Opening Bomb Diary #32: My New Pet Dragon Line

I've played the Dragon since I was a kid. It's one of those openings that's great to teach to someone starting out, as the pieces come out easily and the ideas are easy to learn. Most people eventually move onto more "refined" Sicilians, but I haven't outgrown the Dragon yet. It's quite a clunky and risky opening to go for these days, but I find it very nostalgic to play - although we'll see how many more times I can stand getting literally checkmated in the middlegame .

Theoretically, because the Dragon is such a concrete opening, I've always found it tough to find new ideas in it. Every few months, when new correspondence games would be published, I would scour them to see what was the latest with the Dragon. I have to say, the overall feeling was DISSAPOINTMENT. Dozens upon dozens of games following the same hackneyed lines in the Yugoslav. The Chinese Dragon was a breath of fresh air, but even there it's been so saturated with no real fresh ideas. It's like there was a prize for how many identical games could exist in a database.

Recently though, I found several surprising new ideas in the mainlines, finally fulfilling this childhood wish of mine. I wanted to share one of my favorite ones.

Existing Theory

Before we look at the novelty, I think it's useful to see current theory and why it might come up short.

Black's main idea in the Topalov variation is to stay active and keep harassing White's slightly weak king, tying White's pieces to passive squares. The end result is either liquidation into a drawn endgame or some dynamic equality. From the above line, we can see that the direct approach doesn't work. Black needs some smarter way to activate and bring in the artillery, and keep White's forces at bay.

The Novelty

Hope you enjoyed the idea. I think it's a good try for blitz or rapid, since Black's main idea in each line is just to flail around But I think the novelty gives enough counterplay to do so and is an improvement over existing theory. I think this is why I like the Dragon as well - It's quite low-brow and evens the playing field into an old-western shootout, no matter your opponent. It's also a novelty in the 9.Bc4 mainline, something I have always tried to find.