Attack like a Super Grandmaster
In this Fritztrainer: “Attack like a Super GM†with Gukesh we touch upon all aspects of his play, with special emphasis on how you can become a better attacking player.
The Catalan is a beautiful and rich opening with many possible strategies and ideas for White, but the same goes for Black! A recent trend for Black in the 4...Bb4+ variation is to push a5-a4 early on to gain space on the queenside. What follows is even more ambitious.
We will study the game Xu Zhihang vs. Wei Yi from the Chinese league, in which all the ideas of the variation were nicely executed by Black.
White also fought very hard, which made it a real game of the week.
Warm-up question: What would you play here with Black?
In this opening Black opts for active piece play and is not afraid to fight for the initiative from an early stage. One of the many good features of this opening is that Black is often the side which controls the pace of the game.
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