Most openings ask White to commit the d-pawn early and then defend the theory that follows. The Reti is built on the opposite instinct. After 1.Nf3 and 2.c4, White leaves the center fluid, holds d4 in reserve, and lets Black declare his plan first. In The Reti According to Abasov – Part 2, GM Nijat Abasov builds a repertoire around 1...Nf6 — the move Black uses to keep his options open, ready to steer toward a King's Indian, a Grünfeld, a Queen's Indian, or a symmetrical English. Abasov's reply is to keep his own hand hidden just as long, and to answer each of those tries on his own terms.
Where Part 1 handled 1...d5, Part 2 answers 1...Nf6, and Abasov makes a deliberate choice here: not one universal system, but a reply shaped to each of Black's setups. In his own words, he wanted "a different approach to be more flexible." Against the Queen's Indian setup he declines the routine d4 structures for something sharper; against the symmetrical English he sidesteps the forcing 3.d4 and 3.Nc3, playing 3.g3 to press with his extra tempo; against the Grünfeld he keeps an Anti-Grünfeld type-of-position with d4 still unplayed. The effect is to keep Black in positions he meets far less often than the heavily analyzed main lines.
Sequence: Reti for White According to Abasov »
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When Richard Réti stopped occupying the center with pawns and chose instead to press on it from a distance, he was doing more than introducing a move order. He was refusing to play the game on his opponent's terms. A century later, that same instinct is what draws GM Nijat Abasov to the opening that still carries Réti's name.
Abasov is candid about why he plays it. In today's most worked main lines, entire systems and even gambits have been analyzed to a dead draw, and the player with White is too often the one walking into the latest prepared novelty. The Reti steps off that treadmill. Rather than matching memory against memory, White keeps the center fluid, lets Black declare first, and shapes the character of the game from the opening moves.
Sequence: Reti for White According to Abasov »
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3h 33m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
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