Openings / Kislik Variation
KISLIK VARIATION Reaches the Top
The
Examining the main points of 11. ... exd4 in the Ruy Lopez By IM ERIC KISLIK
admit to being uncertain about whether the line was fully sound and skeptical about whether any strong player would take it up in the meantime. At the time, only my students and friends were playing it. After one of my students played the line against Super-GM Peter Svidler, Svidler decided to start playing it himself recently. As White, Svidler played 15. N1h2 and as Black, Svidler drew both GM Yangyi Yu (2736 FIDE) and GM Alexander Motylev (2658 FIDE) in the 15. Bf4 line. These moves will be commented on later. I was surprised and flattered by this sudden
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interest in the variation to say the least. I spoke to Svidler a few weeks before the Baku World Cup and showed him the article I had written about it. After telling him the variations I considered to be the most dangerous, he apparently had confidence that the line was sound. During the World Cup, I was completely shocked to see him use the Kislik Variation in an extremely important game. Svidler ended
26 April 2016 | Chess Life
arlier this year I published a full-feature New in Chess Yearbook article on the Kislik Variation of the Ruy Lopez. I
up winning it with black against Anish Giri. This win propelled Svidler into the final (which he lost, despite starting with a 2-0 lead in the classical games). ChessBase later stated that the variation should be named the Svidler variation because he is clearly the strongest player to have played it. The logic of the name change doesn’t make much sense: since Magnus Carlsen is clearly the best player in the world right now, should we change the name of every line he has played to the Carlsen Variation? I doubt that anyone would agree with that choice or the reasoning behind it. Since the Kislik Variation is picking up steam,
it makes a lot of sense to explain some of the main points of the variation, as well as mention some of the most testing theoretical attempts to refute it. I came up with the line mostly by chance, looking for obscure and tricky lines to play against the Ruy Lopez while preparing for annoying 1. e4 players during tournaments I played. After trying four or five different dubious Ruy Lopez sidelines, I thought more seriously about playing the extremely rare 11. … exd4, which marks the start of the Kislik
Variation after:
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. 0-0 Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3 0-0 9. h3 Bb7 10. d4 Re8 11. Nbd2
The move that almost everyone plays here
is 11. … Bf8, as is standard in the traditional Zaitsev variation the way Zaitsev and Karpov played it. My idea is different: with the bishop on f6, it exerts interesting pressure on the long a1-h8 diagonal and makes it difficult for White to put his pieces on their most natural squares. Since Black often plays … g7-g6 and … Bg7 in the Zaitsev, it makes sense to save time by
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