Winning starts with what you know
The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.
You may have heard of the Modern Scotch Opening. The Scotch has its genesis in the swashbuckling games of the old masters. A simple Google search will reveal you that this opening was first played in a correspondence match between Edinburgh and London, back in in 1824 (!). If all the king pawn openings were characters and made to stand in a line, Scotch is like the youngest kid of the lot, with big brother Ruy Lopez standing tall.
Even the Giuoco Piano is more popular than this aggressive opening, which in recent times has evolved into an alternative to the Spanish. Most top players avoided playing the Scotch because they thought that it is extremely attacking but has shaky positional foundations.
Not 3.Bb5, not 3.Bc4, but 3.d4! The Modern Scotch
GM Parimarjan Negi is known for being the second-youngest grandmaster in chess history, sandwiched between the 2016 world-title contenders Sergey Karjakin and Magnus Carlsen. He was on the fast-track to become an elite grandmaster before he found other interesting things to do in life. He is currently studying in Stanford, but you must pay attention when he speaks about chess. What does he think about this opening?
Negi: Although it has some tricky, fun moves with early exchanges of pieces, the king pulled to the centre, and an unusual, unique structure, the Scotch actually offers White a sound positional basis around which to build up the game, while Black is left without many alternatives. It might suit particularly players who do not like symmetry lines like the Petroff, for example.
Maybe, this is why you should play the Scotch? Following up on the advice of his long-term trainer, Nigel Short, Negi discovered that studying ‘the Scotch’ offers a better understanding of more general facets of modern chess theory.
The Scotch was an opening for the romantics. It was a popular choice of hackers who liked attacking and destroying clueless opponents. Then, with the advent of the positional chess school, the opening almost died. Kasparov came to its rescue and brought it into prominence by defeating Karpov in the Game 16 of the 1990 World Championship Match.
The opening saw a resurgence when Magnus Carlsen took it up to defeat Etienne Bacrot at the Nanjing tournament in 2010. Then, in the 2012 Tal Memorial, Teimour Radjabov used the Modern Scotch to defeat Evgeny Tomashevsky. And that is the crux of our article...
GM Evgeny Tomashevsky (2731) of Russia [Photo: Eteri Kublashvili]
Circa 2012, in the first round of the Tal Memorial, Tomashevsky was starting with the black pieces against Teimour Radjabov. The Azerbaijani chose to open with the Modern Scotch.
Ian Nepomniachtchi (right, with Sergei Shipov) decided to copy Radjabov! [Photo: Eteri Kublashvili]
Who would have thought that history could repeat itself? This time, it was the first round of the 2016 Tal Memorial. Tomashevsky lost again to the Modern Scotch, this time against GM Ian Nepomniachtchi!
The Modern Scotch Opening
|
|
Negi presents not only the white strategies in detail but also outlines a dynamic way for Black to counter this latest trend.
If you want a strong opening to play against 1.e5 e5, then this DVD is undoubtedly for you. It will avoid the well-known theoretical lines of the Ruy Lopez and the Giuoco Piano. More importantly, you will get an opening where you are better prepared than your opponent!
Check out the ChessBase India website at www.chessbase.in – a responsive news page that runs on notebooks, tablets, smartphones, practically everything. You can also visit and "like" the ChessBase India Facebook page or Twitter account
