The Swiss Defence gets its name from Henneberger, a Swiss player who, among other games, tried it in a smul against Alekhin in 1925. He played strongly, and that may have alerted Alekhin to its potential:
Alekhin made use of this uncommon move order (alongside the Cambridge Springs Defence) in his match against Capablanca. All but two games were Queen’s Gambits! Alekhin got to 3-2 ahead, and Capa fought like fury to level the match, but Alekhin used the Swiss Defence throughout this stage, drawing games 13, 15, 17 and 19… then winning game 21. Alekhin used the defence too in games 23, 25 and 27. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say this was a defence that won the World Championship — it resisted everything Capa threw at it, and it gave a win at an important moment.
I’ve stuffed the notes with all the variations you might need to play this defence.
There is a fine brisk commentary on this game by Kasparov: [url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY5Pco_6wjQ”]YouTube[/url]
Is this line any good now, and for club players?
I think the first ‘theory’ book I bought was Queen’s Gambit by Chess Digest, where I first plunged into the maze of variations of the Orthodox Defence, and felt a bit overwhelmed… but on page 3 there was a helpful hint, pointing to deviations from the main line on move 7 for Black, which included the Swiss Defence. Black’s chances weren’t obviously worse in that line than in the more popular lines.
Many years later, Tony Dempsey floated through Exeter Chess Club, and he recommended the defence to club players as being easy to remember and to understand, and if White played ‘natural’ moves, then Black would get a great position.
Not much wrong with that, eh?
And I think the first ‘match’ book I bought was Robert Byrne’s account of the 1974 Candidate’s Tournament. He annotated the crushing 10th game of the Portisch-Petrosian match with an intriguing note, reading something like: “At the time if the present match, these players were not familiar with the rehabilitation of the line by William Lombardy and myself”.
All looks OK, doesn’t it?
The trouble with the Swiss Defence, I thought, might be the swap on d5. This was Capa’s preferred approach in the second half of the match.
The swap leads to a characteristic pawn structure, now often called the Karlsbad structure.
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Why Karlsbad? In Starting Out, 1.d4!, John Cox recommends the Exchange Variation to players of White, adding “(or ‘Karlsbad’: no-one knows why)”. Ah, kids these days… No-one should call the Exchange Variation the ‘Karlsbad’, it’s the name of the structure, but we really do know why that got its name. It’s because at the Karlsbad tournament of 1923, during which there was a lot of exploration of cxd5 for White. (If anything should be called the Karlsbad Variation, it’s 8.cxd5 against 7…a6.; as far as I can see, no-one actually played 7…a6 in 1923, so no-one could reply 8.cxd5 in that exact position, but the structure with half-open c- and e-files is the same.)
White has a few plans here, but the most common is to pin down the Black c-pawn, and advance the b-pawn, hoping to make a weakness on c6, or d5, or both. This is the minority attack, where White advances on the side where they have fewer pawns — a minority.
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I mentioned this Exchange approach to Tony, knowing that many Queen’s Gambit players earn their living with this approach in the Queen’s Gambit (Petrosian, Kasparov and Karpov all used it heavily, and closer to home Keith Arkell), but he was quite sanguine about it. He suggested (1) it’s actually hard for White to keep control over the position for the whole game, and there is likely to be some accident along the way; (2) if there is an accident, it might happen while White’s King is facing an attack! And lo and behold, Devon faced Cornwall one weekend, and Andrew Greet exchanged against John Wheeler, and John showed the dangers White faced by winning with a convincing King’s-side attack. (I can find the result http://www.cornwallchess.org.uk/html/archive-county/county-1998.shtml but not the game!) Also, …a6 is a useful move in several plans for Black in the minority attack: it forces White to play a4 before playing b5, which means Black can get either an open a-file (b5 axb5) or a passed a-pawn (b5 cxb5; axb5 a5) or an outpost on c4 (…b5).
Also, I think if White has got as far as move 8 without taking on d5, they probably won’t do so on move 8 either; cxd5 may be the best approach against 7…a6, but if White is happy to play the Exchange, they are better advised to go for it earlier, excluding many ways that Black can choose to avoid it earlier.
So, I am happy to recommend this as a way for Black to approach the defence when faced with the Queen’s Gambit.
P.S. I was amused, having explained all this to my recent student, Leif Hafstad, to find Leif had explained it to Neil McDonald, and Neil had a go with it a couple of times: