QGD Repertoire for Black

By Alex Colovic on Nov 23,2016
Openings

Some time ago I wrote about the new chess website Chessable, which is dedicated to teaching chess openings to improving players based on the power of repetition. These openings are prepared by strong players, often Grandmasters, and I also had a small part when I prepared a ready-to-go and very simple repertiore for black based on the Scandinavian Defence.

My second project with Chessable was a much more serious one. I took upon one of the most established defences for black, the “opening of the World Championship matches” (Kasparov), the Queen’s Gambit Declined.

The Queen’s Gambit has never been in a better shape. Ever since it served Kasparov perfectly in his matches with Karpov (it was his main line of defence in the first two matches, the unlimited match in 1984/85 and the match when he won the title in 1985) the opening has constantly been popular and the white players have the neverending quest how to pose even the slightest problems. To make things worse for white, black has developed more than one satisfactory line against all the main lines!

The repertiore is divided in 4 parts: The Exchange Variation and some minor lines (black’s suggested move order is 3…Be7, so there will be no typical suffering after Botvinnik’s plan with Nge2 as in the usual Exchange when black has played 3…Nf6), The Main Line with 5 Bg5 (black has several good options here – I chose the Kramnik’s latest favourite with 7…Nbd7 after witnessing how effortlessly he solved all his problems game after game), The Main Line with 5 Bf4 (this has been white’s main try in the last several years and from the three main options black has – 6…Nbd7, 6…c5 and 6…b6, I chose the most dynamic old main line with 6…c5, mostly because of Nakamura’s latest discovery in the famous line from Korchnoi-Karpov, Baguio m/21 1978, until now thought to be good for white) and Various 5^thmoves for white (these cover 5 g3, 5 Qc2 and 5 e3).

The real quality of this repertoire lies in the fact that I actually used my own preparation and analysis to create it. It is a no-holds-barred revelation of my preparation, something I have never done before, and especially not with an opening I still actively use. My only hope now is that the people who take upon this repertoire will not be the people I will get to meet across the board!

If you would like to take a look at this repertoire and use the Chessable way to learn it, I promise you will have a world-class opening prepared at a GM level. With these two ingredients, you will have a reliable opening for life.

A Grandmaster’s Guide To The Queen’s Gambit For Black.