This treatment of the old Steinitz Defence, with exd4 and g6, was something I spotted in an old issue of Chess, from the late 1960s, and quickly fell in love with. Over the next few years, I and a clubmate spent a considerable portion of our chess lives, trying to make it work. Sadly, my practical results were always poor, and being the unprincipled materialistic pragmatist that I am, I soon abandoned it in favour of other openings, although I retained the natural parental fondness for an errant offspring. My friend John, on the other hand, kept the faith, although he was greatly helped by the fact that he had by then practically abandoned OTB play, and so rarely ever had to face the grim reality of playing the line over the board. These things always look better when you are analysing at home, with no hard-hearted opponent to knock your rose-tinted specs off.
There are sharper ways for White to play, most notably the "Yugoslav Attack" set-up with Be3-Qd2-f3-0-0-0, but these lines are actually less effective for White. Adams' quiet approach with short castling and Bf4 was always one of the lines my friend and I were most afraid of. Black is forced into playing f6 and must settle for a passive set-up. However, he should at least be able to hold back the advance e4-e5 for a good while. Sadly for Ehlvest, he did not even manage that.
I suspect the time has come to give my child a decent burial, but it is still hard to say the final goodbye. To sweeten the pill, here is the game that put me onto the line in the first place. Balashov's dynamic approach was quite inspiring:
