The ...c5! Repertoire Against the Queen’s Gambit
⚔️ The system Baadur and I published a few years ago – ...Nc6 with the pawn still on c7 – is a strong idea, and it worked: it became popular. That is exactly the problem. There are many games now, White has found several tries, and it is no longer the weapon it was. So we went looking for a new one.
🎯 This course is that weapon. The first five moves stay the same, and from move six Black plays in a completely different way: instead of 5...Nc6 and a slow build-up, the c-pawn goes forward at once. The ...c5 break is the key concept of the whole repertoire – Black fights for the centre immediately, before White has settled. In a few words: the same opening, the same first five moves, and from move six a direction your opponent has almost certainly never had to face.
📌 Building it was not easy. Learning it will not be hard: the lines are concrete, there are not many of them, most of the critical positions have been reached in a handful of games, and in several of them the recommendation here is a brand-new move.
♟ The whole idea in one move. White develops the knight, and Black strikes at once:
1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 Bg4 5.Bxc4 e6 6.Nc3 c5!
🔧 The rare break that replaces the old set-up – and the critical test of it comes immediately: 7.Qa4+ Nbd7 8.Ne5 cxd4 9.exd4 a6! The position after 10.Nxg4 Nxg4 is the heart of the course. Seventeen games have reached it, one of them with Gukesh on the white side, and that is where the new analysis begins.
💥 Five moves further on, both players are out of the book. White's new move attacks b7 and wins a pawn. Black's reply is not a defensive move at all:
10...Nxg4 11.Be2 b5 12.Qb3 Ngf6 13.Bf3 Rc8 14.0-0 Bd6 15.Bb7 Bxh2+!
⚡ 16.Kh1 Rb8! attacks the bishop, 17.Bxa6 Bc7! rescues ours, and after 18.Nxb5 0-0 White is a pawn up with a queen that has nowhere comfortable to go. The sequence is forced, all of it is new territory, and every move of it is analysed to the end.
🔍 The sidelines were rebuilt as well. Against the Nbd2 systems Black copies the development, and when White grabs space on the kingside the answer is to meet it head-on:
6.Nbd2 Nbd7 7.Qb3 Rb8! 8.h3 Bh5 9.g4 Bg6 10.h4 b5 11.Be2 h5! 12.g5 Nd5!
🛡️ An improvement on the only game played here, where Black retreated to e4 instead and was simply worse. On d5 the knight is perfectly placed, the queenside pawns are already rolling, and the position is complicated in the way that favours the player who has seen it before.
GM Pier Luigi Basso