There is a kind of move a Slav player learns to dread — 4.g3, 4.Qc2, 4.Qb3, 4.Nbd2 — whose whole purpose is to avoid a theoretical debate rather than win one. White keeps the tension low, sidesteps the heavy theory, and hopes a small pull quietly does the work.
These systems are popular because they are easy for White and awkward for Black to meet without drifting into a slightly worse, passive game. This course takes them seriously, treating each as a battleground that deserves a concrete answer — and giving Black two of them.
Sequence: Malakhov's Slav Defense »
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5h 3m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
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Ask a Catalan player where Black's difficulties really begin, and the answer is almost always the same: the light-squared bishop on c8. For decades it has been Black's problem, restricted behind its own pawns while White's fianchettoed counterpart controls the long diagonal unopposed. Fighting the Catalan: A Complete Repertoire for Black – Part 1, by GM Michael Roiz and GM Petar Arnaudov, is built around a single unifying idea — in every critical line, that bishop is given a purpose.
Sequence: Roiz versus the Catalan »
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1h 13m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
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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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Aron Nimzowitsch built a whole way of playing on one unsettling idea: invite your opponent to advance, then turn that advance into a weakness. The Sicilian line that carries his name follows exactly this logic. After 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nf6, Black provokes 3.e5 and then goes to work against it with ...e6 and ...d6.
In The Underrated Nimzowitsch Sicilian - Complete Repertoire for Black, GM Alexey Dreev presents this as one of the most underestimated answers to 1.e4 — a line he calls a personal favorite. He has trusted it in his own games against Caruana and Matlakov, and the course is written in his first-person voice, with GM Pier Luigi Basso as co-author.
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2h 50m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
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Few openings carry a pedigree quite like this one. The Evans Gambit was conceived in 1827 by William Davies Evans, a Welsh sea captain, and every attacking generation since has reached back for it — Morphy and Chigorin in the romantic era, and later Kasparov, who reintroduced it at the highest level against Anand in 1995. It is one of those ideas that never truly retires; each generation rediscovers its bite and adds something of its own.
That is exactly what GM Baadur Jobava and GM Pier Luigi Basso do here. The gambit's logic is unchanged since 1827: after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4, White hands over a pawn to gain time on the bishop, build a broad centre with c3 and d4, and open lines straight toward f7. What is new is the modern, engine-tested precision the authors bring to it — including a fresh queenside idea in the main line that gives the whole system a second life.
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1h 51m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
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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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For most of the Steinitz's history, 5.f4 was the main move. It was where White claimed the most space, and where every French player braced for the main fight. That has quietly changed. Modern theory has worked the 5.f4 lines out so concretely that White struggles to prove anything real — and a second front has opened at 5.Nce2, the positional try where understanding matters more than memory. Part 1 of GM Andrea Stella's Steinitz answers both, and treats them as two different problems needing two different kinds of preparation.
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7h 27m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
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The Catalan built its reputation on a paradox. White frequently lets the c4-pawn go, trusting the fianchettoed bishop and a lead in development to pay it back with interest, and much of the opening's venom lives in that slow, pressure-filled squeeze. In his new course, GM Mahammad Muradli hands that logic straight back across the board.
With 4...c5, Black refuses to sit and be pressed. After 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.g3 c5, the move undermines White's center and creates tension, so that Black is never left absorbing the free, unopposed pressure the Catalan thrives on. And in the critical 5.cxd5 cxd4, it is Black who lets the material question wait — the plan, in Muradli's words, is to prioritize development over material.
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2h 34m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
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The Réti is an opening of restraint. Rather than plant a pawn on the fourth rank, White fianchettoes the bishop, holds back d4, and pressures the center from a distance — hoping Black commits too early. Against that patience, genuine counterplay is hard to come by, and most of Black's ambitious tries invite exactly the kind of positional squeeze the setup is built to produce.
In The Dynamic Anti-Réti: 2...c5, GM Mahammad Muradli turns that philosophy around. After 1.Nf3 d5 2.g3, Black plays 2...c5, claiming space and taking control over the d4-square. Then comes the move that gives the repertoire its identity: 3.Bg2 f6!?, preparing ...e5 and a broad classical center before a single piece has left the back rank.
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2h 46m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
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This course presents a practical Ruy Lopez repertoire based on the Modern Archangel variation (4...Bc5), as employed by GM Praggnanandhaa. Offering a sound alternative to the theory-heavy Berlin and Marshall lines, the system follows a clear strategic blueprint: bishop to a7, knight via e7 to g6, and the thematic ...Bb4+ check to disrupt White's center. GM Sina Movahed covers all critical responses, providing a double-edged yet reliable repertoire where understanding plans and typical maneuvers matters far more than memorizing endless variations.
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1h 53m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
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