Thanks Dennis! This video makes the Jaenisch seem pretty strong for black, so as a white Ruy player I'm looking forward to the next video to see exactly why it's not considered sound. Loving this series! I'll be sure to buy all of these for future reference, as well...they have great replayability value.

I agree. Dennis's prior experience with the Schliemann has certainly made this portion extremely educational. As for its soundness, it has always seemed to have the edgy image of constantly flouting respectability at the highest levels, and I remember eons ago when Dennis amusingly echoed the sentiment saying that he "knows where all the bodies are buried."

It's a shame that 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5 4.Nc3 fxe4 5.Nxe4 d5 6.Nxe5 dxe4 7.Nxc6 Qg5 8.Qe2 Nf6 9.Nxa7+ is so underrated by theory. It just seems to be a clear, somewhat safe route for White to an advantage in that line--an advantage that he can grind, grind, grind endlessly. No one plays the Schliemann just to defend pawn-down endgames all day, and if it were the only line Black would see, none of the fun-seekers would play the Schliemann at all. Well, Latvian gambiteers don't seem to have a problem with that type of misery, but they're crazy anyway.

Ivan Sokolov apparently took a fresh look at 9.Nxa7+ in his recent Ruy Lopez book, advocating new tries like (after 9...Bd7 10.Bxd7 Nxd7 11.f4) 11...Qa5 and ...Qf5 while disavowing ...Qc5. However, neither of those were met with much hope from the ChessPub community. For example, Black appears to be very short on compensation after 11...Qa5 12.Nb5 Bc5 13.Qxe4+ (13.c3!?) Kd8 14.Qd3 (14.Qxb7 Re8+ 15.Kd1 Rb8 16.Qxc7+ Qxc7 17.Nxc7 Kxc7 18.c3 is also critical) c6 15.Nc3 Kc7 16.Kd1 Rad8 17.Re1 Nf6 18.Qg3 Bd4 19.d3.

Rewatching the other parts, one thing I missed was a critical line in the Classical Variation: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Bc5 4.0-0 Nf6 5.Nxe5 (as opposed to 4.Nxe5) which is a very testing move and can also be very sharp. Overall, though, Dennis has been thorough (almost rigorous) in his "quick" coverage, and I'll probably have to go ahead and buy these too!

Kind of off topic I know, but I was just looking through the database for this opening, and found this little game...

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Bc5 4. O-O Nf6 5. Nxe5 Nxe5 6. d4 Bxd4 7. Qxd4 Qe7
8. Nc3 O-O 9. Bg5 c6 10. f4 d6 11. fxe5 dxe5 12. Qf2 cxb5 13. Nd5 Qe6 14. Bxf6
Qd7 15. Ne7+ Kh8 16. Bxg7+ Kxg7 17. Qf6# 1-0

Obviously 6...Bxd4 is pretty stupid, and black also follows up with some equally strange moves...but I like how swiftly and cleanly white punishes it. Very instructive for a player of my strength...if you look at move 10 white obviously has the advantage but I wouldn't have believed that mate was a mere 7 moves away...

Other games are better played though, and some pretty wild positions occured when I let the computer play it...both times black sacraficed a piece to get a load of passed pawns, but white won on each occasion. Lots of exchanges sacs and counter sacs... I'm going to give this line a try for white

How do you get a question on a viewer game show on this site?