In a time where the opening phase has become extremely important, every chess player must give this phase its due attention. With various good books available, the quantity of information on the internet and the powerful engines, it is no wonder that it is now very difficult to get a big advantage out of the opening, never mind winning a game out of it.
Catalan is one of the most common opening choices for white. If before it was mostly seen at the top level, its popularity has slowly increased and is nowadays one of the top choices at every level and is a usual guest at almost every tournament. The bishop on g2 is one of the key pieces in this opening, as it supports white’s main plans: the central break with e4 and the attack on the queenside.
In order to get better at chess, one needs to build up and polish a number of skills. All of them are important, but tactics are probably something you can’t do without. No matter how good you get at strategic play, it can all go away with one bad move that overlooks a tactical possibility. Tactics and strategy go hand in hand in chess and to increase your level you’ll need to improve both. First of all, you have to familiarize yourself with the simple tactical patterns, such as double attacks, pins, discovered attacks, elimination of defense, decoy, etc.
Having a well-developed, solid repertoire is an important step in improving your level as a chess player. Middlegame knowledge, endgame knowledge, tactics, and strategy are all very important too, but they all fail if you don’t manage to get a good, playable position out of the opening, where you can actually apply everything you’ve learned.
Creating a good, sound repertoire that really suits one’s style of play is an important and difficult step for many chess players. If, with the white pieces, it is relatively easier to give the direction of the game and try to take it to positions you are comfortable with, things are a bit more difficult when deciding on a repertoire for black. White is the one who sets the pace, but you can still take the game to roads you are comfortable with. One of the openings that has gained popularity for black against 1.d4, both among amateurs and Grandmasters, is the Dutch Defense.
The Sicilian is one of the most popular openings for black against 1.e4. It is the favorite of many players and the theory inside it has been studied and discussed to exhaustion. Nevertheless, new ideas still resurface from time to time, which only shows how full of resources this defense is. Although many people believe it to be an aggressive opening, the truth is that it is, in fact, an opening for any style of play. There are, of course, many aggressive attacking lines, but there are also quieter ones, suitable for the positional player.
In our previous article, we were showing you a less known idea for black in the Sicilian, castling long in certain positions. This is not the only way you could sometimes surprise your opponent and in this article, we are going to discuss another plan that many times intertwines with the long castling idea we’ve discussed previously. Castling queenside can have a double purpose – first of all, running away from any dangerous attacks on the kingside and center, but it can also be used in an aggressive way when you are preparing counterplay on the kingside.
We live in a time where technology is part of our everyday life and information is easily accessible to everybody, things that are clearly reflected in the development of the chess theory. With the help of computers, many lines have been refuted, while some openings have been demonstrated to be a forced draw. The help we get from the engines is immense, but this is not necessarily a good thing and this is mostly reflected at the club level.
The Maroczy Bind is one of the structures every chess player must study and know how to play with both colors. It is a very popular system that is used against the Sicilian, but it can arise from various move orders, whether you start by 1.e4, 1.c4, 1.Nf3 or even 1.d4.
It can be easily recognized from the presence of two white pawns on c4 and e4 and the trade of black’s c for white’s d-pawn. With this, white is basically trying to control black’s most typical active pawn break, d6-d5.
The Slav is a very popular reply for the black player against 1.d4. There are many lines and set-ups possible for both players, but in this article, we are going to focus on the Semi-Slav and one very common structure that appears in this variation – the a7-b6-c5-d5 pawn formation. First of all, the Semi-Slav is characterized by black’s decision of keeping the light-squared bishop on c8 and playing …e6.
