Courses (11)

With 3.d4, the Steinitz Variation, White opens the centre at once. The promise behind the move is easy to understand. The position opens before Black has finished development, and White hopes the open lines will favour the side that moves first. The Modern Petroff: A Complete Repertoire for Black – Part 2, by GM Michael Roiz and GM Petar Arnaudov, turns that promise around. After 3...Nxe4, Black's pieces come out quickly. In many lines Black is ready to give up a pawn in return for activity and pressure on White's centre.

For decades the Petroff Defence has carried a reputation it never quite deserved. Its solidity at the very top earned it a place in world championship preparation, but the same solidity left it labelled as a drawing weapon, an opening Black chooses in order to hold rather than to play for more. The Modern Petroff: A Complete Repertoire for Black – Part 1, by GM Michael Roiz and GM Petar Arnaudov, starts from a different premise. Reliable does not have to mean passive.

The Petroff Defence built its reputation on solidity. Black answers 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 with 2...Nf6, invites the symmetry, and heads for the well-charted lines where the pieces come off and the game settles toward a quiet, reliable draw. It is the opening you reach for when you want certainty against 1.e4. GM Mitrabha Guha's repertoire is built to take that certainty away. After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6, the routine move is 4.Nf3, stepping back into theory a Petroff specialist knows well. Guha goes the other way with 4.Nd3. The knight retreats to an unusual square, keeps every piece on the board, and declines the simplifying trades the whole opening is designed to reach. What Black came for was a theoretical duel down familiar paths; what Black gets is a fresh middlegame with the character still undecided.

Ask a Petroff player where they actually lose games, and the answer is rarely the heavily studied main line. It is the 3.d4 they never looked at, the quiet knight retreat that turns into a slow squeeze, the offbeat third move that drags them somewhere unfamiliar before the position even settles. Those losses come from the lines filed under "sidelines" — which is precisely the word this volume sets out to retire. Part 2 completes the repertoire begun in Part 1. Where the first volume settled the absolute main line with 3.Nxe5, this one covers every other White attempt after 2.Nf3 Nf6 — and the largest of them is anything but a sideline.

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.

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.

For decades, the Petroff Defense has stood as one of Black's most reliable responses to 1.e4, a fortress of solid theory that has frustrated ambitious White players at every level. When elite defenders like Peter Leko, Fabiano Caruana, and Ian Nepomniachtchi need a draw, they reach for 2...Nf6. The question has persisted: after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6, how can White meaningfully fight for an advantage? While 2...Nc6 offers White the rich landscapes of the Ruy Lopez, Italian Game, and the Scotch Opening, the Petroff has long been considered a different challenge—one where many traditional approaches have been thoroughly neutralized by decades of defensive refinement.

More good news for 1.e4 e5 aficionados! After his groundbreaking, Play the Marshall - Top-Level Repertoire for Black, GM Ivan Cheparinov provides another, no less principled solution to 1.e4 by sharing his analysis of the notoriously solid Petroff Defence 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6. Make no mistake – the Petroff is a solid and theoretically sound opening. However, the author manages time and again to spice things up by going for fresh, uncompromising lines whenever possible!

Baadur Jobava and Pier Luigi Basso keep building their 1.e4 repertoire. This time, they focus on three very important openings - Petroff Defence, French Defence, and Caro-Kann Defence. Just like the previous databases, this course will provide you with original, practical, and not well-investigated lines. Armed with all the fresh concepts and interesting novelties, you will definitely pose huge practical problems to your opponent.

IM Marcin Sieciechowicz is here with his latest 10-hour-long exclusive training, Petroff Defense for Black, that not only shows the EXCITING side of the opening (with illustrative games)... but also covers rare lines that your opponents never saw before - more power to you as Black.