Najdorf Variation, English Attack

6. Be3 develops the bishop to its natural square and sets up the scheme f3, Qd2 and O-O-O, followed by g4, h4 and g5 against Black's king. The long-castling pawn storm was borrowed from the Yugoslav Attack against the Dragon. It was long overshadowed by 6. Bg5, but English grandmasters including Nunn, Short, Chandler and Miles popularized it in the 1980s, and it is now White's most frequent sixth move against the Najdorf. The engine rates the position as roughly balanced, and results in practice are close to even.

The main reply, 6...e5, gains time on the knight. After 7. Nb3 Be6 Black develops normally with ...Be7, ...Nbd7 and ...b5 while White eyes d5. The rarer 7. Nf3 hampers the pawn storm. 6...e6 transposes to a Scheveningen while sidestepping the Keres Attack. Because ...a6 is already in, 7. g4, the Perenyi or Hungarian Attack, can be met by ...e5, which uncovers the c8-bishop against the g4-pawn. 6...Ng4, the Anti-English, harasses the bishop in order to trade it off. Unlike the same idea in the Dragon, it is sound here because ...a6 rules out Bb5+.