Every King's Indian player knows the feeling. Against White's classical setups there is always a plan to reach for — the ...f5 break, the pawn storm, the race on opposite wings. Against the Fianchetto, none of it applies.
White tucks the bishop on g2, keeps the centre closed and elastic, and settles in for a slow positional squeeze. There is no attack to launch and little forcing theory to lean on, so Black is often worn down without ever being clearly worse. King's Indian Defense for Black — Fight the Fianchetto Variation, by GM Baadur Jobava and GM Andrea Stella, is built to close that gap.
Sequence: King's Indian Defense According to Jobava »
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4h 22m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests Computer Practice
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For over a century the Tarrasch has carried a verdict it never earned — that Black concedes an isolated pawn on move four and defends it for the rest of the game; this Platinum repertoire by GM Pier Luigi Basso and IM Dragos Ceres begins from the opposite premise, using the early ...c5 and the thematic ...c4 push to gain space, fix White's structure, and play for the initiative. Built on the modern 5...Nf6 move order across 15 chapters and 100 test positions, it answers every White system after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 — the Fianchetto mainlines, the Bg5 tries, the Symmetrical e3 setups and the sidelines — with the plans behind the moves, not just the moves.
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3h 52m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
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he King's Indian rests on a bargain. Black hands over the centre and the space, pushes ...e5, and after White closes the position with d5, Black receives in exchange the one thing that makes the whole opening worth playing: the kingside attack. The pawn break with f5 and a potential pawn storm, rook lift, and a potentially devastating attack.
The Makogonov System cancels that bargain. After 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.h3, White plays the quietest move on the board — and it turns out to be the first move of the most aggressive plan available. The pawn on h3 takes ...Ng4 and ...Bg4 away, which allows Be3 without harassment, and it prepares g2-g4. The break Black has been counting on since move one now costs far more to arrange, and it is White who takes the kingside first.
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2h 37m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
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For decades, the Italian Game has been an awkward place to be as Black. The quiet maneuvering plans and the many move orders leave plenty of room to drift, and it is easy to end up passively placed with no clear idea. Movahed's answer sidesteps the heavily analyzed main lines that follow 4...Nf6. After 3...Bc5 he meets 4.c3 with the flexible 4...d6, lets White build the center with d4, and only then drops the bishop back to b6 — giving up a pawn to seize the initiative before White can consolidate.
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2h 20m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
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The Ruy Lopez is usually White's kind of fight. After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5, the familiar roads lead to slow, deeply mapped positions where White keeps the tension and sets the pace, while Black spends the middlegame answering questions rather than asking them.
The modest-looking 3...g6 changes that on move three. Black declares the character of the game at once: fianchetto the bishop, aim it down the long diagonal at White's centre, and head for an unbalanced struggle where the full point is a genuine target for both sides. As Pier Luigi Basso frames it in the introduction, this is a way to fight the Spanish and play for a complicated game — not to equalise quietly, but to reach positions with rich play for either side.
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2h 30m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
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When White meets the Slav with 4.e3, the point is not to win a theoretical debate. It is to avoid one. The bishop goes to d3, the tension stays low, and White keeps a small, nagging pull without ever taking a risk — the kind of quiet setup that wears down opponents from the club hall to the elite. Black's difficulty here has never been finding a playable move. It has been finding one that does not slowly drift into a slightly worse, slightly passive game.
This repertoire answers with flexibility rather than memorization. The first decision sets the tone: 4...Bf5, developing the light-squared bishop outside the pawn chain before committing to ...e6. That single move drains much of the venom from White's systems, because the piece the Slav so often has to bury behind ...e6 is already out and working.
Sequence: Malakhov's Slav Defense »
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2h 54m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
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When Black answers the Exchange Queen's Gambit with 5...Bb4, the intention is transparent: steer the game into the Ragozin, one of the most reliable three-results weapons in modern practice. The Carlsbad has anchored White's play here for a century, from club events to World Championship matches, and its pull has never depended on fashion.
What GMs Luca Moroni and Pier Luigi Basso propose is a quiet act of defiance. Instead of the automatic 6.Nf3, they hold the knight on g1 and answer 6.e3! — declining the standard Ragozin move order and handing Black a version of the position he would rather not have. That knight staying home is the whole idea, keeping White flexible and reaching a more comfortable middlegame than the one Black prepared for.
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2h 2m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
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The Queen’s Gambit Accepted has long been regarded as a practical and reliable choice for Black—a way to avoid the heavy theoretical load of the Queen’s Gambit Declined while maintaining solid positions. Baadur Jobava, however, saw something more: a dynamic system capable of fighting for the initiative from the very first moves.
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4h 46m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests Computer Practice
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Preparing against the Grunfeld normally means preparing against several different lines at once. Black's pressure on the white centre can arrive from ...Na5, ...b6, ...Qc7, ...e6, ...Bd7 or ...Bg4, and the standard solution is a separate scheme for each — one more plan to hold in your head at the board.
A Practical Repertoire against the Grunfeld by GM Valery Kazakouski and GM Pier Luigi Basso is built on the opposite principle. After 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Bg7, the authors recommend 7.Bc4, and from there a single aggressive blueprint runs through every line: Ne2, castle, Be3, Rb1, and the f4-f5 pawn storm. Ten chapters, one huge centre, and the same set of ideas in each of them.
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2h 23m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
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Some openings are not refuted so much as inherited as refuted. The Lowenthal is the textbook case. For decades it was called dubious, then written off as refuted outright, and most players believed that and moved on. GM Baadur Jobava's starting point is that nobody went back to check the evidence with modern tools — and that when you do, the picture changes. The engine era, so often the executioner of romantic systems, turns out to be the Lowenthal's best defence attorney.
That is the leitmotif running through all nine chapters, including the famous engine "refutation" with 13.Be2 that keeps most players away from the variation entirely. Jobava's conclusion is stated plainly: Black holds, all the way down to a draw the opponent will never find over the board.
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1h 34m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
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