Prophylactic Thinking: The Best Defence Strategy
Learning to see the game through your opponent's eyes — by IM Siegfried Baumegger.
Walk into any chess library and you will find shelves groaning with books on attack — how to sacrifice, how to mate, how to seize the initiative. Search for the same depth on defence, and the shelves are nearly bare. That is a strange gap, because the ability to deal with your opponent's threats is one of the most decisive skills in all of chess — and one of the least trained.
Today, we are pleased to present Prophylactic Thinking: The Best Defence Strategy by IM Siegfried Baumegger — a course devoted to the neglected art of defending, and to the single habit that transforms it.
The Core Idea: See It Before It Happens
At the heart of the course is prophylactic thinking — the ability to anticipate your opponent's plans and neutralise them before they arrive. Instead of reacting to threats once they land, you ask a different question on every move: What does my opponent want to do? — and how do I stop it?
The finest expression of the idea is subtle:
- In its simplest form, prophylaxis prevents the opponent's plan.
- In its ideal form, it does so with a move that also improves your own position — defence and progress in a single stroke.
And while prophylaxis is most vital in defence, it is not limited to it. It becomes increasingly important the moment your opponent holds the advantage or the initiative — exactly when most players panic and start reacting move by move.
What the Course Trains
Baumegger approaches defence through two complementary skills, each built through carefully selected exercises:
Prophylactic Thinking. The strategic core — learning to read the opponent's intentions, identify the plan behind their moves, and meet it with prevention rather than reaction. This is the habit that turns a passive defender into an active one.
Tactical Defensive Tools. Prophylaxis is not only quiet. When the position sharpens, defence demands concrete resources: the saving intermezzo, the counter-blow, the precise sequence that holds a position under fire. This part trains the tactical side of survival.
Together they cover both halves of great defending — the strategic anticipation that keeps you out of trouble, and the tactical precision that saves you when trouble arrives anyway.
The Baumegger Method
IM Siegfried Baumegger brings decades of practical and teaching experience to this course, with the emphasis that defines his work: pattern recognition and transferable principles, not rote memorisation. The material is delivered as a structured study file of exercises and fully annotated model games — each opening with its strategic guidelines, then a set of test positions to solve, followed by the complete games and solutions.
A Journey Through Chess History
The examples are drawn from the players who defended — and thought prophylactically — best:
- The classical mastery of Lasker, the great escape artist of the board
- The iron defence of Korchnoi, perhaps the finest defender of all
- The paradoxical resourcefulness of Tal, dangerous even when under attack
- Modern battles featuring Topalov, Timman, Tiviakov, Yusupov and Sindarov
— alongside Baumegger's own games, annotated from the inside. The range shows how the art of defence has been practised at every level of the game.
How the Course Is Organised
The course follows the Guided Practice method: set up each position, decide on your move and your plan, and only then compare your decision with the solution. Active problem-solving is what turns a guideline into a genuine skill — so the exercises come first, and the annotated games reward you with the full reasoning once you have committed to an answer.
For the Serious Competitor
Prophylactic Thinking: The Best Defence Strategy is designed for ambitious players who want to close the most common gap in their game — the inability to handle the opponent's plans. Whether you are neutralising a slow positional squeeze or fighting for your life under a direct attack, this course delivers the analytical depth and practical guidance that Modern Chess is known for.
Ready to learn how to stop your opponent before they start — one position at a time? This is the guide that shows you how.