i was gonna say that we maybe have enough talent to comensate for him leaving it but any player who plays the Pirc in the master level game and manges moves like he found Bc4 for in this game is indeed exeptionaly talented .
But if you meant what improvement we can find for black , you said it your self a4 , but as for choosing other set ups there are so many that made me stop playing the Pirc my self even though i was very good at it !
there is the system with f3 for white sort of a Saemisch approach , it is a matter of taste everything is playable but after i stuck to the French for years i found it unbelievably frustrating not able to get a decent game with the black Pirc lately even against experts , but luckily it has been only online losses !!

Boy it's been a long time since I last saw a game by Lief. I do remember him as being a very gifted positional player. Maybe if there was more money in chess here in the US we would have the top players in the world, you know the old joke, "what's the difference between an IM and a large Pizza?"

As far as the improvement for White, if we retro-analyze I think the wrong rook went to d1. Going further back, a4 with the idea of Bc4 is indeed the line that used to give me fits with Black, but like most openings, there is a path to equality (or near equality). The 150 attack doesn't seem that dangerous to me from Black's perspective for some reason - stock attack with a stock counter-attack.

Looking forward to your next vid, though I don't think I'll give up my Najdorf for the Pirc any time soon (only as a shock weapon).

BTW, what is the difference between the Modern and Pirc? If Black really really really delays ...Nf6, is that enough, or does the N have to be developed to h6? Just curious - I never have been sure on the demarcation line with this one.

I think it has to do with the Nf6 blocking the advance of the f pawn, where in Pirc black plays Nf6 and trys to piece attack whites center pawns, while in modern he delays Nf6 and pushes the f pawn in order to counter attack via pawns instead of pieces. Granted I know very little about each opening, but I think it is something like that.

thx fore the video. Must be very hard to play such a positions.

Hmmm, the difference between the Modern and the Pirc.
I guess it has to do with white's c pawn. By an early Nf6, black provokes a symmetrical Nc3, which in turn blockes the advance of the c pawn, the resulting pawn structure being advantageous to black compared with white's enormous centre in the King's Indian. Of course there are other ways to defend the e4 pawn (namely Bd3), but for one reason or another, Nc3 is the most common.

From Wikipedia:

"The Modern Defence is quite closely related to the Pirc Defence, to the extent that the "Modern" is often seen as a description of some variants of the Pirc; the primary difference between the two openings is that in the Modern Black delays developing his knight to f6. Transpositional possibilities between the two defences are rife. "

"Transpositional possibilities between the two defenses are rife." Oh that helped my confusion a whole lot

It's not all that important to me as I still call it the King's Fianchetto Defense!

Dennis,
Thank you very much for showing this game. Even though you lost it. It's highly instructive.
Much obliged
A W.

Nice video. I"m looking forward to the next one (which I'm going to watch starting in about 2 mintues from now...)

VERY NICE!!☻☺