Hyper Accelerated Dragon: White's Death By Simplification

Greetings chess friends!

Once again in this new post a yet another instructive sampler game on my new pet opening the Hyper Accelerated Dragon.

Why play the Hyper Accelerated Dragon? I personally like it because it is a low maintenance opening, unlike the Classical Dragon which demands a lot of theoretical study and updating. The Hyper Accelerated Dragon has quite a crafty move-order that often bust e4 players who wrongly treat it as a regular Classical Dragon. The Yugoslav Attack doesn't really work against the Hyper Accelerated Dragon.

Having the Classical Dragon in my repertoire for years I was able to appreciate the potential of the Hyper Accelerated Dragon. I was able to compare black's king safety on both openings and personally concluded that the black king in the Hyper Accelerated Dragon is very much safer because it is not as exposed to immediate attacks early in the opening, especially in the Yugoslav Attack. I also noticed that the play is not so razor sharp which makes the game more on the positional side. This is really good according to many GM's who believes that strategical play is better than route memorization to a learning chess player like myself.

So is the Hyper Accelerated Dragon an ultimate defense to 1.e4? After only having played it a few times I have to admit that I am slightly annoyed to reach the Maroczy Bind position (1.e4 c5  2.Nf3 g6  3.d4 cxd4  4.Nxd4 Nc6  5.c4). I sense that in the Maroczy Bind black's chances to play for a win diminishes quite substantially as compared to the Classical Dragon. But this does not mean the chances to equalise has become futile. Theoretically, black in the Maroczy Bind has already a draw at hand but he must be willing to sit down toiling from a disadvantaged or comparatively difficult position. Black actually has very good chances to win if white over extends himself. The Maroczy Bind positions are very positional and quite dull that most 1.e4 players dont find it attractive to play anyway. And I have to say, since playing the Hyper Accelerated Dragon, it's still a very rare occasion for me to face the Maroczy Bind.

In fact, the following game of mine against a 2000+ rated player saw declining the chance to go for a Maroczy Bind. In our previous game he opted for the early 4.Qxd4 and lost (see previous blog post for details). This time he went for the Bc4-Bb3 idea instead and found out that black is still winning. Let's have a look and find out what happened (note sub analysis on the movelist pane for better understanding of the position):

As we saw, black seems to be doing OK against the mainline Bc4. We also notice that the endgame is just favourable for black which makes simplification very logical.

There you go. I hope that you have learned something from this post and may encourage you to consider this system as part of your repertoire. For relevant reading materials on Dragon systems just click HERE.

What do you think?

8...............a5    

    very intersting post I used to play the dragon Qa5 and Rfc8 line but abandoed it I might try this variation though

    thanks

Very instructive game, nice annotations, thanks.

Nice game!

Of course, after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 you're back to the normal Accelerated Dragon, not in Hyper country anymore.

I've never played those 8...a5 lines. Perhaps I should try them next time.

Nice game.

Thank you for making this-- I play the hyperaccelerated dragon myself and really enjoy these instructive posts.

good enough..

As a fellow accelerated player, I enjoyed looking over your game and reading your article.  I find that I mostly screw up when I hit the late middlegame/endgame stage so it was instructive to look at how you handled simplifying the position.

the annotations were great, you really knew what you were doing after getting a slight advantage after the opening and the exchanges of the queens and minor pieces. nice game

I like this game, especially the way you turn the middlegame to a favorable ending. I play this line too, and I think a4 can be classified as a minor mistake. By the the way the Hyper Accelerated-term is not correct. The Accelerated Dragon is 1.e4,c5 2.Nf3, Nc6 3.d4, cxd4 4.Nxd4, g6. What you call Hyper Accelerated, its the Hungarian variation, which has a completely different theory, worked out by a Hungarian master named Elek Bakonyi. 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Qxd4 Nf6 5.e5 Nc6 6.Qa4 is its main line. In your game its just a move order changing. In fact, the Hyper Accelerated line is just a move order changing.

