The Queens Gambit Investigation (part 2)
The Queens Gambit Investigation (part 2)
Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen, to your favorite serious on the internet, The Queen's gambit investigation. In our last episode, we learned about what the Queen gambit, is, the main possible variations, and what is a Queen's Gambit Accepted. We learnt about how we can counter the queen's gambit accepted and gain a position that is favorable to us. Today we'll be looking at One of my favorite ways to counter the Queen's gambit, the slav defense. So without further ado, let us start!
Chapter 3 : The Slav
The Slav is one of the primary defenses to the Queen's Gambit. Although it was analyzed as early as 1590, it was not until the 1920s that it started to be explored extensively, although Steinitz essayed it in the first official World Chess Championship of 1886. Many masters of Slavic descent helped develop the theory of this opening, including Alapin, Alekhine, Bogoljubov, and Vidmar.
Anyway, lets start with the slav.
This position will lead into an equal middlegame with both sides vying to get control of the infamous kingside squares. It might lead to possible piece sacrifices, that will give them a firm control of the kingside. Black will also be trying to save his knight that is hopping around everywhere or try to trade it off. Clearly it causes a lot of trouble to black.
In Retrospect : Slav defense
the Slav is probably the single most underrated opening in chess, and were it not for the pesky Exchange variation, I think it wouldn’t even be close. Its a solid and tactical opening, much like the london system with White. This is why you see many great tacticians use it such as shirov, morozevich, Anand, Ivanchuk but also great champions such as Botvinik, Smyslov, Euwe, and etc play this. Its just too solid!
But again, this is one of the best for black, however there are some other responses that are even more solid than this defense. Those defenses must be studied very carefully too. Those include, the Queen's gambit declined, that can lead into a lot of variations, such as the tarrasch, the Semi-Slav and the accelerated move order.
Then there's the marshall defense, another cocky defense that is used by black to try to get a step ahead in development. The queen's gambit is also very studied, so it has a lot of variations.
Lastly we will also cover the albin countergambit, and lastly the greco variation. That happens when black tries to hang on to the pawn that has accepted, which we can thoroughly rout the Black pieces then. But these are for out next parts. I wanted to cover just the slav just to show how complex this defense is, and how many variations it leads to. in the next episode we will focus on other variations.
Thank you for tuning in today, and in the next part we will be looking at The Queen's gambit declined.
