An interesting idea in the Reti advance variation

As a reti player, I’ve had the most trouble with the advance variation…nf3, d5-c4,d4 this gives black the center and enough space to manoeuvre uncontested behind the pawn wall. Often, I find myself playing against this in the park…and blitz is not at all conducive to long term positional play. Thusly restricted, my pieces find themselves awkwardly placed and I end up in a defense posture all throughout middle game. The psychological effect of this is devastating for me…

Looking at a Raymond Keene (v.s. John Nunn) game I found this idea for moves 8, 9 and 10 in this variation.
1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. g3 c5 4. d3 Nf6 5. Bg2 e5 6.0-0 Nf6 7. a3 Bd6 8. Nh4! 0-0 9. e4 Ne8 10.Nf5

On move 8, the knight goes to rim, making room for the “e” pawn push. If black captures e.p., white simply recaptures and undermines black’s center. When black allows the pawn to advance to e4, it gives the knight on the rim an outpost in the center of the board! shizam-

This may seem like a miniscule discovery to most of you…but I’ve been struggling with this game in particular so I feel like I have a nice new weapon against the hustlers in the park.

Checkers is for tramps- Paul Morphy