Najdorf Specialist's 20-Move Deep Theory Disintegrates Upon Opponent's Move 2 London System Transposition

Basil Holloway said he had never watched a club room lean in over a single move and lose interest before the fourth. He was stacking score sheets at the edge of Table 3 on Tuesday, inside the two-hour block Room B had been booked for, when Priya Raghunath's opponent developed a bishop on move two and the Najdorf specialist sat down with eleven minutes of her own time to look at it.

Raghunath, rated 1742, has kept the Najdorf as Black since 14 January 2021. The Najdorf arrives after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6, ECO B90 through B99, and her file runs twenty moves deep against the English Attack: six branches, three colors of ink, a tabbed section for 6.Be3 Qb6 that she has read on four consecutive evenings.

She did not get to play 1.e4. Her opponent opened 1.Nf3, she answered 1...c5, and he replied 2.Bf4. The game continued 2...Nf6 3.e3 Nc6 4.c3 e6 5.d4 cxd4 6.cxd4 d5 7.Nc3, a queen's-pawn structure filed under D02 or A46 depending on which end of the transposition you start counting from. No pawn on e4. Her notes for move 11 open with "White's bishop on e3, queen on d2"; White's bishop was on f4 and his queen had not moved.

Dev's Purchase Order: 14-hour Najdorf video course, $89, ordered 3 February, refundable through lesson four only. Two hardcover anthologies off Holloway's counter, $31 the pair, 22 February. Database update, $19, 6 March. One hundred and thirty-nine dollars of stock, every dollar of it contingent on an opponent playing 1.e4.

The practical cost landed on the clock. Waiting for an English Attack that never assembled, Raghunath had used nineteen minutes by move 11 and played ...a6 on move 16 out of habit, a move from a repertoire that had stopped applying six moves earlier. She lost on move 47, in a rook endgame, with 41 seconds on her flag.

The club's post-game thread produced its customary contribution within the hour: "+0.43, Stockfish 17, depth 24," posted by a member who had not been in the room.

Asked by the standards board whether 2.Bf4 counts as leaving theory, Inez Gable issued the ruling the room had been waiting for. "A transposition is a game that arrives at a destination only one player booked," she wrote, adding that a line you never reach is not preparation, it is stock.

Raghunath placed order 4471 at 11:42 p.m., three hours after the flag fell: Anti-London Systems for Najdorf Players, eight hours, $64. Holloway, who took the order, said she also asked whether the shop kept anything on 1.Nf3.