Robert Ris' Fast and Furious: A spectacular win in the Ragozin

by Robert Ris
7/22/2025 – In his new Fast & Furious show, Robert Ris looks at the spectacular game Kazakouski-Volokitin from the Portuguese Team Championship. In a sharp and theoretically interesting line of the Ragozin, Black won in style and surprisingly quickly. | Fast & Furious is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.
This video course offers you a complete, clear repertoire for Black against the moves 1.Nf3 and 1.c4. The recommended variations are easy to learn and not difficult to remember, but also pose White serious challenges.

In a trendy variation of the Ragozin Defence, (5.Qa4 & 7.Qc2) White invested quite a number of moves to gain the advantage of the bishop pair. He had to pay a high price for it, though, by neglecting his own development.

A fascinating clash between bishop pair vs. piece activity is what followed. The evaluation depends very often on just a single tempo.

In the game the Ukrainian GM played very precisely and didn't allow his opponent's to leave the centre. On move 16 White was already lost and Black converted smoothly.

Exercise: What is Black's key idea here?

Feel free to move the pieces on the live diagram!

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Robert is an International Master who mostly spends his time training and coaching talented youngsters. On the PlayChess server The Fast and the Furious is a popular show where he explains sharp opening lines for a wider audience. He is also a well-known ChessBase author who produced numerous DVDs and regularly contributes to ChessBase Magazine as well. Since 2015 he is the organizer of the Dutch Rapid Championships in his home town Amstelveen. He has started a YouTube channel with chess analysis as well.

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