Review: The Basman-Williams Attack by Carsten Hansen

The Basman-Williams Attack

by Carsten Hansen

CarstenChess 2021, 141 pages (paperback)

Sample material via Amazon.com

Subtitled 'an innovative approach to dealing with the King's Indian and Gruenfeld Indian defenses', this is a guide from White's perspective to a remarkable, new(ish) line: 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 h4.

It is part of FM Hansen's self-published 'Opening Hacker Files' series. It is not the first time that Hansen has managed to publish with exceptional speed on a new top-level opening trend occurring within the first few moves.

The most useful kind of review would compare the book with two other sources:

• GM Pavel Eljanov's 'Aggressive Repertoire' on the website Modern Chess
• GM Simon Williams and IM Richard Palliser's Chessable course 'The Harry Attack'

Hansen was the first on the scene. Richard Palliser tweeted: 'we did lose the race' to Hansen's book, which 'looks typically pretty good'. I only have the Hansen work, however.

The name

It remains to be seen whether Hansen's name for this opening will stick. He spotted that IM Mike Basman played it as early as 1980. It is good to know that such ideas were possible prior to the age of Alpha Zero. As Hansen shows, the next strong player to take it up was Simon Williams from 2008.

The book

The contents are as follows (with page numbers):
2 Contents
3 Foreword by James Altucher
6 Introduction
31 Part 1: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.h4
32 Chapter 1: 3rd Move Alternatives
41 Chapter 2: 3...Bg7 4.Nc3 c5
47 Chapter 3: 3...Bg7 4.Nc3 d5 5.h5 - Minor Lines
56 Chapter 4: 3...Bg7 4.Nc3 d5 5.h5 Nxh5
64 Part 2: 3...Bg7 4.Nc3 d6 5.e4 0-0
65 Chapter 5: 5th Move Alternatives for Black
70 Chapter 6: 6.Be2 - Minor Lines
74 Chapter 7: 6.Be2 - 6...h5
82 Chapter 8: 6.Be2 e5 7.d5
87 Part 3: 6.Be2 c5 7.d5
88 Chapter 9: Minor Lines
97 Chapter 10: 7...h5
105 Chapter 11: 7...b5
115 Part 4: 7...e6 8.h5
116 Chapter 12: 8...exd5: 9.hxg6, 9.h6 & 9.cxd5
123 Chapter 13: 8...exd5 9.exd5
135 A Quick Repertoire

Following Altucher's entertaining if slightly off-topic foreword, there is a long introduction. Here Hansen annotates the main games played in this line - there aren't very many as yet - in chronological sequence. Elite grandmasters like Grischuk, Vachier Lagrave, Rapport have lately been using the opening to great effect.

I like this approach. However, it leads to some minor inconsistencies later in the book, when the commentary on fragments from these same games diverges from what we read in the introduction.

The opening

3 h4 should carry plenty of surprise value. It is most effective against Gruenfeld players: 3...d5 in reply is actually a mistake. This helps to explain its popularity at the top level, where the Gruenfeld is favoured. It's significant that the Gruenfeld guru Peter Svidler has had a miserable time against 3 h4, getting crushed by Rapport and Shankland (pages 27-29).

My impression is that the King's Indian is overwhelmingly preferred to the Gruenfeld at amateur levels, which somewhat reduces the utility of 3 h4. Nevertheless, there is much in its favour:

• Black can easily go wrong
• Black's best reply is not yet clear
• White has far less theory to learn than in mainstream lines

The last point is a tempting one, but that probably shouldn't be the main reason for adopting 3 h4: it surely won't work so well against a highly prepared opponent.

Hansen's approach

After the introduction the variations are presented in tree form, i.e. divided into a1), a2) and so on.

With a 'young' opening like this there would be a case for exploring a lot with engines from an early stage. Judging from his sample material, that is what Eljanov has done with his online course. Hansen has taken the opposite approach, looking at what has actually been played so far, even if that means including a number of fragments from blitz games. That is also reasonable: it keeps the analysis realistically grounded.

An example of what difference this makes can be seen in the 3...c6 line, which may be Black's most solid continuation. Following 4 Nc3 d5 5 cxd5 cxd5 6 Bf4 Nc6 7 e3 Bg7 8 Be2 Hansen gives three options for Black, 8...h5, 8...Ne4 and 8...h6, citing recent games in each instance. Yet, according to Eljanov, 8...0-0 is Black's most precise move here (it looks natural but would also need strong nerves). What this mainly shows is that so much remains to be explored in practice in the Basman-Williams.

A second decent option for Black seems to be 3...Bg7 4 Nc3 c5 5 d5 d6 6 e4 e6 7 Be2 exd5 8 exd5 Nbd7, seen in Ding Liren-Vachier Lagrave 2021,

As Hansen notes, Black missed an opportunity to keep the balance here.

The third line I'd consider as Black having read this book is 3...Bg7 4 Nc3 d6 5 e4 Nc6, which has Carlsen's stamp of approval. Hansen examines 6 d5, 6 Nge2 and 6 Be2 for White; there's no doubt that much remains to be discovered.

Conclusion

The Basman-Williams Attack is fun, certainly not bad, and probably very effective against certain opponents - Gruenfeld-lovers, theoreticians, and anyone likely to be rattled by the early march of 'Harry'. Hansen is a reliable guide to this very fresh, open terrain. As usual in this series of books, he concludes with a handy, quick repertoire outline to help the reader navigate the preceding material.