As part of the construction of Rhal's opening systems engineered by GM Bong, National Master Ed GATUS trained Rhal on the black side of the Ruy Lopez Marshall Attack which Rhal liked. I think that the Marshall is suited for young players like him because of its attacking options. NM Gatus is an expert on the Ruy Lopez and a great attacking player.
from Wikipedia
ReplyDeleteOne of Black's more aggressive alternatives is the Marshall Attack: after 3...a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0-0 8.c3 Black plays the gambit 8...d5, sacrificing a pawn. The main line begins with 9.exd5 Nxd5 (9...e4?!, the Herman Steiner variation, is considered weaker) 10.Nxe5 Nxe5 11.Rxe5 c6 (Marshall's original moves, 11...Nf6, and 11...Bb7 are considered inferior, but have also yielded good results at top levels of play for Black. GM Joel Benjamin suggests that 11...Bb7 is inferior due to 12.Qf3). Black will attack and force weaknesses in White's kingside which has been stripped of defenders. White's first decision is whether to play d3 or d4. In either case it is apparent that the move 8.c3 is no longer helpful to White. The Black attack can be quite treacherous for White. Since Black's compensation is based on positional rather than tactical considerations, it is difficult or perhaps impossible to find a refutation, and variations have been analyzed very deeply (sometimes beyond move 30) without coming to a definite determination over the soundness of Black's gambit. The Marshall Attack is a very sharp opening system in which a great amount of theoretical knowledge is vital, and many White players, including Garry Kasparov, avoid it by playing one of the anti-Marshall systems, 8.d4, 8.a4 or 8.h3 instead of 8.c3.[9]
This gambit became famous when Frank James Marshall used it as a prepared variation against José Raúl Capablanca in 1918; nevertheless Capablanca found a way through the complications and won.[10] It is often said that Marshall had kept this gambit a secret for use against Capablanca since his defeat in their 1909 match.[11] The commonest counter-claim is that Marshall had used a similar approach in 1917 against Walter Frere,[12] However Edward Winter found: no clear evidence of the date for Frere vs Marshall; several games between 1910 and 1918 where Marshall passed up opportunities to use the Marshall Attack against Capablanca; and an 1893 game that used the same line as in Frere vs Marshall.[13]
Improvements to Black's play were found (Marshall played 11...Nf6!? originally, but later discovered 11...c6!) and the Marshall Attack was adopted by top players including Boris Spassky, John Nunn and more recently Michael Adams.