Italian Game - Must Know Line

The Italian Game is one of the oldest and most popular openings. It was given such name as Italian players such as Giulio Cesare Polerio and Gioachino Greco analyzed this position back in the 16th and 17th century.

That’s why today I decided to analyze one of the most critical, if not the most critical line. Black has 2 main options to continue which are 3…Bc5 or 3…Nf6.

3…Bc5 is slightly more common, leading the game to the Giuoco Piano. This means “quiet game” in Italian, but some of the lines that we’ll see are quite the opposite of quiet!

After the most common moves 4.c3 Nf6 we get the following position:

In this position the most logical follow-up for White after playing 4.c3 is the move 5.d4 trying to occupy the center.

This line, called the Center Attack, is a great example of how chess has evolved.  

This move has been the most popular move but at top level it has been played less than 5.d3.

The reason is that the move 5.d4 can lead to more forcing lines, some of which have been extensively studied. Objectively, Black should have a good position if White plays the Center Attack, but as we’ll see the lines can get quite tricky so Black has to play accurately and be careful.

If you play the Italian as White, you can definitely try this line to test Black and get a winning position if Black is not familiar with the subtleties involved.

If you play the move 3…Bc5 as Black, you must know this line.

And last but not least, if you’re learning the Italian Game this is a great way to learn some general ideas of this opening.

Check my full analysis here: https://youtu.be/Y3JT6sl9S8M