Preparing the to develop the bishop on f5 anyway. The problem is that Black's dark-squared bishop won't be so well placed on g7. To be honest, developing the light-squared bishop to f5 is not such a great idea either since there's a pawn on g6. That said, the move is still perfectly playable.
1. d2d4  1... g8f6  2. g1f3  2... d7d5  3. c2c3  3... c7c6  4. d1c2 A curious little move that Nihal has played before. The idea is to avoid the development of Black's bishop on f5.