Queen's Indian Powerbook 2024

For White the Queen’s Indian represents a solid alternative to the Nimzo-Indian: there is no doubled pawn on c3, positional understanding counts for more than rote learning of variations. In top chess we can see a slight trend towards 4...Bb7, with 4...Bb7 and 4...Ba6 being played equally frequently. In the Powerbook, on the other hand, 4...Ba6 dominates. After that there is a clear main variation with the following most frequently played moves: 5.b3 Bb4+ 6.Bd2 Be7 7.Bg2 c6 8.Bc3 d5 9.Ne5 (this leads to the exchange of a pair of knights, so recently players have been avoiding it) 9...Nfd7 10.Nxd7 Nxd7 11.Nd2 0-0 12.0-0 Rc8 13.e4

and in this position humans, including the greatest experts Levon Aronian and Peter Leko, have moved to a position of no longer playing 13...b5, but rather 13...c5. According to the Powerbook there is no basis for that: 13...b5 has super statistics; on account of the high number of games played both continuations represent good material for study. BODY: In the Queen's Indian Powerbook 2024 too, nice discoveries are waiting to be made. The theory of the variations with 4.g3 Ba6 reaches far into the middlegame. 4.e3 may be harmless, but take for example 4...Bb7 5.Bd3 Be7 (5...Bb4+ 6.Nbd2 and 5...d5 6.0-0 Bd6 7.b3 are alternatives) 6.0-0 c5 7.Nc3 cxd4 (7...0-0?! 8.d5!) 8.exd4 d5 9.cxd5 Nxd5 10.Ne5 0-0 with 480 games in Mega and 1560 in the Queen's Indian Powerbook:

After 11.Qg4! Nf6 12.Qh4 Ne4 13.Qh3 Qxd4 the Powerbook still has statistics based on 425 games with 14.Bf4 (only 111 in the Online Database) and when you start to delve a little into the thicket of variations you also realise that despite the extra pawn things look rather bad for Black.