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The Lolli attack
The Lolli attack is one of the most dangerous attacks for White to play, and black must definitely be prepared for that. It’s very difficult to play with black and is not an attack to be taken lightly.
Not everyone knows how to counter this kind of attack, and even so, there are a lot of chances to play. It’s one of this opening perfect for blitz, where you will encounter many types of ideas.
Playing the Lolli attack with black in a blitz game is simply suicidal. Personally, this opening is appealing but has a great problem, not one that you can’t solve of course. But has a subtlety that if black knows how to seize can give you a hard time.
However, that doesn’t take away the value of this opening, and still is a great weapon to use in these cases. If you want to master the power of the Lolli attack keep reading this post, we will learn all of its secrets!
The mainlines of the Lolli attack
We can enter the Lolli attack through the regular Italian game, the following line:
And we are in the Lolli attack. The thing here is that we are always prepared to sacrifice the knight on f7, there are some lines.
Incredibly, we are already in a key position of the game, just to see how dangerous it could be let’s see the following line:
6… Be7 is already winning for white:
And we kick the knight out and we will win our piece back on d5.
Of course, black has some other clever options to play, for example, 6…Bb4+, the purpose of the movie is that we are forced to play c3, and we can no longer play Nc3. But we still have a good way to go here:
And we keep pressure, but black stands better compared to the line mentioned above.
Finally, black can try 6…exd4 and the game could go like this: 6.d4 exd4 7.O-O Nce7 8.Re1 h6 9.Qh5 g6 10.Qf3 hxg5 11.Bxd5 and still white has a good position.
Plans and ideas of the Lolli attack (how to play it)
Usually, when white plays the Lolli attack is to get into the attack right away, is very difficult for black to survive. However, the Lolli attack doesn’t work if we are not well acquainted with the Nxf7 idea.
This sacrifice is thematic and makes me remember the Fried Liver Attack. You have to play this as any other attacking position sticking to the main attack principles.
You have to keep the pressure on and look for ways to maintain your opponent tied up.
How to counter the Lolli attack with black?
This is a good question, and the main problem of the Lolli attack is that, if black wants to, he can avoid all of the lines we saw. Instead of taking the pawn on d5 on move 5, black can play Na5 a much better movie.
Let’s have a look at the line we are talking about: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Na5 now things are so different, we are kicking the most annoying piece of white, the c4 bishop.
This is a way to counter all of the lines we saw and is the main problem of the Lolli attack. Most of the players you play in a tournament are going to go for this line, no doubt about it.
Sample games in the Lolli attack
Here is one famous classic game played by Boddy Fischer going for the Lolli attack:
Is the Lolli attack a good opening to play?
Normally, we don’t talk about this in regular posts like this, but in this case, is necessary. I don’t believe that you should always look to play the Lolli attack, because nobody is going to go for that line with black.
99% of good chess players know this Na5 move to stop the attack on f7, which is still playable. Levon Aronian has played these positions with white many times, but nobody is going to allow the Lolli attack.
If you study the line with Na5, and you like it, good, because that you will surely encounter it in practice.
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