Here are the moves of Grandmaster Repertoire: The Catalan. All the moves are sound, and should give your opponents lots of problems.

Since it is generally hard to read this on chess.com I would advise that you download this into chessbase. You can do this by clicking the download icon in the bottom-left corner of the board, then clicking "download"

Here is the book!

Chapter 1: Odd 4th moves

Chapter 2: 4...dxc4 and 5...Bd7

Chatper 3: 4...dxc4 and 5...c6

(This line is often also reached when Black plays ...c6 early on, and then plays dxc4. Transpositions are very common in the Catalan)

Chapter 4: 4...dxc4 and 5...Bb4+

Chapter 5: 4...dxc4 and 5...Nbd7

Chapters 6-7: 4...dxc4 and 5...c5

Chapter 8: 4...dxc4, 5...a6, and 6...b5

Chapter 9: 4...dxc4 and 5...b5

Chapter 10: 4...dxc4, 5...a6, and 6...Nc6

Chapter 11: 4...dxc4 and 5...Nc6

Chapter 12: 4...Bb4+, Various 5th moves

Chapters 13-14: 4...Bb4+ and 5...Be7

This is one of the more important lines to know, when I play the Catalan I face this a good amount of the time.

Chapter 15: 4...Be7, Closed System (Black does not take on c4)

This is the other important one to learn. It also provides insights on playing closed positions. If you only could study 2 of these PGNs, I would chose this one and Chapters 13-14.

Chapter 16: 4...Be7, 5...0-0, and 6...dxc4

Maybe this is the 3rd most important one to study. The top players in the world generally play this way as Black, and as a result you probably will see players at your tournaments playing this as well.

The Bogo lines recommended in this book have lots of holes, so I don't think they are worth looking at. So the remaining PGNs here will be of the Benoni, which can be reached after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 and 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 c5.

Chapter 22: Catalan Benoni (Black plays an immediate ...b5)

Chapter 23: Snake Benoni

(No one plays this, it's not important to study, it's also the shortest chapter of the book)

Chapter 24: The Modern Benoni, main lines (Black does not play 9...Re8)

The general rule is that White plays Bf4, targeting d6, and plays for a positional game. Still, look at the lines, they can get sharp in some cases, with Black sacrificing an exchange.

Chapter 25: The Modern Benoni, 9...Re8

Good luck using this GM-level repertoire, and if you understand the opening and the important lines are memorized, you should do very well.

Me and epicstrike

Super Admins