GM Pier Luigi Basso presents a complete Black repertoire in the Scandinavian Defence with 3...Qa5 — the most active and ambitious queen retreat, supported by ...Nc6 and ...O-O-O. Across 14 chapters built on cutting-edge correspondence practice and 2024-2025 novelties, the course turns one of the most structurally certain Black openings into a practical scoring weapon.
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2h and 23min PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests Computer Practice Video Content
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When GM Valery Kazakouski and GM Pier Luigi Basso sat down to prepare a repertoire against 1.Nf3 d5 2.g3, they didn't reach for the well-trodden paths. Instead of guiding Black through the analyzed-to-death 2...Nf6 or 2...Bf5 systems, they chose a different route entirely: 2...Nd7.
The move looks counterintuitive at first glance—the knight blocks the c8-bishop and stands on the queen's line. But the logic is concrete. Black prepares ...e5 immediately, and after 3.d4, the knight moves to the ideal b6-square, where it defends d5 and frees the bishop to develop to f5 without tactical concerns.
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2h and 8min PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests Video Content
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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.
Sequence: Malakhov's Slav Defense »
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6h and 40min PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests Video Content
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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.
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3h and 27min PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests Computer Practice Video Content
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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.
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3h and 31min PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests Computer Practice Video Content
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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.
Sequence: Malakhov's Slav Defense »
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2h and 35min PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests Video Content
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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.
Sequence: KIA According to Stella »
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3h and 49min PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests Computer Practice Video Content
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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.
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4h and 37min PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests Computer Practice Video Content
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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.
Sequence: French Defense According to Gumularz »
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4h and 28min PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests Computer Practice Video Content
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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.
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4h and 25min PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests Computer Practice Video Content
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