The Kibitzer 
by Tim Harding

NOTEBOOM OR ABRAHAMS: WHOSE VARIATION IS IT
ANYWAY?

How to name variations - after their true originator or after the
person who introduced them to master practice or the place where
it was first played or on some other principle? This has become a
live issue with the renewed popularity of a double-edged Queen's
Gambit variation. The following grandmaster game attracted a lot
of attention in chess magazines earlier this summer. The sharp
variation introduced by Black's fourth move was for many years
considered to be inferior and rarely appeared in master practice but
suddenly it has become all the rage. But what should the variation
be called?

Boris Gelfand-Jeroen Piket, Verenigde Spaarbank tournament,
Amsterdam 1996: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 e6 4.Nf3 dxc4 5.a4 Bb4
6.e3 b5 7.Bd2 a5 (Black establishes a potentially dangerous
queenside majority, obliging White to find some concrete means of
justifying his pawn sacrifice.) 8.axb5 Bxc3 9.Bxc3 cxb5 10.b3 Bb7
(See Diagram) 11.d5 (First analysed by Argentinean master in the
1950s, this move was, until recently, regularly given a question
mark but perhaps it is not so bad after all?) 11...Nf6 12.bxc4 b4
13.Bxf6 Qxf6 14.Qa4+ Nd7 15.Nd4 e5 16.Nb3 Ke7 17.Be2
Rhc8!? 18.Rd1 (Not in my 1981 book; 18.Bg4 Qd6 19.Nxa5 Rxa5
20.Qxa5 Ra8 21.Qxa8 Bxa8 22.Rxa8 Qg6 was unclear in
Shulman-V.I.Ivanov, Moscow 1995.) 18...Nc5 (After 18...Qd6
Gelfand proposes 19.f4!? as critical and analyzes the drawish 19
0-0 in New In Chess.) 19.Nxc5 Rxc5 20.0-0 Ra6?! (Huzman's
20...Kf8 is probably the critical move, according to Gelfand.)
21.Qc2 a4 22.f4 b3 23.Qe4! Kd6 24.Qxh7 e4 25.Qxe4 a3 26.Qd3
b2 27.Qb3! Bc8 28.Qb8+ Kd7 29.Bg4+ Kd8 30.d6 a2 31.d7 1-0.

The Dutch-published New In Chess magazine referred to Black's
opening as the Noteboom Variation when publishing notes by
Gelfand (NIC 3/1996 pp29-31). I would have expected British
Chess Magazine (6/1996) to uphold the name of the variation's
English co-originator by referring to the Abrahams Variation, but
they too called it the Noteboom. Gelfand referred to 4...dxc4 as
"the variation of Daniel Noteboom, named after the talented Dutch
player of the early part of this century, who, sadly, died very
young." Noteboom's dates were 26/2/1910-12/1/1932. His
outstanding performance came at the 1930 Hamburg olympiad
where he scored 11.5/15 and at Hastings 1931-32 he took third
prize.

The Dutch have been much more assiduous at remembering their
lost genius than the British have been at giving credit to one of the
game's more colourful characters. Gerald Abrahams, author of such
books as 'The Chess Mind' and 'Technique In Chess', lived from
15/4/1907 to 15/3/1980; he was a master-strength amateur player
whom I remember seeing at several tournaments in the 1960s when
I started playing actively. Since Abrahams was the first-born by
several years and has a game with the variation on record from
1925 (when Noteboom was only 15) the Englishman's claim to
priority is undoubtedly correct. On the other hand, the Dutch
would probably claim that Noteboom discovered the line
independently (this is not disputed), was the first to introduce it
into master play and that had he lived he would probably have
been a much stronger player than Abrahams, a rival to Euwe
perhaps.

I turned to my 1981 Batsford book Queen's Gambit Declined:
Semi-Slav to see what my research in those days had uncovered. I
wrote then of 1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 c6 4 Nf3 dxc4!?: Most books
call this the Noteboom Variation, after a little-known pre-war
Dutch player, but this is a misattribution. Credit for it belongs to
the late Liverpool barrister Gerald Abrahams who employed it to
defeat grandmaster Ragozin in the USSR-Britain radio match of
1946, 21 years after Abrahams had first devised and played it in his
days as a student at Oxford University.

Viacheslav Ragozin-Gerald Abrahams, USSR-Britain Radio Match
1946: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.Nf3 dxc4 5.e4 b5 6.Be2 Nd7?
(6...Bb4!? was a later Abrahams suggestion.; 6...Bb7 7.0-0 Nf6
Alatortsev-Kotov, 16 USSR Ch 1948) 7.0-0 Bb7 8.d5! Nc5 9.dxc6
Bxc6 10.Nd4 Qd7 11.Nxc6 Qxc6 12.a4 Rd8 13.axb5 Qb7 14.Qc2
Nb3 15.Ra6± but Black won: 15...Nf6 16.Be3 Bc5 17.Bxc5 Nxc5
18.Rc6 Nb3 19.Bxc4 Nd4 20.Qa4 0-0 21.Ra6 Qb8 22.f4 g5 23.e5
Nh5 24.g3 Kh8 25.Qd1 Ng7 26.Qg4 gxf4 27.Qxf4 Ndf5 28.Ne2
Nh5 29.Qe4 Rg8 30.Bd3 Rg5 31.Rc6 Rd5 32.Rfc1 Kg7 33.b6
axb6 34.Rc7 b5 35.R1c6 Qd8 36.Rc8 Qa5 37.Nf4 Nxf4 38.Qxf4
Qe1+ 39.Bf1 Qe3+ 40.Qxe3 Nxe3 41.Rd6 Rgxe5 42.Rxd5 Rxd5
43.Rc3 Nxf1 44.Kxf1 Rd1+ 45.Ke2 Rh1 46.Ke3 Rxh2 47.b3 Rh5
48.Rc7 Rg5 49.Kf4 Rd5 50.Ke4 h5 51.b4 Rg5 52.Kd4 Rg4+ 0-1.
This was not a great game but it was a fine achievement for a
British amateur to turn the tables on a leading Russian grandmaster
who a few years later became the second World Correspondence
Champion. Abrahams later played 'his' variation against Gligoric
(Hastings 1951/2) but lost.

