Slav Defence 5.b3 system by GM Magesh and GM Arun

This week we shall study a rare system against the Slav defence, 5.b3. Many players who wanted to avoid the meran and other mainlines have chosen this system and had success with it. The advantage of this system is that the ideas for white are much easier as he just needs to know where to place his pieces and where he should initiate an attack. This system was successfully employed by some of the greats like Kramnik, Aronian, Ponomariov etc. 

Our game today is between Vladimir Kramnik and Loek Van Wely. Kramnik employed this system in his previous encounter against Van Wely in a Rapid Blindfold match and was successful again. In this sytem White's development plan is much easier and he can employ the same ideas against any of Black's ideas in this system. He develops his pieces to their natural squares targeting the Black King and soon the attack against the Black King becomes devastating.

After ten moves Black had not made any special mistake and was developing pieces to their natural squares but still he was under pressure. Soon it was much easier for White to play and Black was left without any clear plan. Even a player rated above 2650 couldnt solve his opening problems as he played a couple of bad moves like 13. ... Bb4 and 14. ... Ne4 and landed in a lost position. We hope our readers got a nice weapon against the solid Slav Defence.