I remember seeing somewhere an opening line, where one side gets rook and the other one 5 pawns, it was pretty sharp. I also remember that it's now considered dubious, because one of the sides was proven to be much better. Unfortunately I don't remember which side was which and also the parent opening or the starting moves. Does this line come to mind to someone? It would be greatly appreciated.


Is it this line in the Advance Caro-Kann of which you are thinking?

[FEN ""]
5. g4 Bg6 6. Nge2 c5 7. h4 cxd4 8. Nxd4 h5
9. f4 hxg4 10. Bb5+ Nd7 11. f5 Rxh4 12. Rf1 exf5
13. e6 fxe6 14. Nxe6 Qe7 15. Qe2 Rh2 16. Nc7+ Kd8
17. Qxe7+ Bxe7 18. Bf4 Rxc2 19. Nxa8 Bh4+ 20. Kd1 Rxb2
  • Can you say something about the claim that "one of the sides was proven to be much better"?
    – user21820
    Apr 25 '20 at 6:29
  • 1
    My book on the advanced Caro-Kann "Beating the Caro-Kann" by Kotronias (50 pence in a second hand book shop about 5 years ago!) implies white is better. Stockfish suggests white is about a pawn better. I am not a good enough chess player to evaluate such a mad position by myself - the complete "irrationality" and difficulty of evaluation of these lines is one of the reasons I moved from this variation a couple of years back to the Panov-Botvinik, which is still aggressive, my style, but comparatively sane. So I will leave this question to someone else.
    – Ian Bush
    Apr 25 '20 at 7:00
  • Well, I looked at some variant lines using StockFish 10+ on Lichess to depth 18, and it appears that Black does fine with Bh4+ instead of Rxc2, so White is not better. However, I am not good enough to know whether I am missing some critical variation or not.
    – user21820
    Apr 25 '20 at 7:11
  • 1
    Yes - there are improvements earlier for black (like not playing the Caro-Kann ;) ). But this is the variation where back gets five pawns for a rook, and that is what the OP asked
    – Ian Bush
    Apr 25 '20 at 7:46
  • Hahaha... Well the best lines I could find are even more fascinating. Black can sacrifice a rook for only two pawns! 18. Bf4 Bh4+ 19. Kd1 g3 20. Nxa8 Ngf6 21. Kc1 d4 22. Bxd7 Nxd7 23. Nb5 d3 24. Nd4 Bh5 25. cxd3 Nc5. It continues 26. Bd2 g2 27. Rg1 Bf2 28. Kc2 Bxd4 29. Bf4 Bxg1 30. Rxg1 Rh3 31. Rxg2 Ne6 and Black recovers the material inbalance and has a better position.
    – user21820
    Apr 25 '20 at 8:41

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