Question in the dragon

I have noticed that with white to move in the following position:



white hardly ever plays 7. Bd3 at the higher levels in this position. Why is that? Though perhaps contrary to some ideas in the dragon, it seems like a playable move to me.

It's playable in that it doesn't lose immediately and doesn't make things significantly worse for White ...

but perhaps a better question is - what does Bd3 achieve?


I don't see any advantages of playing Bd3. It doesn't, for example, help with the plan of exchanging Black's strong bishop on g7.

I see. So essentially, Bd3 is a wasted move?

Originally posted by amolv06
I see. So essentially, Bd3 is a wasted move?

d3 is not the best square for that bishop, you want to play f3 to get rid of the nasty Ng4 which is really akward to meet, you want that bishop to stay on e3.

d3 is a bad square because the knight on d4 can get pretty loose without the queen protecting it and sometimes black can move the Nf6 and make a discovered attack with his bishop against the d4 square.

I would go Ng4 against Bd3 in that position, your bishop has to stay put because it is the sole protector of your knight and next move I take your dark squared bishop.

With a classical pawn formation, h7 is the weakest point in black's defences. So a bishop on the b1/h7 diagonal is often a good idea. But with Indian setups, f7 is weaker than h7. So white attacking f7 with the bishop is more logical. So some master bloke told me 😏

Hmm well I would try out ...Ng4 and ...Nc6 for black.

Other moves make Bd3 look fine.

I would be tempted to play ...Nc6 since it looks developmentally good.
Black`s ...Nc6 might prevent an immediate o-o since black might be threatening ...Nxe4.

I play ...Nc6.
OK your move.
See if you can find a good answer to blacks plan of ...Nxe4.

Originally posted by amolv06
I see. So essentially, Bd3 is a wasted move?

Perhaps "wasted" is a little strong but certainly it misplaces the piece. I suppose since the bishop would then have to move to another square later on you could say it had wasted a tempo.

It seems to me that the bishop is much better placed on c4 or e2 than d3.


This is an example, I think, of a move that strong players don't play not because it's terrible but because it's obviously inferior to alternatives ... in this case f2-f3 or Be2

Originally posted by JonathanB of London
It's playable in that it doesn't lose immediately and doesn't make things significantly worse for White ...

but perhaps a better question is - what does Bd3 achieve?


I don't see any advantages of playing Bd3. It doesn't, for example, help with the plan of exchanging Black's strong bishop on g7.

Well stated. The bishop has no future on that diagonal (for the same reason Colle players avoid Bd3 against the King's Indian and Gruenfeld), and it interferes with the Queen's control/reinforcement of the d4 square.

It would (and often does) have a better future on e2 or c4.

Thank you all for the excellent explanations!