QGD Ragozin

can anyone point me in the direction of a good book or key games or anything explaining the ideas behind this opening?

i'm trying to finally solidify what i play vs 1. d4 as black and i'm currently looking at playing the QID against d4 c4 nf3 and the QGD against nc3. there seems to be loads of information on the tarrasch and the lasker variation, but not much on the ragozin.

Strange opening choice:

The Ragozin is a relative of the Nimzo Indian and most often reached after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 Bb4, in order to avoid the Queen's Indian. You won't get the Ragozin often from a QGD move order because 4.Nf3 is a rare move, compared with 4.Bg5 or 4.cxd5.

In practice, you'll often see 5.e3 in the Ragozin, transposing to a Nimzo Indian. So don't play the Ragozin if you don't play the Nimzo Indian.

IMHO reasonable options are: playing the NID and the QID, or playing the NID and the Ragozin. Combining the QID with the Ragozin makes no sense to me.

i'm not saying i want to combine the qid and the ragozin, i'm simply investigating the qgd complex.

There is a recent book on the Ragozin, by NIC publications.

http://www.newinchess.com/Shop/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductID=954&utm_campaign=cvadvertisement954_The_Ragozin_Complex_Vladimir_Barsky&utm_source=chessvibes.com&utm_medium=chessvibes

I've been seriously looking at the Ragozin as my choice to go along with the Nimzo. A lot of folks play Nf3 before Nc3 in order to side step the Nimzo. 

I've looked at the QID but didn't find the ideas came as naturally to me. But it has similar ideas with control of light squares.

The Ragozin on the other hand seems to go hand in glove with the Nimzo and may be easier and less complex than the Nimzo. 

Ragozin is unlike Nimzo in that commited early to a particular pawn structure d5, and has some very concrete variations, counterattacking against c3 with Ne4, g5 to break pin, c5, and Qa5.

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Bg5 is sometimes used to avoid this. I'm not sure what Black can do other than 4...Be7.

It is quite good.

Black can play as in this old game of Alehkine's

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1011954

4...dc4 is quite OK for Black. Occasionally played by patzers like Kasparov, Karpov, Carlsen, Ivanchuk, Grischuk, Shirov...

I didn't quite get the comment about g5 to break the pin.

Many lines of the Nimzo aim for the d5 pawn push and both the Ragozin and Nimzo seem to slug it out for control of the central light squares.  I'm not a Ragozin player and have recently been studyng the Nimzo but it appears that there are a lot of transpositions.

http://en.chessbase.com/post/harikrishna-joins-leaders-in-biel

See the Hou Yifan game.

Ranx0r0x

The poster is refering to 4. Bg5 h6 and if Bh4, g5 to break White's pin on the knight.

Ah, sure.  I think if I had to follow that line I'd skip the Ragozin though. I have a book on the way but I definitely don't want to play something that loosening.  I'm currently playing the French and Nimzo-Indian so my preferenc is obviusly for something a lot tighter.  Not that those can't get wild and open but that's not their general character.

OK this is nice. 

Just received the book on the Ragozin and must say it's quite an achievement.  It is a nice blend of the historical and the modern.  It delves into some of the reasons for the earlier masters rejecting the opening and then shows how many of those prejudices were just wrong.

The opening was held suspect mainly due to the move Nc6 as that blocked the c7 pawn and prevented it from being used as a pawn break.  Since QGD lines commonly uses e5 and c5 as pawn breaks and sometimes use both the blocking of that pawn was thought to be a serious drawback. Like boxing with one hand.

But bringing the N out to c6 obviously has its benefits as well.

The New in Chess book on the Ragozin is following the structure of the famous russian book from the 50's, and trying to update the theory. In fact don't need to play nc6 as often as that rep, it is only really forced when white plays Qa4ch. R. Pert in "Playing the Ragozin" choses other lines to Nc6, which are much easier for black to play.

Regarding breaking the pin with g5 etc, in the position with 1.d4 Nf6 2c4 e6 3Nf3 d5 4Nc3 Bb4 5pxp pxp 6Bg5 black is commited to looking for active counterplay at some point, typically with h6, g5 ne4 etc, otherwise would be playing a queen gambit declined with bb4 misplaced. Pert suggests playing 6...h6 7Bh4 Nb-d7 popularised by Aronian. The idea is that if white plays 8Nd2 expecting the active counter play with g5 etc, black can play 8...Be7 playing the position like a queen's gambit instead.