Caro Kann Defense: Bronstein Style

I have played many defenses against 1.e4. Despite that I became known as a player of the Caro Kann. Perhaps, wearing a tee shirt that said, "UNIVERSITY OF CARO" on the front helped to promote that notion. The back said, LINA," completing the name of the university. I have played numerous variations of the Caro Kann Defense with both black and white. Against a FIDE master, against whom I had an excellent record after about 15 games, I played the Sicilian Defense for the first time in our games. An international master on the next board moved my pawn from c5 back to c6, as if I had made a mistake! After correcting our neighbor's joke, I started a streak of beating the FM with the Sicilian.

The following game shows the King's Knight Variation of the Caro Kann. This line is often called the Bronstein Variation because of that grandmaster's use of it. It sometimes leads to attacks by Black on White's kingside, as in this game. Sometimes it leads to endgames that Black enjoys. Of course, White also plays to win. The move 4...Nf6 is less popular than either 4...Bf5 or 4...Nd7.

My opponent in this game is Victor Ying, one of many young players who came out of the Bronx Yonkers Chess Club (now the Bob Peretz CC) to achieve a rating of about 2200.