Dutch Defense: Hopton Attack game

This was a friendly game played over about two and a half months and features several mistakes by both players.

I have already analyzed this game using the engine but want to post this in case you have any more observations or useful advice.

I this game I was much better after about 12 moves but didn't know how to proceed and made a series of error.

The opening is Dutch Defense: Hopton Attack. I learned the Hopton Attack from Hanging Pawns. 2...h6 is one of black's two main responses, the other being 2...g6

This is the starting point in the video for the 2...h6 lines:

After 3.g5 white can either play 3...Bg3 or 3...e3 or 3...e4 but in the e4 lines white sacrifices his bishop early on and it is a bit risky.

After 3...e5, 4...Bg7 is sometimes played but the main move is 4...Nf6 and this was played in our game. As explained in this video, the next few moves all follow theory.

The engine prefers 7.Nc3 over 7.h5. What are the stats for 7.Nc3 lines?

It has been played in 6 master games, with white winning 4 of them, including this win over Super GM Fedoseev

According to 365chess there are only 5 master games with 7.h5 that have reached 9.Nf4 which is fewer than the 7.Nc3 line, so the theory in the Hanging Pawns video is a little old or incomplete.

After 9.Nf4, Black has tried 9...Nc6 twice (one win and one loss) and 9...Bg7 twice (one win and one loss) and 9...Qd7 once (white won).

ricorat plays 9...e6 instead of the main move 9...Nc6.

At low depth the engine says 9...e6 is an inaccuracy, but at high depth it says it is excellent.

The Hanging Pawns video shows ...e6 played on move 12.

It seems this is based on this old Yasser Seirawan game:

So I am out of book on move 9.

I play 10.c4 which is slightly inferior to 10.Nc3

The first mistake in the game is 10...Qe7? - It seems a bit slow and the move 10...Ne4 centralizes the knight and attacks the bishop.

11...Nc3? delays castling kingside and signals black will castle Queenside.

In the dutch defense the king is exposed before it is castled.

It also gives me a new target and I play the good move 12.d5!

12...exd5?! is an inaccuracy - I am happy to trade a c-pawn for his e-pawn. and my remaining pawn is well defended on d5.

I failed to play 14.Bg5+ which is a lot stronger than 14.Qc7?! The move did not look good to me because after 14...c6 15.dxc6 bxc6 the pawn on c6 cannot be captured by the bishop as it is protected by the knight. What I missed is White then has the clever move 16.Ng6! which attacks both the rook and the Queen.

The move 16.Bh4?! is another inaccuracy. It potentially loses a pawn because although the knight protects the h5 pawn, black has two pieces attacking the h5 square.

It also attacks the wrong knight. The central knight on e5 can be attacked with 16.Nd3!

After 16...Bg7 black could castle either way and there is no obvious way to prevent either from happening.

According to the engine it is move 17 which is my first real mistake. I thought it was a good idea to activate all of my pieces, that is an important opening principle.

The best move 17.Nce2 is difficult to fully understand and I didn't even consider it at the time.

Clearly the plan is to move the knight to the d4 square and also to make the Queen more active by giving it control of the c-file.

17...Nxh7 is a mistake because it misses a chance to castle, as I have a way to prevent that. However it was a psychological blow to me because I had missed how easy it was for him to win this pawn. All of the attacking idea presented in the Hanging Pawns video are no longer viable and here I make the blunder 17.g3??

I wanted to add support to my knight on f4 but this was not necessary and it prevents the bishop from ever moving to g3.

It also misses the vital move 17.Ne6! which prevents black from castling in either direction.

The next blunder comes from black with 20.O-O-O?? however it looked like a good move to me at the time. I thought black was much better and started to lose interest in this game at this stage. However this move creates a relative pins on the f6 knight and there is the move 21.Qd4! which allows the bishop to win this knight.

I also had the opportunity to play Qd4! on move 22 but didn't see it.

Black is just much better and after 27...Be6 looked likely to win the d-pawn within the next few moves, unless I sacrificed the rook for the bishop. I resigned.

I don't have too much to add but I think there's a trickier move order White can use. 

I know I'm a little late to the party but this seems to be the only good thread on the Hopton. I've been looking into this recently and I 100% agree with Bg3. Playing e3 too soon shows your hand a little too soon and you're opponent will get suspicious if you leave a piece hanging. While if you go Bg3 it's a much more plausible "blunder" that your opponent will think they're punishing. You can't really see this in the masters database, but in the Lichess games db 12% of players fall for the early 4.e3 while about 45% try trapping the Bishop after 4.Bg3.

I think there are some better ways of punishing Black for overextending so much. I've put a couple of lines in the analysis board below, including one line which IFAIK is a complete novelty. Let me know if you hit anyone with one of these.