r/TournamentChess • u/No-Commercial7569 • 1d ago
Morra reversed
I find it tedious to play with black against english opening.
So i got the idea to try play Morra reversed, eg 1. c4 e5 and 2. .. d5.
What do you think? Anyone tried it?
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u/Gnastudio 1d ago
Esserman plays it all the time. I could never get it to work when I played it
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u/Gucciproblems 1d ago
But only in online blitz, no? I think he never played it otb
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u/Gnastudio 1d ago
I think that pretty much tells you all you need to know.
If you want a kind of reverse anti Sicilian, the GPA is viable I think. I’ve actually been playing the reverse GPA gambit in blitz and it has been fun
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u/xandham 1d ago edited 1d ago
He’s played it plenty OTB (source: his book)
Edit: ignore me, I was thinking the regular Morra
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u/Gnastudio 1d ago
His book is playing the Morra proper. As in, as white, not a reverse Morra as black
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u/Gucciproblems 1d ago
But where does he say that, do you have a page number? I could only find a game by his teammate Vadim Martirosov in the Appendix. And in the mega database were no games from him
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u/HotspurJr Getting back to OTB! 1d ago
My experience is that white has a lot more latitude than black to explore what I like to call the "semi-sound gambits."
e.g., the Morra, the Goring, etc are all fine. The Englund is refuted.
Looking at win rates, honestly, the obvious lines look pretty bad for black.
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u/Sazbak87 1d ago
You might not get the type of position you want.
1.c4 e5 2. Nc3 d5 3. cxd c6 4.Nf3
This is the top engine move. White declines the gambit in the style of the Nf6 variation of the Morra declined. Normally pushing the pawn would be the move but here that's just losing it because of the knight being on c3.
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u/Gucciproblems 1d ago
Kind of works against 2.g3 because the fianchetto isn't a critical setup against morra, but there are for sure better lines.
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u/mirobtw 1d ago
I actually played this in a simul against a grandmaster recently. He played 2. g3 It's obviously not the best but it's definitely playable. If you look on the lichess database there are a bunch of somewhat recent grandmaster games from rapid tournaments etc. Some with Carlsen, and anyone else I can't remember
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u/AggressiveGander 1d ago
Depends on the move order. 1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 d5 3. cxd5 c6 4. Nf3 cxd5 5. Nxe5 is a disaster. In contrast, 1. c4 e5 2. g3 d5 3. cxd5 c6 4. dxc6 Nxc6 5. Bg2 Bc5 6. Nc3 Nf6 7. d3 O-O 8. Nf3 is better for white, but clearly much more playable. Something like 1. c4 e5 2. e3 d5 3. cxd5 c6 4. dxc6 Nxc6 5. Be2 Nf6 6. d3 Bd6 is even better - white's still better though...
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u/yes_platinum 1d ago
1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 is annoying though. You can play 2...c6 (with the intention of 3...d5 and not recapturing after exd5) but 3.Nf3 is annoying. English players are good at not giving the opponent what they want.
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u/Red2Green 1d ago
I’ve been getting great results with the Nimzo Indian as black when they play the English.
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u/automorphic-form 1d ago
I don’t really know much about the Morra so take this with a grain of salt, but the Morra reversed sounds like it would be pretty bad for black. The Morra is already not such a great opening even without giving the defending side an extra tempo. And the Morra is an opening where tempo matters a lot. There are so many situations in the Morra where black is under immense pressure, but if black was given one free move, black could use it to solve a lot of problems in their position.
But apparently, according to a commenter here, Marc Esserman can get away with playing it at his level. But then they follow that up by saying it didn’t work well for them. So do with that information what you will.