Game of the Week #383
The theme of this week is Beating the Caro-Kann. While the Advance Variation is an interesting, but complex fighting weapon, the Two Knights Variation is going through a renaissance recently. This has to do with a key concept that has been discovered a few years ago, but only now is fully appreciated. A few days ago Bacrot convincingly beat Iturrizaga with it.
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Warm-up question: How would you recapture the pawn here with White?
The solution will be revealed tonight!
This week's show
The Caro Kann is a very tricky opening. Black’s play is based on controlling and fighting for key light squares. It is a line which was very fashionable in late 90s and early 2000s due to the successes of greats like Karpov, Anand, Dreev etc. Recently due to strong engines lot of key developments have been made and some new lines have been introduced, while others have been refuted altogether. I have analyzed the new trends carefully and found some new ideas for Black.
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Over 1,100 special theoretical databases, 180 new opening surveys, a large number revised — in total 6,680 surveys — and over 38,000 illustrative games.
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