Ragozin's treatment of the opening is fairly unusual but perhaps
quite good. Most games nowadays go 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 e6
4.Nf3 dxc4 5.a4 Bb4 6.e3 b5 7.Bd2 a5 (This is really the
characteristic move of the variation; there were some early
anticipations in which it was not played, e.g. Schlechter-Maroczy,
Vienna 1902, which went 5 e4 b5 6 a4 Bb4 7 Bd2 Nf6 8 Qc2 a6.)
8.axb5 Bxc3 9.Bxc3 cxb5 10.b3 Bb7 and now the main alternative
to Gelfand's 11 d5 is 11 bxc4. This position arose in the earliest
known Abrahams/Noteboom Variation game, Allcock-Abrahams,
London University-Oxford University 1925, which continued
11...b4 12 Bd2? Nf6 13 Bd3 Ne4!? (Simply 13...Nbd7 14 0-0 0-0
is good as in Plater-Trifunovic, Hilversum 1947, and a couple of
recent games.) 14.Qc2 f5 15.Ne5 0-0 16.f3? Qh4+ and Black won
quickly.

Of course it is quite possible that Noteboom never saw Abrahams'
game, unless he studied English chess publications. He was
probably seeking to improve on such games as
Marshall-Rubinstein, Bad Kissingen 1928 (5 e3 b5 6 a4 Qb6?) and
Rokhlin-Ilin Genevsky, USSR 1926 (5 e4 b5 6 a4 b4?!) or was
quite possibly unaware of those games too. 

Voisin (France)-Daniel Noteboom, Hamburg olympiad 1930: 1.d4
d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.Nf3 dxc4 5.e3 b5 6.a4 Bb4 7.Bd2 a5 8.axb5
Bxc3 9.Bxc3 cxb5 10.b3 Bb7 11.bxc4 b4 12.Bd2 Nf6 13.Ne5
Nbd7 14.Qa4 0-0 15.Nc6 Bxc6 16.Qxc6 e5! 17.Be2 Re8 18.Bf3
Rc8 19.Qa6 exd4 20.Rxa5 (20.Qxa5? dxe3!) 20...Nc5! 21.Qb5
Nb3! 22.Ra2 Rb8 23.Qf5 dxe3 24.Bxe3 Nd4 25.Qb1 b3 26.Rd2
Qa5 27.Bd5 (27.0-0 Nxf3+ 28.gxf3 Rxe3!) 27...Nc2+ 28.Ke2
Qc3-+ 29.Rhd1 Nxd5 30.cxd5 Qc4+ 31.Rd3 Rbd8 32.Kd2 Rxd5
33.Rxd5 Qxd5+ 34.Kc1 Qc6 35.Kb2 Qf6+ 36.Kxb3 Nxe3 0-1.

Instead of 12 Bd2, the best line for White was, until recently,
reckoned to be 12 Bb2 but master games in the early 1990s
appeared to show that Black had after all sufficient resources here,
e.g. 12...Nf6 13.Bd3 Nbd7 14.0-0 Qc7 15.Qc2 (15.Re1 e5!)
15...0-0 16.e4 e5 17.c5 (Or 17 Rfe1 Rfe8 Neverok-Kramnik, USSR
Ch 1991) 17...exd4 (17...Rfe8 is also playable) 18.Bxd4 h6
19.Rfc1 Bc6 20.e5 Nd5 21.Bc4 Rfe8 22.Qe4 Qb7 23.Qg4 Re6 with
counterplay (Jasnikowski-Shcherbakov, Katowice 1992).

The question of who should be given the credit remains unclear.
Before you can say who introduced the variation into master
practice, you have to decide what move (or group of linked moves)
constitutes the variation because clearly 4...dxc4 followed rapidly
by one or more poor or inconsistent moves does not make a true
anticipation of the variation. Nimzovich was after all not the first
person to play 3...Bb4 after 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 and there are
several other such cases. It is also a little unfair to disqualify
Abrahams on the grounds that his game with Allcock does not
count as introducing the variation into master practice, his victory
over Ragozin being 16 years too late, when he was after all
analysing and playing the line in the intervening years.

In practical terms, however, I think that the Dutch have been
allowed to win this argument by default!

As a postscript, I found the following game by Alekhine in one of
the databases at the Pitt.edu ftp site. Does anybody know the
source of it or who was Black? Alekhine-Amateur, Paris 1928:
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.Nf3 dxc4 5.a4 Nd7? 6.e4 Bb4 7.Bxc4
Qa5 8.Bd2 e5 9.0-0 exd4 10.Nxd4 Qc5 11.Bxf7+ Kxf7 12.Qb3+
Ke8 13.Ne6 Qe5 14.Bf4 Nc5 15.Qxb4 Qxe6 16.Qxc5 Ne7 17.Rfe1
Ng6 18.Nd5 b6 19.Qc3 Kf7 20.Nc7 Qg4 21.Bg3 Rb8 22.h3 Qd7
23.Rad1 Qe7 24.Bd6 Qf6 25.e5 Qf5 26.e6+ Bxe6 27.Nxe6 1-0. 