Botvinnik Games

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Miriam

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Aug 3, 2024, 10:45:18 AM8/3/24

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I play the caro-kann defense as black, and I am looking for a line against the panov-botvinnik attack. Can anybody with caro-kann experience suggest a line for me to play? It would also be great if you could tell me what kind of game the line leads to.

The e6 line allows the early Bb4, which puts pressure on one of White's active pieces in an ugly pin. One thing to watch for is the odd move order 1.e4 c6 2.c4, where White puts off d4 until it's safe and tries to get Black to commit to e6 when he doesn't have a pin and shuts in his light square Bishop.

The main ideas here are the development of the light squared bishop to b7 and the Queen's knight to d7. I am not arguing that the move order shown above is the best way to achieve [edit: it is definitely not as it loses a piece- see below for a better option] this but it does give black a reasonable equality (a slightly better pawn structure for a little less piece activity). Black could aim to encourage minor piece trades here with something like h6 followed by move aimed at releasing the pin and claiming the open file for the rooks.

Having the bishop on the long diagonal goes someway towards mitigating white's advantage of greater piece activity while the knight can help defend the kingside if placed on d7 instead of c6. The cxd5 lines lead to Re8+ as shown in the sidelines above which generally look good for black. In the comments I mean "looks strong" from a player's point of view in a game. I don't mean to say that the lines are actually good for white. Nevertheless, passive play from black after Re8+ could lead to white's central king becoming an advantage in an endgame.

Chessgames.com gives an impressive winrate for white of 37.8% in the panov botivinnik attack out of 2430 games, suggesting that the mainlines are in need of improvement. My impressions from looking at recent games are that most black wins appear to be due to at least one of four things: 1. White trying something dubious like c4-c5. 2. White trading off his/her pieces early on. 3. Black choosing a structure similar to what I have presented above. 4. Black playing the g6 lines and fianchettoing in front of his king.

Rykba 2.3.2 gives the final position in my previous post exact equality at 6 ply which suggests that it is a reasonable approach. I haven't analysed the other lines with a computer yet. There might be some stronger resources earlier on for white than what I have shown but I will leave them for others to find.