The Petroff is not boring

The Petroff has a reputation as being an eternally solid opening. To an extent, that is true, which is why it has featured in the repertoires of many World Championship players even in the modern engine era. But it is not true to the point where you can say it is boring.

I will offer a counterexample in support, from the finale of Tata Steel Chess 2025. The feature move of the Petroff is Black’s second move, 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6.

The main line is 3. Nxe5 d6, kicking out White’s knight before capturing on e4. In the game Gukesh-Erigaisi, the World Champion chose the offbeat 4. Nc4, rather than the standard 4. Nf3. It has some similarities to 4. Nd3, and you can see the basic concept after 4. Nc4 Nxe4 5. Qe2.

White pins the knight, forcing Black to break the pin with 5. …Qe7. And Gukesh chose the main try 6. Ne3, threatening Nd5, which would overwork the black queen that needs to guard the knight on e4, and also c7. So far, it’s a little quirky, but hardly explosive.

Black defended with the retreat 6. …Nf6, and the players set the stage for a dramatic game with 7. Nc3 Be6 8. g3 Nc6 9. Bg2 Qd7 10. O-O O-O-O.

The machine has given a stable evaluation the whole way, but opposite side castling, especially when taken up by players such as these two, always contains potential for fire; look no further than Gukesh’s 11th move, b4! Erigaisi soon found himself with a sizeable advantage and a kingside initiative, and indeed we got a critical tournament upset by Erigaisi, which left Gukesh lucky to make a tiebreak when co-leader Pragg also lost.

The full game Gukesh-Erigaisi is given below — 31 moves is not a very long game!

Here is one more example, from a game of my own. Believe it or not, this was out of a main, if older, branch of Petroff theory.

Black played 14. …Nxf2! 15. Kxf2 Rb8 16. Qc2 Bc5+ 17. Kf1, and with 17. …Qh4! has a winning attack, which earned the point on move 21.

I will always say, it is the White player who makes the Petroff boring.