The Ragozin Black Didn't Ask For
When Black answers the Exchange Queen's Gambit with 5...Bb4, the intention is transparent: steer the game into the Ragozin, one of the most reliable three-results weapons in modern practice. The Carlsbad has anchored White's play here for a century, from club events to World Championship matches, and its pull has never depended on fashion.
What GMs Luca Moroni and Pier Luigi Basso propose is a quiet act of defiance. Instead of the automatic 6.Nf3, they hold the knight on g1 and answer 6.e3! — declining the standard Ragozin move order and handing Black a version of the position he would rather not have. That knight staying home is the whole idea, keeping White flexible and reaching a more comfortable middlegame than the one Black prepared for.
Completing the repertoire
This third volume finishes what the first two began. Parts 1 and 2 covered Black's Classical variations; here the authors turn to the Modern sidelines — the lines Black reaches for when he wants a complicated game with chances to play for all three results.
The main focus is 5...Bb4, but the course also handles the fashionable 5...Be7 with an early ...Bg4, and the 5...c6 structures — including 6.Qc2 Na6!?, tested at the very top by Carlsen and Caruana. Together with the earlier volumes, this closes out White's repertoire after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5, which is also the starting position of the Carlsbad itself.
The authors' reasoning
Moroni and Basso have built this repertoire part after part, and the same practical instinct runs through all of it: pose problems rather than solve them. They don't shy away from the engine's favorite either — 9...Bf5!? gets its own chapter, and the critical pawn-grab after 9...Bh5 10.Bxf6 Bxf6 11.Qf5 is examined honestly, since winning that pawn is far from simple over the board.
What's inside
- 8 Chapters
- 20 test positions
- Memory Booster
- To Go version of every chapter
- Video instruction
- Multilingual PGN availability (English, German, French, Spanish)
Map of variations
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5
5...Bb4 — the main try, angling for a Ragozin
- 6.e3 h6 7.Bh4 g5 8.Bg3 Ne4 9.Qc2 h5 → Chapter 6
- 6.e3 h6 7.Bh4 g5 8.Bg3 Ne4 9.Qc2 Bf5!? (the engine's choice) → Chapter 7
- 6.e3 h6 7.Bh4 g5 8.Bg3 h5!? (alternative move order) → Chapter 8
- 6.e3 h6 7.Bh4 O-O and 7...c5 (positional sidelines) → Chapter 5
5...Be7
- 6.e3 h6 7.Bh4 Bg4 8.Qc2 O-O 9.h3 Be6 → Chapter 2
- 9...Bh5!? 10.Bxf6 Bxf6 11.Qf5 → Chapter 3
5...c6
- 6.Qc2 Na6!? (Carlsen, Caruana) → Chapter 1
- 6.Qc2 Be7 7.e3 Bg4 → Chapter 4
Connected courses
This is the third installment of the series that began with Carlsbad Structure for White – Repertoire Against the Classical Variations – Part 1 and continued in Part 2. The first two volumes cover Black's Classical setups; this one adds the sharper modern sidelines to give you the full picture after 5.Bg5.
Bring the whole system together
If you already play the Carlsbad from Parts 1 and 2, this volume seals the last gaps against Black's most ambitious tries. And if you're assembling the repertoire from the ground up, 5.Bg5 is the tabiya everything else grows from — this is where the work pays off.