This is the last part of my Queen’s Gambit Defence repertoire series that I published for the Chessable learning site. To remind you, the first part analysed the main lines of the Queen’s Gambit Declined; the second part took care of all the alternatives after 1 d4 d5, like the London System, the Catalan etc. And now, the third part covers all the other first moves except 1 e4.

An important novelty this time is that in addition to the study material I also recorded videos in order to explain the main ideas of every line. These should serve as an overview of the material and I hope you find them useful.

As a general rule, and to make things easier to learn, I always tried to recommend the usual Queen’s Gambit Declined development of …d5, …e6, …Nf6, …Be7, …0-0 followed by …b6 and …Bb7, solving the problem of the light-squared bishop. This applies equally to the Reti, the Nimzo-Larsen Attack (1 b3) and the Bird Opening (1 f4). One of the main points of this development is that it practically eliminates the need to study the English Opening (1 c4) because after 1 c4 e6 the game will transpose to the other, already studied, lines: the Reti, the Queen’s Gambit proper, or a harmless variation of the Exchange French (which I also analyse).

I was careful and aware of the various move-orders, in order to avoid being tricked into a line that hasn’t been analysed previously. This mostly applies for the Reti move-orders when White can try to tranpose to a Catalan. These have been covered neatly.

The proposed line against the King’s Indian Attack is perhaps the one I like the best. Apart from it being theoretically sound, its main advantage is that it completely changes the character of the game and White can forget about the attack and the automatic setup of e4-e5, Re1, Nbd2-f1, h4, Bf4, Nh2-g4 etc.

I covered pretty much all the sensible tries for White – all the moves and systems that don’t have a name plus the reversed Dutch (Classical, Leningrad and Stonewall), the reversed Philidor, the Sokolsky and the infamous Grob, which even got a main line status (and is probably refuted).

In the lines suggested there are many transpositions to my previous books, mostly to the Catalan, but also to the QGD lines. Needless to say, the books were designed to complement each other.

Apart from showing my own preparation, this time I also developed some lines that looked promising and easy to implement. The general idea to sticking to the QGD development should make things much easier to remember.

This book rounds-up my QGD repertoire series. Now you have a complete repertoire for Black against everything except 1 e4. I hope it serves you well, gets you good positions and brings you many points!

A Grandmaster Guide: The Reti, King’s Indian Attack, and Others, Based on the QGD