Game of the Week #740: How 5.e5! Reopens a Forgotten Italian Game Corridor

Move five. White pushes the pawn from e4 to e5, and the board suddenly contracts. That was the moment I stopped when reviewing the game between Arjun Erigaisi and Laohawirapap in the "Game of the Week" series, entry number 740, part of the "60 Minutes" content strand. There was no applause, no shouting. Just a pawn stepping one square forward, planting itself in front of the black knight on f6 — like someone standing in a corridor saying: if you want to pass, you pay. I have followed chess for nearly four decades, from club tournaments in Melbourne to playing halls in Da Nang. Back then I sat in the stands, never knowing I would step onto the field through words. Now, every game I analyse begins in the same place: with the spectator. And the spectator sees what the player sometimes misses — that the most important moves usually look very ordinary. The position starts from a classical opening: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.e5! This is the Modern variation of the Italian Game. The interesting part is that it can arrive by two different routes. A player using the Scotch Gambit with 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.e5! lands in exactly the same position. The phenomenon is called transposition, and it is why studying openings by system matters more than studying them by name. The history of this variation is far from obscure. Evgeny Sveshnikov — the man who gave his name to an entire Sicilian defence — used it regularly in practical play. According to the original analysis, the line produced good results for the grandmasters who chose it. In other words, this is not a product of a modern engine room. It has lived in tournament practice for a long time, just quietly. And that is where I want to pause. Modern chess is obsessed with novelty. Every week, hundreds of novelties appear in game databases, each measured by how closely it matches the engine's top choice. Amid that current, variations already validated over thousands of practical games get treated as background noise. They do not need to be proved. They only need to be understood. But here I must be clear from the outset, because I spent too many years trusting claims without data: the original analysis provides no engine evaluation, no win rate, no draw rate, no ACPL, and it does not even state the game result or the time control. No ratings for either player. No tournament name. Every factual point in the source is flagged as having no independent verification. That does not make the article worthless. It only draws a boundary: what we have is a study guide, not a verdict on an opening. And as readers, our job is to verify it ourselves. So what does 5.e5! actually do? White attacks the f6 knight — the only black piece that has developed beyond the third rank. Black must answer immediately, and every answer carries a price. First response: 5...d5. Black counterattacks in the centre and hits the c4 bishop. This is the politest reply — no retreat, no scrambling. But White can trade on f6, wrecking the pawn structure in front of the black king, or push the e5 pawn further. Once a pawn structure is broken, it does not repair itself for the rest of the game. Black plays the remaining moves with an open wound. Second response: 5...Ng4. The knight jumps to g4, attacking the e5 pawn. It sounds reasonable. But look at the knight's journey: from g8 to f6, then to g4. Two moves, and it still controls nothing that truly matters. A simple h3 from White sends it home, and Black has just lost two tempi. In chess, tempo is currency. Nobody gets rich by borrowing tempo. Third response: 5...Ne4. The knight centralises on e4. This looks the most textbook-correct — a piece in the middle of the board, controlling several squares. But the e4 knight blocks Black's own c8 bishop, and the d2 and f2 squares it aims at are easily defended. White can play Bd5 or Nbd2, and the e4 knight turns from weapon into target. It is a lesson that repeats itself: a piece standing beautifully without a job is just a beautiful target. On the tactical level, one pattern stands out. White's e5 pawn is an irritant, but it can also be captured. If Black errs and takes it with the knight, White usually has a tactic on f7 or a pile-up on the e-file. If Black ignores it and keeps developing, the e5 pawn advances to e6 and tears open the entire defensive shell in front of the king. In other words, Black must choose between a small wound now and a large wound later. That is the hardest kind of decision in chess — a choice between two unpleasant options. The overall structure White pursues is clear: take space, push the f6 knight into passivity, complete development quickly, then look to open the kingside with a central break. It is the logic of a high press in football. You do not need the ball to win. You need to make the opponent unable to play the ball. And when they cannot play, mistakes arrive on their own — you do not have to cause them. What I respect about this variation is its honesty. No move here is beautiful in the aesthetic sense. 5.e5! is a purely functional move. It does not promise victory. It promises only a playable position. In practical play, a playable position is worth more than a beautiful one, because a beautiful position requires the opponent's cooperation, and a playable one does not. And this is where long-term value comes in. Variations like this are the property of club players. They do not demand fifteen memorised theoretical moves. They demand that you understand a single idea — that White is playing to paralyse Black's development — after which every move becomes logical. Nothing needs to be memorised. Only one principle needs to sink in. That is why I believe coaches in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City should put this line into their curricula for young students. Not because it is strong. Because it teaches exactly what chess should teach: thinking in ideas, not in memory. Now to the part where I disagree with the original article. The analysis calls this variation "perfect for club players" because it is "relatively easy to learn". I think that is generous phrasing, and sometimes commercially motivated phrasing. A variation that is both easy to learn and full of traps is a paradox: traps only work when the opponent does not know them. When the opponent does know them, the trapper is the one who loses direction. I have watched this repeat dozens of times at amateur events. A player studies a sharp line for two weeks, wins three games against weaker opponents, then meets someone who read the same material and gets crushed in fifteen moves. A trap is not knowledge. A trap is a loan. And I must stress again: the claim that Black "struggles to equalise" is a reasoned opinion, not a proven evaluation. After Sveshnikov and other grandmasters used this line for years, specific antidotes have almost certainly been developed at the highest level. If you bring this line to a well-prepared tournament, you may be the one caught. There is one more point worth making: the "Game of the Week" format is educational content, valuable for guiding learners, but it is not itself evidence of a variation's strength. A game chosen to teach is usually a game in which White's idea worked completely. Games in which the same line failed rarely make the series. For Vietnamese players, I suggest a different process: study all three replies — 5...d5, 5...Ng4, 5...Ne4; check each branch with an engine; find the tactical motive behind every move yourself. Only when you understand why a move works can you use it under clock pressure. And remember one thing: a variation may produce fine results for grandmasters, but that does not automatically apply to you. Grandmasters win through positional understanding, not through memory of moves. Even so, I still think Erigaisi did something useful by bringing 5.e5! back to the board. Every time an old variation appears in a new game, it reopens a door the chess world thought was shut. The knock of a generation — that is the sound I hear whenever it happens. The empty corridor of 2026 taught me that the field never dies, it only waits. It is the same here: 5.e5! waited in the manuals for years, and it has just been called awake. Strategy is like people: you have to know who you are before you try to become someone else. If you want to use this line, start by admitting you do not yet understand it.