On The Way To The QGD – A Video Course
The third and final part of my repertoire based on the QGD is out and this concludes the whole series. This means that now there is a video course to complement the analysis for “everything except 1 e4.”
This part is divided in 4 chapters, The London System, the Trompowsky, The Rest and the Catalan. Theoretically speaking the London and the Catalan are the most important ones; the Tromp without a knight on f6 (1 d4 d5 2 Bg5) isn’t very threatening, while The Rest deals with obviously the rest plus the innovations of some of the world’s most original players Jobava and Rapport (mainly 1 d4 d5 2 Nc3 Nf6 3 Bf4).
The London System and the Catalan are among the most popular openings today, so it is crucial to be well-prepared against them. Even though the book was published last year, I re-checked everything and I can confirm that I am still perfectly happy with my proposed lines.
As theory doesn’t stand still I also made sure to provide updates where it was required. These were added to the analysis and also feature on the video.
The main update concerns the Catalan, as the line suggested in the repertoire (4…dc 5 Bg2 Bd7) has become one of the most popular choices against it. Last year at the FIDE World Cup in Tbilisi Maxim Rodshtein introduced the very strong novelty 10 Qc2 in the main line. He obtained very promising positions in his match against Hovhannisyan and even won the match thanks to that novelty. Since Black was suffering there I had to find an antidote and hopefully I managed to do so.
Recording the video was again a process that gave me both pleasure and anxiety. There is something about being in front of a camera and while I cannot call my videos “a performance” there is something of a thrill in the fact that quite a lot of people will be watching you. That same fact gave me also a lot of anxiety, a result of my desire to provide the best quality for the audience. In fact I would appreciate some feedback on it, so thanks for your time if you decide to give one.
