Accelerated Dragon
Opening course for Black · ECO B35
One tempo, and the Yugoslav Attack is gone.
The Accelerated Dragon is the Dragon with the d-pawn left at home: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6, and only then, if the position asks for it, ...d6. That one saved tempo is the whole opening. It means ...d5 can come in a single move instead of two, and the Yugoslav Attack, the pawn storm that makes the ordinary Dragon a memory test, simply does not work against it. The bill arrives immediately in the form of 5.c4, the Maroczy Bind, where White takes d5 away permanently and squeezes. That is the main line of this course and most of its length, because the Bind is not a refutation but it is a real strategic problem, and the games are decided by whether Black knows the freeing plan or just shuffles. The rest of the course covers the sharp Bc4 lines, where the tactics start on move seven, and the exchange tries that go for a structural edge instead.
- Chapters
- 5
- Lines
- 12
- Traps
- 3
- Sources
- 8
Nothing to review. Learn the next line.
Next: The one-move break, against a normal Be2 setup.
Part of your daily work.
- Learn
- Walk the line with the coach, a note on the moves that need one.
- Recall
- Play it from memory. Learned lines come back on a schedule.
- Tempo
- The same line against the clock, for a score to beat.
- Off book
- The opponent leaves the book with a real move; Stockfish prices your answers.
Before the moves: the big ideas
The tempo buys you the ...d5 break
In the normal Dragon, Black plays ...d6 and then needs a second move to get in ...d5. Here the pawn goes to d5 in one go. Against every setup where White plays f3 and Qd2 and starts pushing on the kingside, ...d5 arrives before the storm does and the position opens while White's king is still deciding where to live.
The Bind is a squeeze, not a refutation
Golombek wrote in 1947 that 5.c4 almost refuted the whole idea and that Black had to grovel. Evans walked that back in Modern Chess Openings in 1965: the position is sound, White has more space. Nunn and Gallagher later landed in between, calling it slightly passive but pointing at Larsen and Velimirovic winning from the black side. That range of opinion is the honest picture, and it is why the Bind chapter is about a plan rather than a move list.
Trade knights, then get the pieces off the back rank
The standard freeing sequence in the Bind is ...Nxd4 first, because trading pieces is how a cramped side breathes, and then ...a5 to stop White's queenside expansion, the light-squared bishop out, the rooks to c8. Only once all of that is done do the breaks ...b5 and ...f5 mean anything. Play them early and they just lose a pawn.
In the Bc4 lines, count before you chase
The bishop on c4 and later b3 is the piece that stops ...d5, and the natural way to hit it is ...Na5. That move is the reason this opening has a famous trap named after it. The queen sortie ...Qa5 is the modern answer instead: it pins the c3 knight and hits e4, and three different careless White replies lose material on the spot.
The lines, chapter by chapter
In learning order. The coach serves review one line a day; open any line yourself when you want it now.
Start Here: The Tempo
1 line
One line, and it shows you what you are buying. Play it through once and the rest of the course is about the ways White tries to stop this from happening.
When White Plays It Like a Dragon
1 line
The Yugoslav Attack is why most people are scared of the Dragon: f3, Qd2, castle long, then h4-h5 and the position is a race you have to know by heart. Against this move order it does not work, and it is worth seeing exactly why.
The Maroczy Bind
3 lines
5.c4 is the real test, and it is a positional one. White puts pawns on c4 and e4, d5 is off the table for the rest of the game, and Black has less space in a position with no immediate weaknesses to attack. This is not a line you survive by memorising twelve moves. It is a plan, and the plan is: trade a pair of knights, stop the queenside expansion, get the pieces to their squares, and only then break.
The Bishop on c4
5 lines
The other way to stop ...d5 is with a piece. 7.Bc4 is the sharpest line in the opening and the one with the tactics: the bishop covers d5 a third time and points at f7, and Black has to decide immediately between the modern ...Qa5 and the older ...O-O. Three careless White replies to ...Qa5 lose material at once, and one careless Black reply to the other loses the game.
When White Trades First
2 lines
Two lines where White gives up the centralised knight early to damage Black's structure. Neither is dangerous if you know the follow-up, and one of them contains the biggest correction in this course.
Puzzles from this opening
The Accelerated Dragon in brief
The Accelerated Dragon is the chess opening that begins 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4, and it is filed under ECO B35. This course teaches it from Black's side in 12 drills across 5 chapters, with a coach note on the moves that need one, every position checked with Stockfish at depth 20, and every plan credited to the author who wrote it down.
Lines you will drill
- The one-move break against a normal Be2 setup
- Punishing the storm setup against 7.f3 and 8.Qd2
- The freeing plan against 5.c4, the main setup
- The knight trick against 5.c4 with 7.Nc3
- Stopping the queenside first against 5.c4 when White plays for b4
- The queen sortie against 7.Bc4
- The pin that wins a pawn against 8.Qd2, the natural developing move
- Two pawns, and an honest verdict against 8.f3, propping up e4
- The knight retreat against 8.Nb3, hitting the queen
- Castling, and the move that loses against 7.Bc4 met by 7...O-O
- The exchange and e5 against 7.Nxc6 and 8.e5
- The Passmore against 5.Nxc6, the immediate trade
Questions
- What is the Accelerated Dragon?
- The Accelerated Dragon is the chess opening that begins 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4, filed under ECO B35. One tempo, and the Yugoslav Attack is gone. The Accelerated Dragon is the Dragon with the d-pawn left at home: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6, and only then, if the position asks for it, ...d6.
- How do you learn the Accelerated Dragon?
- This course splits it into 12 drills across 5 chapters. You play each line from Black's side against a coach note that explains the move, then the same lines come back on a spaced-repetition schedule until you can play them without prompting. Every position is verified with Stockfish at depth 20 before it ships.