Courses (102)

The Petroff has spent decades filed under the wrong heading. Mention it at a club and someone will say "drawn" before the second knight even comes out. Yet it is the opening Caruana, Nepomniachtchi, Aronian and So have trusted in World Championship matches and Candidates Tournaments — the highest-stakes games of their careers, where they needed something they could lean on completely.
That contradiction runs through the whole course. The mirror image after 2...Nf6 looks peaceful, but the modern Petroff is a counterattacking system, not a passive one. GM Baadur Jobava — a player famous for the instinct of chaos and the initiative — makes the case for it openly, and his endorsement carries weight precisely because it is unexpected.

GM Baadur Jobava and GM Andrea Stella continue their King's Indian Defense series for Black with a complete repertoire against the Makogonov 5.h3 — the flexible system Carlsen, Caruana, and Giri reach for when they want to squeeze without overextending. Across 11 chapters, the course offers clear structural plans for every White setup, with several rare lines that take Black off the database by move eight.

When GM Pier Luigi Basso faced Ivana Hrescak at the Porto Rose Open 2019, he was chasing 2600 and needed something new. His main weapon—the Italian Game with 1.e4 e5—had delivered painful results against lower-rated opponents. The solution arrived in the form of: 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 c6, the Caro-Pirc hybrid. That first game became the spark for a complete repertoire.
This opening fuses the ambition of the Pirc with the structural control of the Caro-Kann. You avoid the theoretical weight of both systems while keeping genuine winning chances. The position after 3...c6 offers flexibility without chaos, solidity without passivity—a balance rarely found in modern opening theory.

When Garry Kasparov dominated the chess world with the King's Indian Defense, the Saemisch Variation wasn't just another sideline—it was the system that repeatedly tested his intuition under concrete pressure. White's central clamp with f3 and e4 creates a position where Black cannot simply rely on standard patterns.
With over 100,000 games in the database, 5.f3 stands as the second most popular response to the King's Indian—and one of the most challenging to face. Unlike other King's Indian lines, Black rarely gets the typical kingside attack. The game takes a completely different strategic direction.
This is precisely why GM Baadur Jobava and GM Andrea Stella built their second course around a clear principle: in the Saemisch, Black needs a structured system that transforms White's space advantage from a strength into a static weakness.

You've prepared the Zaitsev. You know the Breyer inside out. Maybe you've even put serious time into the Marshall. All excellent systems — deep, principled, fighting. But here's the uncomfortable truth: your opponent gets to choose. And when they sidestep your main preparation, suddenly you're navigating unfamiliar territory while they're following their homework.

This is the gap that GM Baadur Jobava and GM Rodrigo Vasquez set out to close. Their collaboration began with the Zaitsev System: Complete Repertoire for Black, covering the main theoretical highway. "Arsenal for Black for Classical Spanish Players" handles everything else — the Delayed Exchange, the Worrall, Carlsen's 8.a4, the critical 6.d4 lines, Fedoseev's 8.Bd2, and every other detour White might throw at you after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5.

Named after theoretician Igor Zaitsev, this variation has earned its place among the most resilient and ambitious defenses against 1.e4 — not through temporary fashion, but through decades of practical success at the highest level. GM Baadur Jobava and GM Rodrigo Vasquez have created a complete repertoire course that shows why this system remains a trusted weapon for elite players who refuse to settle for draws.

The King's Indian has always been a fighting choice — Black accepts a space deficit and bets on the counterattack. Most repertoires in this opening follow that logic from move one. This one reorders the priorities.
The main weapon of this course is 5...Bg4!? after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 — the tenth most popular reply at this point, guaranteeing practical surprise value even at the highest levels.
The idea is precise: Black pins the knight, delays castling, and after 6.Be2 Bxf3 7.Bxf3 e5 8.d5 plays 8...h5!? — keeping the rook on h8 to support ...Bh6. The target is the dark-squared bishop exchange, leaving White with a passive piece on f3 and Black with a structural concept that is easy to understand and difficult to neutralize.

There is a moment, somewhere around move nine, when the Botvinnik System stops resembling chess as you know it. Pawns scatter, knights leap into chaos, and the board transforms into what Baadur Jobava himself calls a labyrinth — a position that "follows its own laws, its own rhythm." It was Mikhail Botvinnik who gave this variation its character in the mid-twentieth century, and decades later the theory remains alive, contested, and genuinely unsettled at the highest levels. That vitality is precisely what attracted two of the game's most creative minds to build a complete Black repertoire around it.

After dismantling Black's ambitious setups in Part 1, GM Baadur Jobava and GM Pier Luigi Basso return with the second volume of their Strategic 1.Nf3 System, focusing on the resilient ...e6 systems. This is where theory meets practice at its finest. While Part 1 addressed direct confrontation, Part 2 tackles the positions where Black opts for solid development, aiming to neutralize White's ambitions through careful piece placement and structural integrity. The course demonstrates how to maintain the initiative even when facing Black's most respectable defenses, transforming seemingly equal positions into long-term strategic advantages.

The Nimzo-Indian Defense has shaped positional chess for a century. Black pins the knight, controls the center, and fights for long-term compensation. But what if White could play a Nimzo-Indian structure with an extra tempo and without the structural concessions? GM Baadur Jobava and GM Pier Luigi Basso answer this question with their Strategic 1.Nf3 System, a flexible repertoire where 2.e3 and the subsequent Bb5 pin creates a reversed Nimzo-Indian with White holding all the cards.