La Defensa Philidor Modernizada

The author of The Modernized Philidor Defense is not well-known but has done an excellent job of covering not only the main lines of the Philidor but the sidelines leading up to it. Your reviewer was curious about the sometimes-made claim that White has no forced draw in the Philidor. This is pretty much true, but to the author’s credit he does point out the following exception: As played in Z. Ma – Motylev, China 2013, and a half dozen other games. After 21.Ba7 or 21.Re1 White can pretty much complete the job of emptying the board. Of course, such possibilities are found in pretty much all openings and have no effect on the theoretical well-being of the Philidor.         IM John Donaldson, US Chess, 09.2021.