Do you relish the prospect of setting your opponent awkward problems from the early start of the game? If so, you should just continue reading, for in the Bg5 Najdorf, it’s every man for himself, and only the best informed and most creative resourceful player survive. The Bg5 variation gives White very dangerous attacking ideas, and Blacks really needs to know a precise defense to come out of this variation alive. This book provides weapons that are ideal choices for those who revel in forcing opponents into chaotic and uncomfortable positions. Lukasz Jarmula, a player and writer of international caliber, will be your truthful guide!
The ambition of many chess players at various levels is to build a full and reliable repertoire against White’s major starting moves. This book is designed to provide exactly that: a complete list of variations needed to know in order to confidently meet 1.d4. The goal is to lift the burden of line selection and research off your shoulders and show you exactly what you need to know to get out of the 1.d4 openings at least equal with the black pieces.
I base the repertoire on the Nimzo-Indian and Bogo-Indian Defenses. The spirit of Indian Defenses is based on flexibility and harmony. As you will notice during the course of reading the book, the lines recommended here rarely end with huge imbalances or clear weaknesses for Black. Quite often White will get the bishop pair but will have to suffer pawn weaknesses or Black’s greater piece activity in return.
Most of the lines are positional, not tactical in character. That means that stepping out of the path outlined in the book should not get you in too much trouble, as long as your moves have solid positional foundations. While playing Black, you have to accept that occasionally you will not equalize, or get surprised or out-prepared. Learning the material from this book should sharply limit the extent of such instances, thus improving your overall results.
Finally, I have an important piece of advice: remember about color strategy! The Bogo-Indian is mainly based on dark-squared control, while the Nimzo-Indian does so on the light squares. In case you forget what to do, this may prove a very useful guideline when choosing a move.
I wish you pleasant reading and great results against 1.d4!
This book is about the Nimzo-Indian Classical line 4.Qc2 (also known as the Capablanca Variation) and the 4.Bd2-line, for which basically I could not find an established name.
As far as I know, the 4.Bd2 line has never been covered in such a comprehensive way in any book before. In the text I suggest that this line should have the combined name of Tartakower-Duchamp line because Saviellly Tartakower played it often, while to my surprise Marcel Duchamp (who was also a famous French artist) played it too in the 1930s and indeed in a very good positional fashion against strong players. Some of those games are in the book.
Now this line enjoys greater popularity than ever before. About the Classical line with 4.Qc2 there is nothing much to add, except for the fact that it has become hugely popular, but unfortunately from my point of view it involves too much engine-style chess.
I have worked with the best, or perhaps it’s better to say that I have learned from the best; that’s how I can best describe this book, because I spent some time with Svetozar Gligoric in the early 2000s and the Nimzo-Indian was also present. I can’t really say that we went into great detail, but we certainly did discuss various systems. This book in particular is about the Rubinstein 4.e3 systems. Some of the material has been analyzed in my earlier book on the QGD and Nimzo, while some other material is presented in Volume 1 in this short series, which covers the Nimzo with 4.Bd2 and 4.Qc2. From other published books I used Gligoric’s book on the Nimzo-Indian and Ivan Sokolov’s book on the Nimzo with 4.e3. I found both books useful.
I need to give one explanation here and it’s about the Tal Variation because that system is treated also in my Volume 1, where I analyze the 4.Bd2 line. In this Volume 2 I have omitted all positions where White places a bishop on d2 early in the game, while Volume 1 deals exclusively with an early bishop to d2 move by White.
I hope readers will enjoy both of those books.
A complete black repertoire with 1.e4 e5 against everything except the Ruy Lopez by Igor Lysyj and Roman Ovetchkin
The Pirc Defence and the Modern Defence are two naturally entwined chess openings that are both flexible and rich in strategic and tactical ideas. They feature in the repertoire of great players like Grischuk, Ivanchuk, Nakamura and Carlsen.
In The Perfect Pirc-Modern, Viktor Moskalenko, a renowned propagator of dynamic chess who has championed the Pirc-Modern for many years, explains:
- the ideas and plans that matter
- the various pawn structures and how to handle them
- tricky transpositions: opportunities and risks
- a wealth of new resources for both Black and White.
In this updated version of Moskalenko’s 2013 book of the same name, 33 of the 42 games are new, the structure has been updated in places, and there are fresh ideas on every page.
Moskalenko expertly guides you through this ground-breaking opening book with the enthusiasm, ease and humour that characterize his style.
Viktor Moskalenko (1960) is an International Grandmaster and a well-known chess coach. The former Ukraine champion has won many tournaments in Spain, his current home country. For New In Chess, he wrote, among others, The Fabulous Budapest Gambit (2007), Revolutionize Your Chess (2009), The Diamond Dutch (2014), Training with Moska (2017), The Fully-Fledged French (2021) and Trompowsky Attack & London System (2022).