Thank you for the input, sawin. Really appreciate sharing your thoughts about terminology/name of variation. I hope to clarify the matter below.

1.e4 c5  2.Nf3 Nc6  3.d4 cxd4  4.Nxd4 g6 - is termed the "Accelerated Dragon".  Coined "accelerated" because the pawn move to d6 was ommited from the 2nd move and replaced it with 2...Nc6 accelerating piece development. The pawn move 2...d6 is the normal Sicilian Dragon.

1.e4 c5  2.Nf3 g6 - is termed the "hyper version of the accelerated dragon" or simply put "Hyper Accelerated Dragon". Coined "hyper" to indicate that the pawn move to g6 is earlier than the Accelerated Dragon; the pawn move to g6 came earlier at 2nd move instead on the 4th move.

So what differences do they make? The move order difference, as we know, results to different opening variations that make up different opening theories. That's why in the Hyper Accelerated Dragon you have 4.Qxd4 as a possibility while in the  Accelerated Dragon move order you have the possibilty of 3.Bb5 Rossolimo Variation.

To read more about it, look up these following books:

1. Chess Opening for Black Explained
2. Accelerated Dragons
3. The Sicilian Accelerated Dragon

Cheers!

Thanks. Very instructive post.

y wrout som interesting posts

y m very interested in Accelerated Dragon

Great post I play the regular accelerated dragon. You are a very strong strong player and your annotations were wonderful. Also try Starting out:The accelerated dragon. It includes coverage of the hyper-accelrated dragon as well.

I must say the game is very impressive. My first defense as Black against e4 was the Accelerated Dragon. Right now, I'm defending the Sicilian Dragon (2...d6, 6...g6), and I think I should go back

Nice post!

Thanks wonderful people.

I apologize for not writing follow-up articles lately. Got retrenched from work because of the Global Crisis last year. Since then have been busy finding work and studying business courses. Must admit that am having some financial difficulties at the moment because of a negative cash flow.

I really enjoy writing and sharing chess knowledge but as you know priority is to provide my family proper food on the table. If only there is enough income in writing here then I can give it more time than other ways of making a living. I know some of you can relate to my situation and understand that every kind deed of support, no matter how big or small, can really make a better change to lives of struggling people.

On that note I drink a coffee to you, if you can afford to buy me one. Cheers!

Oooh-yeah. This line is indeed annoying for Black. My Indonesian bestfriend has played this numerous times against me in blitz games. One of the ideas for White is to play Qb3 putting more pressure on a2-g8 diagonal. It's not easy for black to attend to the pressure without creating a weakness on the d-file, especially on the d6 square and also on the d5 square. The ...d5 pawn break is really impossible at times.

I wish I could talk write more about this on this reply but had to do some work. I would like to get back on this as soon as I get the chance. Interesting topic this is.

What about 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. c3 d5 rather than 3... Bg7?

Great annotations and a well-executed game plan, chessmagic5. In response to 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. c3 Bg7 4. d4 cxd4 5.Bc4, how about 5 ... Nf6, attacking the e4 pawn? If 6. e5, then ... Ng4. 7. h3 begs the knight to take e5. 7. cxd4 is met by 7 ... d5 (8. exd5 e.p. brings out the black queen to d6, which looks like a strong position at this point.) 8. h3 dxc4 9. hxg4, and black should either shore up the queenside with 9 ... b5 or get the king to safety 9 ... 0 - 0. before grabbing the loose pawn on g4.

Thanks for your reply, pfren. It sounds like you know this from experience. From what little I've read on the Maroczy Bind, it seems to be the strongest reply to the Sicilian defense (by the number of chapters devoted to it). It seems like the only way to deal with the Bind is (essentially) to attack c5 or e5 in order for black to play d5 without dropping a pawn for nothing. Is that how you see it?