Crushing the Alekhine Defense: Two Pawns Attack – Black's Nb4

By playing 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.c4 Nb4 4.d4, you've pushed pawns to the fourth rank on both centre files and driven Black's knight to the edge of the board. Black has wasted two moves with that knight (Nf6–d5–b4) while you've built an imposing pawn centre on e5 and d4 with a c4 pawn backing it up. That's the heart of White's strategy here: you're fighting for maximum central space and development speed. Black's pieces are cramped, and your next task is to keep them that way while completing development. The engine's +1.54 assessment reflects that Black already has serious problems to solve.

Stockfish's top recommendation after 4.d4 is c6, threatening ...b5 and preparing to bring the stranded knight back into the game via a6. The engine's full suggested line runs c6 a3 N4a6 Be3. Notice the plan: you chase the knight with a3 (gaining another tempo!), then develop your bishop to e3 to support your centre and prepare kingside castling. This is a clean, punishing approach — you keep Black's knight out of play while your pieces take active posts. Don't worry if you didn't find c6 as your opponent's move; the drill will adapt to whatever Black plays next.

From a database of 18,564 games at this exact position, White's results are commanding: 60.6% wins, 2.5% draws, and just 36.9% for Black. That's a huge practical edge. The most common Black replies are e6 (5,258 games, White scores 61.6%), d6 (3,554 games, White scores 60.4%), and d5 (3,263 games, White scores 59.7%). All of these score well for White because they don't solve the fundamental problem — Black's misplaced knight on b4. Even the most popular responses give White strong winning chances. The outlier is N8c6 (839 games), which seems worse for Black: White scores an incredible 71.2% against it.

Two Black moves in this position are classified as inaccuracies, and knowing them will help you capitalise in the drill. First, d6 loses about 0.5 pawns of advantage (the engine says c6 was better). After 4...d6 5.exd6, Black's centre collapses and your development lead grows. Second, N8c6 is an even bigger mistake, losing about 0.9 pawns — the engine says Black should have played c5 instead. After N8c6, White can play a3 immediately, forcing the b4-knight to move again while Black's other knight is also undeveloped. Both inaccuracies hand you a chance to tighten the screw. In the drill, if Black picks either of these, look for direct, forcing replies that maintain your space advantage.