Hikaru's Blitz Repertoire 2023

Hi great blog post.

I would still be careful with premoves in the modern defence!
I have seen someone play 1.d4 g6 2.Bh6 before against Hikaru. He didn't fall for it :)

Nice blog post! The system Hikaru plays against g3/Nf3 is really smart; I call it the "Nakamura Opening." Quite fun to learn all those systems in the post. I wonder if I'll be able to make them work. BTW, what do you think about 150 Attack-ish setups against the Modern?

Thanks again for the blog and looking forward to reading more instructive posts from you in the future!

My white repertoire has been very poor, I play Evans gambit and against Nf6 some old line Morphy used to play with d4 which leads to simplifications, will now change and try this, however for modern I think I will pass I love open games and modern I think it needs someone with greater understanding in order to manoeuvre the cramped position, also I fear h5 lines cos those are the once I play with white when they play g6 and I castle queen side and checkmate immediately, a player I've seen @athena-pallada have some interesting lines with black

Maybe you could take Arjun erigasi next time

Ignoring French and Caro, the critical lines seem to be:

Hikaru is white:

e4 c5 Nc3 Nc6 f4 g6 Nf3 Bg7 Bc4 e6 f5?! (me and SF think that's a bad move) gxf5 d3 "and white just develops" Ne7 O-O O-O -/+ critical position. If black analyzes a bit whites possibilities here and the best answers to them, he will see that white has no compensation.

e4 e5 Nc3 Nf6 Bc4 Bc5 d3 c6! Qf3 "typical play" But simply d6, O-O, Be6, Nbd7 = here, and I see no dangers for black.

Hikaru is black:

e4 g6 d4 Bg7 Nc3 a6 Be3 b5 h4 h5 Nh3 d6 Ng5 Nf6 Bd3! (better than f3) Nc6 (Now c5 is not possible anymore) f3! O-O Qd2 +/- Black has not equalized. White has more space and his pawn structure is flexible.

@jahrzehnte

I'm happy for you and Stockfish, but there is a difference between the engine's number and the practical value of the line.
Hikaru won almost all the games in this Sicilian line. I also lost one game against him there - I got an excellent position but had to use a lot of time to keep things under control and eventually got flagged.
Regarding 1.e4 e5, I mean... All Italians are kind of equal, but if the knight is on g3 instead of f3 - it is unusual and can be a bit harder to navigate for black.
1....g6 also barely survives against engine prep. But are you sure you can punish it that easily in a blitz game without a prep?

This is a blitz repertoire of Hikaru, not lines that people will play in the Candidate's tournament.

@Tigerthinksbad said in #14:
> Maybe you could take Arjun erigasi next time

Thanks! So many different suggestions, maybe I will do a poll on Twitter XD
But Arjun is a great player - it will be interesting to see if he has a repertoire for online games

@sunorcus

I'm planning to analyze different players this way. Probably, you can add a few lines here and there and eventually get a complete repertoire

@Geelse_zot said in #11:
> Hi great blog post.
>
> I would still be careful with premoves in the modern defence!
> I have seen someone play 1.d4 g6 2.Bh6 before against Hikaru. He didn't fall for it :)

True, that's precisely why I said that only 1...g6 can be premoved XD

Yes