Courses (71)

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.

The Slav Defense has long held a unique status among Black's responses to 1.d4—a reputation for solidity without passivity, resilience without concession. While other defenses against the Queen's Gambit force Black into early structural commitments or passive piece placement, the Slav allows natural development and maintains central tension. GM Mahammad Muradli's Slav Defense — Full Repertoire for Black delivers a complete, practical repertoire centered on the Classical Slav with 4...dxc4, designed for players who value long-term reliability over short-term fashion.

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.

The Queen's Indian Defense has long been chess's quiet answer to 1.d4 — a hypermodern system where Black controls the center from a distance rather than occupying it directly. Yet for decades, players seeking active counterplay gravitated toward sharper systems like the King's Indian, treating the Queen's Indian as a fallback option. GM Mitrabha Guha challenges that assumption head-on. In his debut Modern Chess course, the Indian grandmaster presents the Queen's Indian not as a drawing weapon, but as one of the rare Black openings where you can genuinely play for the win against 1.d4. His repertoire is built around 4...Bb7 rather than the more forcing 4...Ba6, emphasizing deep positional understanding over memorization — a choice that makes the opening both more resilient and more instructive.

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.

When Bobby Fischer called the Paulsen "one of Black's soundest defenses," he was acknowledging something fundamental: flexibility without predictability. Half a century later, GM Harshit Raja's new course revives this principle for the modern game. Where the Najdorf forces immediate concrete knowledge and the Dragon demands theoretical precision move by move, the Paulsen offers something rarer — strategic maneuverability combined with genuine winning chances. Harshit's repertoire is built around 5...a6, a move order that delays ...Qc7 and preserves Black's options across multiple pawn structures.

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.

For decades, the Dragon existed in uncertain territory—too dangerous to die, too sharp to be trusted. Bobby Fischer declared it lost. Yet there were always believers, grandmasters who saw something the verdict missed. Now, with modern chess engines rewriting opening theory, those believers are proven right. GM Sina Movahed's new course presents the Dragon not as a rehabilitation project but as a fully operational weapon for Black, armed with the dynamic resources modern engines have finally revealed.

The French Defense carries two reputations: a fortress for players seeking solidity, and a labyrinth of forced draws in the most explored lines. GM Szymon Gumularz and GM Pier Luigi Basso challenge that second notion directly. If you play the French for fighting chess — not memorization contests ending in perpetual checks — then 7...Rb8 after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 c5 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.Be3 offers exactly that. With fewer than 500 games in the database and regular employment by Matthias Bluebaum, this system delivers fresh positions where preparation depth matters less than understanding.

When GM Pouya Idani sought a reliable weapon to complement his Najdorf repertoire, he turned not to the main-line Caro-Kann systems burdened by heavy theory, but to the dynamic 3...c5 against the Advance Variation. His reasoning was clear: less memorisation, more fighting chess, and practical winning chances without drowning in preparation.