Know The Opening: The Najdorf: Episode 1

Welcome to the beginning of my new series on The Najdorf. Over the course of several upcoming installments I'll be walking through the "meat and potatoes" of my most recent study on the position providing simple and easy to understand key concepts that are essential to learning any opening. 

The Main Line

I believe it's so important to KNOW THE OPENING instead of just memorizing lines, and I'll do my best to make it as easy as possible to retain the key concepts to the position. Having said that...

Know The Opening - The Najdorf - Checkpoint #1

Play through the main line of the opening as Black.

I've always loved playing this line as black because I feel it provides much more opportunity for dynamic counter-play. 

The Namesake

Miguel Najdorf - source: wikipedia

The opening bears it's name from Polish-Argentine Grandmaster Miguel Najdorf and any discussion about it without his mention is sacrilege in my opinion, so Cheers Mr. Najdorf. It has been called the "Cadillac" or "Rolls Royce" of openings. Players such as Fischer and Kasparov played it extensively and provided some all-time classics from the position. (It should be noted that Kasparov tended to transition into a Scheveningen more times than not and I will not be covering that in this series)

The Najdorf Stands Test Of Time

The Najdorf has been a staple at the top level of chess as long as it's been around, which if anyone can find the very first appearance of it please leave it in the comments as I have yet to come across it. Currently, MVL (Maxime Vachier-Lagrave) has been a proponent of The Najdorf including a few games from as recently as the 2018 Sinquefield cup.

The Najdorf in World Championship Play

The Najdorf has occurred 43 times and drawn 29 games for a 67% draw rate. It first appeared in a World Championship match in 1969, played by Tigran Petrosian. It hasn't been seen in World Championship play since Vladimir Kramnik played it in 2008. For more stats on The Najdorf in the World Championship click HERE.

Example Games From The Masters

I won't be annotating these introductory games as I may use them in the upcoming episodes where we'll be focusing on more detailed areas of the position and without covering some key concepts I feel it may be disruptive to the flow of the series.

Game #1

Game #2

In the next episode we will dig into the English Attack and have plenty of game annotations and more interactive checkpoints! See you soon!

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