While the game did not start as French, it transposed to it with the move 4.e4. More common move order might be 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 dxe4 5.Nxe4 Be7 6.Nxf6+. In the game I played my main reply to 1.d4, which is 1...Nf6 (1167513 games, score 53.1%). It is also the preferred choice in most of the games in my reference database. The next move, 2.Nc3 (22830 games, score 49.5%), is the 4th most played move in the position. The more played moves are 2.c4 (747741 games, score 53.6%), 2.Nf3 (305961 games, score 52.2%) and 2.Bg5 (51350 games, score 54.2%). I continued with the most popular reply with the move 2...d5 (15469 games, score 46.9%). My opponent's third move, Bg5 (16043 games, score 51.1%), is the most often occurred move in the position. It has been played frequently by Grand Master Hikaru Nakamura, for example. The latest game example from GM Hikaru Nakamura (2779) is from the game against Xiangzhi Bu (2705) that was played at the World Chess Rapid Championships at Doha on December 28th, 2016. That game ended in a draw. With my next move, 3...e6 (3654 games, score 60.3%), I allowed the game to transpose into a variation of the French Defence. According to the score, I should avoid the move 3...e6, which is the second most played in the move in the position, in the future as it seems to favor White quite well. Next time I should maybe play the move 3...Nbd7 (5810 games, score 46.3%), which is the most popular move.
Kojjootti's next move, 4.e4 (2982 games, score 62.9%), has been clearly the most played move. The second most common move in the position is 4.Nf3 (380 games, score 52.8%). After the 4th move, the amount of reference games went up to 35553, due to the transposition to the variation of the French. In 10649 out of those games, the move I played, 4...dxe4 was chosen. It has a score of 55.2%. It was the second most often played move, only behind the move 4...Be7 (15243 games, score 58.7%). The reply 5.Nxe4 (10237 games, score 55.4%) is, not surprisingly, clearly the most played move. It has been played by strong Grand Masters such as Garry Kasparov, Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian and Viswanathan Anand. Then I played 5...Be7 (8484 games, score 56.3%), which was again the most often occurred move. Kojjootti then chose to play 6.Nxf6+ (1017 games, score 47.6%), which is the second most played move in the position. Much more often the move 6.Bxf6 (7150 games, score 57.9%) has been played. Only based on the scores, I am glad that my opponent chose to take on f6 with the knight. That being said, it has been played by strong players like Arkadij Naiditsch (2657) and Vladimir Onischuk (2614), the ratings have been taken from the games where the players have had their highest ratings while playing that move.
In order to keep my pawn structure intact, I took back on f6 with my bishop. It had been played in 942 games with a score of 47.7%. The move 6...gxf6 (73 games, score 45.9%) has also been played. The next move, 7.Be3 (31 games, score 61.3%), is the second most commonly seen move, only behind the move 7.Bxf6 (906 games, score 47.2%). The highest rated player to choose the move 7.Be3, is Bogdan Belyakov (2513), according to my reference database. Bogdan Belyakov played the move against Artem Isaykin (1924) and it was played at Khanty Mansiysk on March 29th, 2016. The game continued with the most popular move 7...O-O (12 games, score 58.3%). The reply 8.c3 had only been played in 2 games before this one with a score of 100%. While there was a more popular move 8.Nf3 (7 games, score 50%), the strongest player reaching the position chose to play 8.c3 and that player is Bogdan Belyakov. Kojjootti's 8th move was also the last one that had been played previously, in the Belyakov - Isaykin game that I mentioned before, Isaykin played 8...b6. The other move that had been tried in the position before this game is 8...Qe7. Both moves had been played only once and in both games White won. It seems that my novelty, 8...Nc6, is better than the previously tried moves, at least according to the engine evaluation. However, the difference is not that big and both 8...b6 and 8...Qe7 are likely playable.
Some of the latest and highest rated games from my reference database that reached the position after 6.Nxf6+ can be viewed below.
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