Courses (261)

GM Vladimir Malakhov and GM Pier Luigi Basso present the fourth volume of Malakhov's Structures series — a complete strategic study of the Exchange Slav pawn structure from Capablanca's era to today. Across model games, typical endgames, and Basso's own practical experience, the course reveals how minimal asymmetries in this deceptively symmetrical structure become decisive at every level of play.

The Petroff Defense has become the ultimate drawing weapon at the elite level. Carlsen, Caruana, Nepomniachtchi, Giri—all deploy it as their primary answer to 1.e4, steering opponents into symmetrical endgames where White's advantage evaporates by move 15. For ambitious 1.e4 players, facing the Petroff has felt like walking into a theoretical wall: sound preparation meets sound defense, and the result is predictable balance.
GM Jose Martinez Alcantara and GM Pier Luigi Basso offer a different approach. Their new course, Fight the Petroff Defense - White Repertoire, builds an aggressive, concrete system based on 5.d4 followed by 6.Bd3—the classical development that keeps the center open and maintains practical tension. Rather than aiming for marginal edges in lifeless structures, this repertoire targets specific imbalances in each of Black's setups. The key move 8.Nbd2 forces Black into immediate concrete decisions, and every resulting position comes with a clear plan.

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.

Twenty years of practical refinement, now brought to completion. GM Vladimir Malakhov, one of the world's foremost Chebanenko experts, returns to finish what Part 1 began.
Where the first volume covered White's most critical tries—5.c5, 5.e3, and 5.g3—this second part closes every remaining door. The anti-Chebanenko systems, the sidelines, the move-order tricks that strong players use to avoid main theory: all of them are met with concrete solutions.
This is not supplementary material; this is the completion of a professional repertoire that has weathered decades of grandmaster practice.

GM Pier Luigi Basso has played the Slav with Black his entire career. He knows which White systems create genuine discomfort for a prepared Slav player—and which ones a Black player secretly welcomes. This course was shaped by that experience from the other side of the board.
The lines presented here are the ones Basso never enjoyed facing: the most venomous, practical systems against the Slav. This is what distinguishes the repertoire—it's not theoretical completeness for its own sake, but a curated selection of the positions that make strong Slav players uncomfortable.

For decades, the great unsolved question of 1. For decades, the great unsolved question of 1.d4 d5 has been everything that isn't 2.c4. Dreev and Basso solve it through a unified Black system built on principle rather than memorization, anchored by a revolutionary new idea against the London. The third volume completing the authors' QGD series — and the final piece of a comprehensive repertoire against every first move White can choose.

For decades, the French Defense has demanded a complete answer to White's alternatives. Players comfortable against the Advance, Tarrasch, or Steinitz often find themselves unprepared when White sidesteps theory with 2.d3, 2.Qe2, or the deceptively simple Exchange Variation. GM Szymon Gumularz and GM Pier Luigi Basso now complete their French Defense series by tackling precisely these gaps—offering a unified repertoire against every system White can throw at you after 1.e4 e6.

The Slav Defense with 4...Bf5 has always been Black's most principled attempt to solve the opening's central problem: developing the light-squared bishop before closing the position with ...e6. It's theoretically sound, strategically ambitious, and demands precise understanding rather than pure memorization.
In this second volume of their Positional Slav for White repertoire project, GM Alexey Dreev and GM Pier Luigi Basso present a classical yet deeply modern approach built around the flexible 7.Be2 — delaying Nxg6 until White can dictate the most favorable moment for the exchange. But what sets this course apart is its format: most chapters are structured as analytical conversations between the two authors, exploring not just what to play, but how to think in these middlegames.

Viktor Korchnoi didn't play the French Defense — he fought with it. While Rubinstein gave the opening its strategic foundations and Petrosian refined it into a tool of prophylactic perfection, Korchnoi transformed the French into something entirely different: a weapon of uncompromising combativeness. This third volume in GM Pier Luigi Basso's Understand the French Defense series presents the opening through the eyes of one of history's most resilient fighters, revealing how "ugly" positions and concrete energy can overcome even the most objectively balanced evaluations.

When GM Daniil Dubov unveiled his ...h5 Dragon setup at the elite level, many thought the Yugoslav Attack needed renovation. When Magnus Carlsen started mixing Dragon structures with Najdorf timing via the Dragdorf, others wondered if White's classical approach still held water. The authors of this course — GM Jose Martinez Alcantara, IM Dragos Ceres, and GM Pier Luigi Basso — came to a different conclusion: the Yugoslav Attack doesn't need to be abandoned. It needs to be rebuilt with precision tools that account for every modern deviation Black has invented over the past decade.