In the Scotch Gambit, White immediately strikes in the center and attacks the f7-pawn, provoking concessions from Black. An imbalance typically results, where White has attacking chances on the kingside. The Scotch Gambit will help you develop a finer feeling for the initiative and improve your combinational vision.
Renowned German chess trainers Erik Zude and Jörg Hickl have created an ideal club player’s repertoire for Black. This compact manual presents a set of lines that is conveniently limited in scope, yet varied, solid and complete. The core repertoire is based on lines that the authors have successfully played at (grand)master level for decades: the Antoshin variation of the Philidor Defence against 1.e4 and the Old-Indian Defence against 1.d4. There is only a limited number of plans, ideas and structures that you need to learn, and very few forcing variations.
The Sveshnikovs clearly explain the ideas and plans for both sides and provide exercises and test positions. After reading and studying this book, White players, from amateurs to Grandmasters, will make their opponents’ lives even more difficult.
In VOLUME 2 you are again handed basic and advanced tools to improve in a wide array of areas: assessing and handling pawn structures, employing positional and tactical means to improve your position, identifying weak spots, mastering attacking dynamics and more.
Vincent Moret now provides a complete, ready-to-go chess opening repertoire for Black. It consists of a sound set of lines that do not outdate rapidly, do not require memorization and are easy to digest for beginners and post-beginners.
When Axel Smith was chasing his final GM norm, he decided he needed a change in his White opening repertoire. Instead of his usual approach of memorizing many concrete moves to try to force an advantage, he would focus on pawn structures and typical plans. The result was a repertoire based on a set-up with the moves d4, Nf3, c4 and e3. It helped Axel Smith to the GM title, and led to the creation of e3 Poison.
The combination of the Slav Defense and the Caro-Kann Defense enables Black to facilitate his defense in the opening and to avoid numerous unpleasant schemes for him. For example, after 1.c4, he can simply play 1…c6, without being afraid of 2.e4. In the above mentioned London System, after the moves 1.d4 d5 2.Bf4 c5 3.e3, Black has the resource 3…cxd4 4.exd4, after which there arises by transposition a variation from the Caro-Kann Defense which is practically harmless for Black.