’s really weird dude, especially considering the increasing- you’re probably the only one” was his ly short time controls, and 2) Th ere is retort, but I think when it comes to plenty of unexplored terrain, which the Accelerated Dragon, there’s a req- cannot be easily navigated by the po- uisite state of mind needed in order sitional dictums we are brought up to properly handle it — some players with, because the Accelerated Dragon have had a conversion experience af- is a genuinely nonstandard opening. ter catching a glimpse of its incredible Th is means that there is a competitive power, while others haven’t. Plausibly advantage to those who work out its as a result of this, from my experi- unusual nuances, unlike in, say, the ence there is a peculiar camaraderie Najdorf or Sveshnikov where it oft en among Accelerated Dragon practi- feels like the strategic ideas are all tioners. Whereas Najdorf ‘bros’ es- well known, and only concrete nov- pouse a Darwinian angst that their elties are yet to be discovered (if it is novelty on move 25 in the Poisoned unclear what I mean by this, I hope it Pawn variation will be discovered, isn’t by the end of the book!). used, and rendered useless by their 10 THE HYPER ACCELERATED DRAGON colleagues, I have found that Ac- “White’s position looks ideal. Th at’s the celerated Dragon players enjoy dis- naked truth about it, but the ‘ideal’ has cussing their ideas with each other. by defi nition one drawback — it can- A personal anecdote of mine is fair- not be improved.