An opening course for Black (ECO D70-D99)
Black lets White build a big pawn centre and then shoots at it. After 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 White usually takes on d5 and follows with e4, and what stands on the board is a pair of white pawns on d4 and e4 against a bishop on g7, a pawn coming to c5 and a knight heading for c6. Nothing is symmetrical, so neither side gets a quiet afternoon. That cuts both ways: this is the sharpest sound answer to 1.d4, and its main lines have been analysed all the way into the endgame. The course teaches the club version, which keeps the structures and skips the memory contests.
This course is part of your daily work.
White's pawns on d4 and e4 look imposing and they are also what every black piece is pointed at. The bishop on g7 looks down the long diagonal at d4 and c3, a pawn comes to c5, a knight comes to c6, and the queen often lands on a5 to lean on c3. Black is not defending against the centre. Black is asking White to keep it.
Almost every line here runs through ...c5. It hits d4 a second time, it opens the c-file, and if White ever takes on c5 the d4-pawn leaves the board with it. Against the quiet build-ups with Bf4 and Rc1 the break comes early, and the queenside pieces come out behind it rather than before it.
When White plays Nf3 that knight becomes the main defender of the d4-pawn, and ...Bg4 pins it to the queen. This is why so many of these lines end with White pushing d4-d5: the pawn runs instead of being taken. The push buys space and gives up the tension, and Black gets a fixed target to work against instead of a mobile one.
A pawn on d5 cramps Black and would like to run further, so something has to stand in front of it. The knight route ...Nc6-a5-b7-d6 does that job, and so does the queen on d6 when the point is to prepare ...f5. Take queenside space with ...a6 and ...b5 first, though: a blockade with no way to make progress behind it leaves Black solid and stuck.
Learning order, one scoresheet per chapter. The coach serves review one line a day; enter any line directly when you want it now.
The Exchange Variation is the main event and the reason the opening exists. White captures on d5, Black recaptures with the knight, and after 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 White has the pawn centre and Black has the bishop on g7 pointed straight at it. Everything here is the same argument told four ways, split by where White puts the queen's bishop.
If White does not take on d5 the pawn stays there, and the game is about whether Black can ever get in ...c5 on good terms. The Russian System asks the question hardest by hitting d5 with the queen. The rest of this chapter is the quieter half of White's shelf: a bishop to f4 or g5, a pawn to e3, and a check on a4.
Two ways to stop the opening before it starts, both popular exactly because the main lines have been analysed into the ground. White plays f2-f3 or g2-g3 on move three, and the knight trade on c3 that defines the Grünfeld never happens.
Club games that started in the Grünfeld Defence produced these tactics, and you solve every one from Black's side, the seat you actually sit in. Difficulty follows your solving, the same as the puzzle room.
The Grünfeld Defence is the chess opening that begins 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6, and it is filed under ECO D70-D99. This course teaches it from Black's side in 16 drills across 3 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
Theory credited to
4 branches are deliberately not drilled here, and the course records which and why rather than leaving the gap silent.
Questions
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