Jon and I played a training game in the Advance Variation of the Caro-Kann.
Jon went for the Short Variation, which is considered to be the main line today, and is objectively the best way to fight the closed pawn triangle black has in the variation. White simply prepares to castle and he has a huge lead in development and space.
Black, on the other hand, has no weaknesses and has a clear plan of attack, or at least, a very natural way to deploy his pieces.
I went for a very unsound variation according to the engines. A setup I had prepared a while back but never had a chance to play. It’s often a pawn sac line, but even if white doesn’t win a pawn, he has long term weaknesses to exploit in black’s position. Black gets a ton of attacking chances though. He castles long and gets his rooks to the h and g files, and tries to mate. I really like the setup and couldn’t really understand why white is so much better when I was preparing it. I still don’t get it.
Our game was very interesting tactically and because of the advantage white had throughout the game, despite black being visually much better. I hope this serves as a new idea for the CK player!
Here is the game:
1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nf3 e6 5. Be2 Nd7 6. O-O h6 7. Nbd2 Ne7 8. Nb3 g5 9. a4 Ng6 10. a5 g4 11. Ne1 Be7 12. Bxg4 Bxg4 13. Qxg4 Qc7 14. Nf3 O-O-O 15. Bd2 Rdg8 16. Qh5 Bg5 17. Nxg5 hxg5 18. Qe2 f6 19. f4 Nxf4 20. Bxf4 gxf4 21. Rae1 Rg5 22. Rxf4 fxe5 23. dxe5 Rxe5 0-1
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