Ideas in Alekhine Defense, Brooklyn Variation

@sharkema There is no easy way to learn any opening. This particular variation has the advantage of being a surprise for your opponent (even if they saw this famous Carlsen game, they definitely don't know how to play this for white properly) at the cost of its objective unsoundness on the theory level. In practice, especially in blitz, it is perfectly playable, you just need to know the key lines and learn to calmly defend with a space disadvantage if it happens that your opponent doesn't fall into traps.

Basing on lichess opening database, your opponent fell in the MOST COMMON trap in this line 7. d6? after which you just needed to deprive white of castling rights by 7... Qh4+ (if 8.g3? then 8... Qe4+ winning a rook), develop and try to exploit white's lack of coordination and weak king. This position is already objectively better and maybe even winning for black. Just analyze your games, see where you made mistakes, and you will grasp the main ideas eventually. Your moves 5... c5 and 6... e6 are perfectly fine by lichess statistics, so you can stick to them.

This trap is so common that even NM with 2500+ rating call fall into that: lichess.org/jlquc189 Probably you can win a lot of points just by remembering this line.

This is a pretty easy and neat opening to analyze because of how the position looks at the start of move 3. Basically you're telling white, "Okay, I'm going to give you not only the first move but also let you play e5 for free." So in order to claim that this isn't just a bad opening you need to believe that white being able to play e5 for free is so weakening that it is detrimental to his position. If you believe that that's the case then sure, you could make some argument for this being a good idea. If you don't believe that's the case then this is just a bad opening.

Of course openings don't really matter all that much in chess though. So if you're stronger than your opponent you'll probably still win. But unless you think letting white play e5 for free is harmful to his position, you're just giving yourself an unnecessary handicap.

It's hard to argue that in this specific case e5 is bad for White when it's pretty clearly good against the Caro.

In your posted game, 11...Qe4+ wins the e5-pawn due to the fork, so your opening lines are fine.
http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/games/java/2008/brooklyn-defense.htm offers better insights.

@OhNoMyPants I think you emphasize too much the objective evaluation of the position. That matters when two strong grandmasters in a Classical time control or superhuman engines are playing, but is more complicated when we are talking about amateurs and especially about blitz when it is hard to refute some funky lines OTB against a player who knows the theory decently. The fact is that in both Alekhine main line 2... Nd5 and Brooklyn you can see a statistical advantage of Black (sic!) in Lichess database, and this fact doesn't change with excluding weaker players, however, it significantly changes with excluding Bullet and Blitz. Giving white to play e2-e5 for free is hardly harmful but there is no way back for white, and they will have to play the kind of positions that is well-known for the opponent who practices Brooklyn variation regularly whereas unknown for themselves who see this like 1 of a several thousand games.

i wanted to post a lengthy comment including long lines, but @OhNoMyPants #12 and @TonyRo #13 said it in much simpler words.

#15 Magnus Carlsen and Laurent Fressinet are 2 strong grandmasters and they played classical time control.

#13 Here is another respected line where black goes Ng8-f6-g8 albeit on move 6-8 instead of move 1-2.


#12 In 1 e4 d5 2 exd5 Qxd5 3 Nc3 Qd8 black also says in the initial position "Let us remove your e-pawn and my d-pawn and you get move Nc3 for free."
Also comparing to the regular Alekhine's defence: what is better: the knight at g8, or the knight at b6 and giving white move c4 for free.

@tpr Carlsen Fressinet was not a classical game but a blitz game. I even gave video proof in #5. It was played in Round 3 of the FIDE World Blitz 2014. Have a look at his and his opps facial expressions after he plays Ng8. Also, dont forget to mention that Carlsen never repeated that move.

Further, i understand what you want to say with your general remarks about Aliechin with Nd5, Sicilian accelerated Dragon and Scandinavian with Qd8 lines. You can also add the Fischer Line in Kings indian where black allows white to attack his N with e5, etc. Most of these lines are good.

But it depends on concrete analysis. And concrete analysis shows that black has a problem with his Bc8 in the Ng8 line. Fressinet made it too simple for Carlsen, after 5 Bc4! instead of 5 h3?! Black can not play Bg4 because of Bxf7! and on Bf5 white has Nh4! and if then Be4 then e6! and white is clearly better. So if black plays 5 ... d5 white goes back to d3, which is an Advance Caro Kann with white having played Bd3 and Nf3 for free.

Black doesnt have to play c6 but the Bc8 problem remains. If he exchanges it against the Knight f3 then due to his development disadvantage he is not able to get a good version of the dxe5, c6, e6 setup (which is said to equalize in the Nd5 line but even that is not so sure according to my analysis):



If black plays like @Wolfram_EP suggested, 3 ... c5 then white has no big problems getting a winning advantage:

@nh78 Where did I suggest 3... c5? 5... c5 In the line played in a game of TS is another story, although you can show the main line as well and say it is a winning advantage. I don't see a clear reasoning why it is so, only a Stockfish high evaluation and a space advantage for white which in my experience can be hard to really convert.

@Wolfram_EP hm. Obviously i read your posts better than you do.

tz tz.

i give three hints:

1) this page
2) gameposted by you
3) transposition