The Scheveningen has long been one of the soundest ways to play the Sicilian — a modest pawn centre on d6 and e6, no weaknesses, and the resources to strike with ...b5, ...d5 or ...e5 when the moment comes. Its one well-known problem is the Keres Attack after 5...e6 6.g4, and this camp removes it by move order alone: playing 5...a6 first reaches the same structures without ever allowing it. Across seven lectures, GM Ioannis Papaioannou opens with the typical ideas and strategies before any theory, then covers the 6.h3 and 6.Be2 systems in two lectures each, closing with the less common lines White reaches for to leave preparation early.
GM Grigor Grigorov continues the six-month Opening Builder project in October 2026 — Repertoire Builder: French Defense for Black – Fundamental Structures in the Tarrasch Variation. This is the third stage of a journey designed for players who want to build a real, durable repertoire — not a collection of memorized lines. The focus remains on understanding structures, plans and decision-making rather than accumulating theory.
GM Swapnil Dhopade leads the October edition of Tactical Thursday with a pair of themes that address the two ways calculation fails in real games: the conditions you calculate under, and failing to notice there was anything to calculate. Almost every player calculates well in the comfort of home analysis. Unlimited time, no consequences, a board that waits. The skill that decides tournament games is different — and it is rarely trained directly. Calculation under pressure A position is not only a set of pieces. It is also a clock, a tournament situation, and a nervous system. The same player who finds a four-move combination in training will miss it with eight minutes left, or with a draw enough to secure a norm, or immediately after a long think that produced nothing. The calculation itself has not become harder. The conditions have. This half of the camp trains the skill in the circumstances where it actually matters: deciding how much time a position deserves, recognising when a long think has stopped being productive, holding a line accurately when the clock is the loudest thing in the room, and keeping judgment intact when the result matters more than usual.
GM Ioannis Papaioannou opens a new direction in Strategy Wednesday this October — a series that will continue over the coming months, devoted to the one subject that governs every other: how strong players actually decide. Most training material teaches you what to know. Very little of it teaches you what to do with what you know when the clock is running, the position is unclear, and two reasonable moves point in opposite directions. That is the gap this series addresses. Across the months ahead, GM Papaioannou will work through the whole of the decision-making process — static and dynamic factors, calculation, time management, the psychology of the player on the other side of the board, and the practical judgment that ties them together.
GM Grigor Grigorov continues the six-month Opening Builder project in September 2026 — Repertoire Builder: French Defense for Black – Fundamental Structures after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3. This is the second stage of a journey designed for players who want to build a real, durable repertoire — not a collection of memorized lines. The focus remains on understanding structures, plans and decision-making rather than accumulating theory.
GM Swapnil Dhopade leads the September 2026 edition of Tactical Thursday with a paired theme that addresses the two sides of every calculation — Calculation in Attack and Alert Calculations. In this camp, the focus falls on the moment most games are decided: you have found a promising move, the position looks winning, and now you must determine whether it actually is. One half of that task is calculating your own attack accurately. The other is remaining alert to what your opponent can do about it — and the second is where far more points are lost.
GM Ioannis Papaioannou returns in September 2026 with the next stage of the From the Opening to the Endgame sequence — Must-Know Endgames in the Réti Opening.
This camp continues GM Ioannis Papaioannou's "Deep Understanding" series in White repertoire territory. Following his successful projects on the Italian Game, the Spanish Arkhangelsk, the Scotch Game and the Torre Attack, GM Papaioannou now presents a complete system for White after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 c5 4.e3!
Event Course:
Mastering the Isolated Pawn: A Universal System for White – Deep Understanding
We begin with the structure that defines the opening. The Advance Variation produces the archetypal French pawn chain — d4 and e5 against d5 and e6 — and almost every strategic idea in the French can be traced back to it: the ...c5 break against the base of the chain, the pressure on d4 with ...Qb6 and ...Nc6, the fight for the c-file, and the long-standing question of the light-squared bishop.
Event Course:
French Defense for Black: Fundamental Structures after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5
In this camp, the focus shifts to two skills that quietly decide far more games than tactics do: the ability to find the moves worth calculating in the first place, and the ability to see the resulting positions clearly enough to judge them. One is the breadth of your search, the other its clarity — and a failure in either makes the calculation itself worthless.
