These lines look really interesting to me:
Black can get three pawns for the piece, and in one line given in MCO black winds up being up a pawn but having two sets of doubled isolated pawns.
I think I'm going to study some of these lines fairly well. I like these kinds of muddy positions.
That line is called the Vienna QGD. The Ragozin proper is where black avoids playing d5xc4, so in your sequence h6, or Nb-d7 instead of pxp. All these lines quite popular with strong players at moment. They are more agressive than the QGD with Be7, and fit quite nicely with Nimzo-Indian. There is a recent book from New in chess called "The Ragozin Complex". Quite nice book but doesn't include Vienna QGD.
I was looking in ChessBase and noticed that a lot of the games start out with a move order other than d4 d5 and transpose into this opening. It seems very flexible.
Expect most would come about from 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 move order. It combines well with Nimzo, for example 4Nc3 Bb4 when after 5e3 have a line from Rubinstein Nimzo.
The two games played by Hou, are two of the critical lines in the opening. The one with Qa4ch showed one of blacks typical ideas to play pxp, Bd6 and then e5. Found the commentry of the other game interesting on chessbase site because it mentioned a Morezevich blitz win against Eljanov. Eljanov later used the same line to beat Rajabov in a standard line, would think would find that using umm chessbase...
The sixth game went 1. d4 e6 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Qa4+ Nc6 6. e3 O-O 7. Bd2 dxc4 8.
Bxc4 Bd6 9. Qc2 a6 10. a3 e5 11. dxe5 Nxe5. In similar positions Dvoretsky had a chapter about untypical bishop captures, and very likely 11...Bxe5 better here too.
No the Dvorestsky book were looked at a few Ragozin games was called "Opening Preparation". There was a famous russian book which was about solving middle game problems, which used the Ragozin as an example of how to play the opening in way consistent with these middle game themes. Fischer learnt russian to be able to read this book, and played Ragozin a lot as a young player. "Ragozin Complex" from new in chess, follows the same struture as this older russian one.
A nice old Ragozin game played by Fischer.
i played it once
i won the game
so it must be ok
I tried to set up a mini tourney on the Ragozin, but couldn't see the opening setup in the chess.com tournament setup. Can anyone advise please ?
I've played this twice OTB this year. I wanted a way of punishing white's Nf3(without too solid QID or Bogo or slightly edgy Benoni), and go into it via an intended Nimzo setup, then QGD, then Ragozin. Interesting games. Both times the opponent entombed his DSB with an early e3.
is ragozin the name of a place?
like french defense is from france
Ragozin is name of a Russian GM. Was strong OTB player in 30/40's and a Correspondence World champion in 50's.
An early e3 is tranposing back to Rubinstein Nimzo if black wants.
That line is called the Vienna QGD. The Ragozin proper is where black avoids playing d5xc4, so in your sequence h6, or Nb-d7 instead of pxp. All these lines quite popular with strong players at moment. They are more agressive than the QGD with Be7, and fit quite nicely with Nimzo-Indian. There is a recent book from New in chess called "The Ragozin Complex". Quite nice book but doesn't include Vienna QGD.
Too bad it doesn't include the Vienna Variation. Is there any book on this variation available?
I am not aware of any, and pretty sure one doesn't exist in english lanuage. Not one covering lines for black anyway. Some white rep books suggest lines against it.
Richard Pert has a new book "Playing the Ragozin", includes 5bg5 pxp Vienna lines.
Anyone play this? I've never seen it played, but Hou is having some great success with it.
Not that her wins have come in the opening, but...