GM Josh Friedel Plays the Ulvestad

I have annotated two games with the Ulvestad Variation of the Two Knights Defense (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 b5). You can also download the PGN. The first is a game of GM Josh Friedel's from the recent Unive Open in Hoogeveen, the Netherlands (which was much more interesting than the closed "Crown" event there won by Tiviakov with the only win of the entire tournament); the second one is a game from Olaf Ulvestad himself (played just over 50 years before). In both White tried the most common move in amateur play, 6.Bxb5, keeping things in true Ulvestad territory rather than transposing to the Fritz Variation after 6.Bf1 Nd4 7.c3 Nxd5. And in both Black achieved a brilliant victory.

GM Friedel finished seventh out of 63 at Hoogeveen, which disappointed him (see "Josh Friedel on a Stylish Win but a Mediocre Result" at the USCF site). But he did deservedly win the brilliancy prize for Friedel - Migchiel de Jong, as he discussed at ChessVibes.



In the game Vedder -Friedel from the same tournament (which I annotate) it is interesting to see Friedel switch from the more standard 5...Na5 to back to the Fritz-Ulvestad since his loss to Nakamura in the final round of the US Championship (see my notes to Nakamura - Friedel, US Championship 2009). I hope that other GMs follow Friedel's lead, since the Fritz-Ulvestad is a fascinating line of which I'd like to see more in high level play. Katar has posted a nice video on it titled 2 Knights, Ulvestad at Chess.TV (which does not offer embedding, unfortunately). I previously posted a webliography devoted to the Two Knights Defense, Fritz-Ulvestad Variation but neglected to consider videos on the subject, such as Katar's or the one below by Matt Pullin from YouTube (which does allow embedding). Katar's is much more complete and very well done, so be sure to check it out.