Geza Maroczy's Strange Legacy
Introduction
Geza Maroczy left a strange legacy: the discovery that certain pawn formations can impose a near decisive cramp on one's opponent.
- Bobby Fischer
In 1904, a German chess master named Rudolf Swiderski played an interesting pawn move as White in a game against the Sicilian Defense. Swiderski lost that game, but left his opponent impressed and inspired by his opening play. His opponent was none other than the legendary Geza Maroczy, and the pawn formation I am speaking of is the Maroczy Bind. In this blog I'll give a brief introduction to the Maroczy Bind and show you why it's so good.
What is the Maroczy Bind?
The Maroczy Bind is a pawn formation which occurs when White places pawns on c4 and e4 after exchanging his d-pawn for Black's c-pawn. It usually occurs in the Open Sicilian, but be found in other openings as well. Here's a diagram to illustrate the concept:
It's an extremely powerful setup as it controls a lot of the center and clamps down on the d5-square especially. The pawn break ...d5 is a key plan in many Sicilian variations. The Maroczy Bind player should be content with a positional game and the dream of squeezing the opponent to death. As always, Black has plans too, some of which are very strong and should always be considered regardless of how solid your position seems.
Maroczy Bind Guide
The Sicilian is one of the most respected openings at all levels. Despite the mainlines' incredible complexity and excitement, I see many club players fear 1...c5 while bumbling about with feeble anti-Sicilians. Alhough they are not bad at all, I would recommend everyone to play the ambitious and fun Open Sicilian instead, and to do so the Maroczy Bind is a key weapon in your arsenal.
First, let's go over the four variations of the Open Sicilian you can/should play the Maroczy Bind against.
Accelerated Dragon
This variation occurs after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 g6. An idea of the Accelerated Dragon, as opposed to the regular Dragon, is to delay the move ...d7-d6 to retain the option of playing ...d5 in one move later on. That's exactly what happens most of the time after 5. Nc3, the most common move by far at amateur level. However, one move stops the ...d5 ideas hopefully forever. That move is 5. c4, setting up the Maroczy Bind.
Kan
The Kan Sicilian occurs after 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 a6. Black reaches a very flexible position but has not done too much to control the center yet. Its main theoretical drawback is that it allows the dreaded (or adored, if you're playing White) Maroczy Bind.
Kalashnikov
The Kalashnikov arises after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5. This line shares some themes with its cousin, the Sveshnikov, but with some differences. In the Kalashnikov, Black delays developing the g8-knight, sometimes placing it on other squares liike e7.
This opening often leads to sharp and dynamic play, and because it's less commonly rigourously prepared against than the Sveshnikov, it can catch opponents off guard. Once again, the main theoretical drawback is that Black allows the Maroczy Bind. For that reason I feel the Sveshnikov is a bit better, but apparently Sveshnikov himself did not.
Taimanov
This line occurs after 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6. This is considered a more positional variation of the Sicilian and doesn't lead to the swashbuckling attacking games of a Najdorf or Sveshnikov. It also has less theory and Black players can rely a bit more on thematic ideas. The Taimanov has some similarities to the Kan Variation which we examined earlier. Here's how we can gain an edge as usual with the Maroczy Bind:
Theory doesn't actually regard this as a challenging line and it's used sparingly at master level. However, I wouldn't recommend any variation which I didn't think was objectively or practically very strong. Let's prove theory wrong together.
Maroczy-Based Repertoire
I will share with you two repertoires containing the Maroczy Bind, varying in both breadth and depth. You can choose which repertoire you'd like to follow depending on your chess strength, dedication, and nerdiness (just kidding... kind of).
The Basics
This basic repertoire focuses on ideas and themes with little theory. In my opinion, these strategic themes are much more important, especially at the lower levels which this repertoire is geared to. I'd highly recommend to go over the annotated model games I provide below. I hope they will help hammer the ideas in.
# of Lines: 4 | Avg. Depth: 7.5
Core Lines
The intermediate repertoire aims to go a lot deeper than the first one while still maintaining the focus on practical themes. I prefer depth over breadth when studying openings. While it's true that you will rarely see these deep lines, they expose you to moves and concepts in the middlegame. Usually these thematic ideas repeat in other lines as well. In my opinion, the below repertoire can suffice until 2000 chess.com at least. I myself haven't gone beyond that level yet so I don't think I have the experience to provide advice to stronger players.
Maroczy Bind in Practice
Opening theory is great but, as I'm sure you already know, it alone won't give you sufficient understanding of how an opening works. I find that model games are a great way to demonstrate how an opening works in practice. The game I've chosen is not a master game, which may surprise you. It was played between two decent chess players on the Internet.
Choosing amateur games rather than the usual master/grandmaster level games is useful as such games feature the weak moves and gross errors that terrible chess players like you and I play. (apologies if I offend any readers by calling them terrible, but if you aren't, why are you reading my blog?) I find that the intricacies of strong players' games often fly over our heads, especially if the reader is a beginner. I'd honestly recommend incorporating such games into your opening study.
I don’t care if an earthworm played it, an instructive position is worth its weight in gold, no matter whose name is attached to it!
-Jeremy Silman
I've selected a game which I found personally very useful when I went over Maroczy Bind structures for the first time.
The above swashbuckling, attacking game was certainly fun to look through and I can imagine would be much more fun to play. It's still important to bear in mind that not all your games will involve such crisp attacks. Many of them will involve positional maneuvering battles. We should make sure to study those types of games as well.
Play the Maroczy Bind!
If you don't already use the Maroczy Bind, I hope you're inspired to incorporate it into your repertoire after reading this blog. To me, the best way to learn an opening (after absorbing some theory and ideas) is to begin using it in online games immediately. This gives you practical experience which will bring you up to speed more effectively than deeper study.
When practicing a new opening, I'd actually recommend trying it out in blitz games, even if your focus/aptitude is more towards slower time controls like classical. Blitz games are short, so practicing openings in blitz gives you a larger sample size to work with. It'll expose you to many different setups and theoretical branches that your opponent can take. You'll also get a greater feel for typical middlegame positions in your opening.
A common frustration I've experienced when doing this is not getting the opening I want to practice on the board. As I have learned the hard way, studying the Nimzo-Indian for a few days and excitedly jumping into a game just to face the dreaded 1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 is truly soul-crushing. The simplest solution is to practice with a friend or training partner. If you have no friends who don't suck at chess (I can relate), don't worry. Online chess spaces like Discord servers are filled with kind people with too much time on their hands. They may be willing to help you out.
Conclusion
Thanks for reading. If you play a game using the Maroczy Bind because of this blog, please link the games in the comments below! I want to see how you guys fare. As always, I hope this helped you improve at chess; see you in the next blog. 
