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Attack with the Catalan!

Attack with the Catalan!

CHESScom
| 8 | Opening Theory

The Catalan is one of the most popular openings at the Grandmaster level and can be a fearsome weapon in the hands of club players as well! Follow along as Grandmaster Georg Meier, one of the world's leading Catalan experts demonstrates how to win with his favorite opening!

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Keeping The Pawn In The Catalan: One of the most frequent winners of the Titled Tuesday tournaments makes his Chess.com video lesson debut. GM Georg Meier shows you why and how to play the popular Open Catalan system by introducing you to the key ideas and plans in the opening.

Quick Queenside Expansion vs The Catalan:  GM Georg Meier returns with another in-depth look at the Catalan opening and the dominant ideas for both White and Black. Learn how quickly taking queenside space can be the determining factor of which side emerges from this opening with a worthwhile advantage.

Active Queenside Play In The Catalan: In this video GM Meier he shows you how to meet Black's attempt to hang on to the pawn with ...Nc6. He'll show you some instructive positional maneuvers with the knight which will allow you to put maximum pressure on your opponent.

Black's Knightmare In The Catalan: GM Georg Meier's masterful series on the Catalan continues as he shows how Black can easily fall prey to positional disaster as White's knights leap to incredible outposts. These lines are quite popular so learn them now before Black is scared away!

The Closed Catalan: See how GM Meier built up a dominant position and won a surprisingly easy game against the popular, Closed Variation.

The Modern Main Line: How do top GM's often try to diffuse the Catalan? Watch how top players like World Champion Kramnik and World Title Candidate Caruana broke down this defensive try.

A Master Class With Levon Aronian GM Georg Meier walks you through the most popular defense against the Catalan among top players. Meier shows you how one of the world's best, Levon Aronian, kept control of the game, dominated the open c-file, and scored a smooth win against GM Sergey Karjakin.

My Pet Line GM Meier demonstrates one of the most popular lines at the top level and how he scores well with his pet variation! White plays a4 to prevent Black's queenside expansion and then works to dominate the center!

Dubov's Sharp Variation How does GM Meier like to play when he's on the Black side of the Catalan? He tries a deep check on b4 to sideline White's bishop to an awkward square. But Grandmaster Daniil Dubov has come up with an ingenious, sharp attacking plan for White. Take a look!

Caruana's Brilliant Catalan What's the best move order to reach a Catalan? What should you do if Black aims for an e5 break instead of a c5 break? GM Meier finishes up his world-class coverage of the Catalan by showing an amazing and creative effort by GM Fabiano Caruana!

Do you play the Catalan as White or Black? What are your favorite lines? Let us know in the comments!

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