The French Advance
While looking for a sharp system against the French, I recently decided to take a gander at the latest developments in Advance Variation. When studying a new opening it does make a lot of sense to follow in the footsteps of the leading experts. Inspired by a convincing win by Shirov against Lomasov in the Nutcracker tournament last week, I was eager trying this system for the first time in my life and was very fortunate to reach a familiar position in a game in the Dutch League only two days later. Despite some mutual errors I managed to win in quite a spectacular way.
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The Philidor structure (White pawns on d4 and e4, Black pawns on d6 and e5), is a fundamental position in the open games. In his new training course, IM Sam Collins shows you just how much explosive power is packed into this apparently simple structure.
Exercise: Try to calculate the consequences of both 22...♛xe2 and 22...♝c6.
Move the pieces on the live diagram — solution below!
This week's show
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When choosing an opening repertoire, there are days when you want to play for a win with Black, when you want to bear down on your opponent’s position with a potentially crushing attack. The Najdorf is perfect for just such occasions. Strategy, combinations, attack and defence, sacrifices and marvellous manoeuvres — exciting chess is all about the Najdorf!
Robert is live every other Thursday at 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET / 13:00 EST)
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Special attention will be paid to Intermediate Moves, Quiet Moves, Sacrifices on Empty Squares, Mating Patterns, Ignoring Opponents Threat, Calculation in Defence and Method of Comparison. Plus 50 interactive examples to test your knowledge.

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Solution to today's problem
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e5 7.Nb3 Be6 8.f3 h5 9.Qd2 Nbd7 10.Nd5 Bxd5 11.exd5 g6 12.0-0-0 Nb6 13.Kb1 Nfxd5 14.Bf2 Be7 15.Qa5 Bg5 16.Rxd5 Nxd5 17.Qxd5 Qc7 18.h4 Bf6 19.Bd3 Rd8 20.Rd1 Rd7 21.Be4 Ke7 22.Na5 Rb8 23.g4 hxg4 24.fxg4 Kf8 25.g5 Be7 26.Rf1 Bd8 27.Nc4 Kg7 28.Ba7 Ra8 29.Bb6 Qc8 30.Nxd6 1–0
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Ris,R | 2457 | De Boer,E | 2291 | 1–0 | 2020 | B90 | Dutch League 2019-20 | 5.6 |
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