An opening course for Black (ECO D17-D19)
The Slav answers the Queen's Gambit with 2...c6, holding d5 with a pawn instead of shutting in the c8-bishop the way 2...e6 does. Getting that bishop out is the whole idea: Black takes on c4, plays ...Bf5, and only then builds the pawn triangle with ...e6. What you get is solidity rather than an attack, and the cost is patience. This course plays the Czech Variation, 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 Bf5, and mostly its main line, where White's own 5.a4 leaves a permanent hole on b4 that Black spends the middlegame occupying.
This course is part of your daily work.
In the Queen's Gambit Declined the pawn on e6 buries that bishop and Black spends the next fifteen moves trying to free it. Here it comes out to f5 or g4 before ...e6 is played, and everything else in the opening follows from keeping it useful. When White drives it back or trades it off, check what you got in return.
5.a4 stops ...b5 and takes b4 away from White's own pawns for the rest of the game. Three black pieces can use the square: the dark-squared bishop, a knight coming via a6 or from d5, and the a-pawn on a5 to hold whatever lands there. Occupying b4 with tempo is why the bishop goes to b4 rather than to the safer e7.
White's whole plan is 0-0, Qe2 and e4, and Black cannot prevent it indefinitely. Develop quickly instead and meet the push with a counter-break in the centre, either ...c5 or ...e5. Delaying that break too long is the usual way a comfortable Slav turns into a squeeze.
Black has less space in most of these positions, so every exchange helps. The same logic applies to pawns: when White is left with one bishop, put your queenside pawns on that bishop's colour so they are fixed where it cannot get at them.
Learning order, one scoresheet per chapter. The coach serves review one line a day; enter any line directly when you want it now.
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 Bf5 6.e3, and after 9.Qe2 the bishop drops back to g6. Black gives up the bishop pair and gets a solid position with a permanent hole on b4. Three lines here, split by White's thirteenth move.
Two versions of the same ambition. In the first White castles and pushes on move ten; in the second the knight jumps to e5 on move six so that f3 and e4 can come together. Both are about whether Black's light-squared bishop stays a piece or becomes a spectator.
5...Na6 instead of 5...Bf5. Black lets White have e4 and heads straight for the hole on b4. It is a practical choice rather than a theoretical one: White has to get several things right and often does not.
Club games that started in the Slav 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 Slav Defence is the chess opening that begins 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6, and it is filed under ECO D17-D19. This course teaches it from Black's side in 6 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
9 branches are deliberately not drilled here, and the course records which and why rather than leaving the gap silent.
Questions
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