Ruy Lopez 8...Na5 by playing 8.a3 (8.c3 or 8 a4 are perfectly playable as well) and after 8...0-0 (the immediate 8...Na5 is also feasible) 9.Nc3 we have reached a modern tabiya of the Ruy Lopez. This position was first reached in a high-level encounter between Viswanathan Anand and Michael Adams, Grenke Chess Classic 2013. 6.d3 has gained wide popularity among the top players and has almost supplanted the Ruy Lopez main line with 6.Re1. Peter Svidler has dedicated an entire video series to the fashionable 6.d3 line. In the Averbakh Variation (C87), named for Yuri Averbakh, Black defends the threatened e-pawn with
Ruy Lopez play 8.c3, Black can and often does play 8...d6, which is just the main line in another order. But he can also play 8...d5 for the Marshall Attack. One 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