When World Champion Magnus Carlsen was asked about the reasons behind his recent string of victories, the Norwegian said he was inspired by Alpha Zero and... Daniil Dubov!
Dubov, the Russian Grandmaster and 2018 Rapid World Champion, had unleashed a rare fresh line from move 8 in the Tarrasch Defence earlier this year. One which Magnus Carlsen relied on during his triumphant run at the World Blitz and Rapid Championship 2019!
Now our 2600+ Fide opening specialist Grandmaster Erwin l'Ami will unravel for you all the ins and outs of this hyper-aggressive variation!New concept in the Tarrasch
As Erwin explains, he is a recent convert to Chessable who has already amassed 2.7 million points who wanted to give something back to the community by sharing new discoveries in top-level theory.
So, in his first trainer on our platform, the renowned Dutchman chose to put Dubov's exciting revival of the Tarrasch under the microscope. It is an opening variation that inspired him.
The hugely-talented Dubov is the first modern top player to employ:
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.g3 Nf6 7.Bg2 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Bc5.
And as Erwin explains, that unorthodox line can be reached via several different routes - whether White plays d4, c4 or even Nf3 on the first move.
25 lines to insert into your repertoire
Erwin's course specifically covers Dubov's 8... Bc5 line but by utilizing the easy transposition opportunities from other openings, as explained in the video, the course can be considered to be almost a full repertoire against 1.d4 for Black.
However, Erwin's recommendation is to insert the 25 trainable lines of his Dubov Tarrasch into your existing preparation and work from there.
And why wouldn't you want to? Here is a line that will shock opponents. It is new, aggressive and brash - but it is steeped in excellent, original theory which Erwin explains clearly.
As our Dutch GM notes, illustrious names such as Schlechter, Teichmann and Marshall have employed this sparsely-used variation in the past.
But Dubov, who was part of Carlsen's team for the World Championship match against Fabiano Caruana, is the first elite player to unleash it for decades.
His [Dubov's] 'improvement' over the main lines in the Tarrasch Defence immediately grabbed my attention and in this course, I intend to show you the main ideas behind this variation.
- Grandmaster Erwin l'Ami
The Tarrasch Defence had its glory days in the 1960s and was used by Boris Spassky in his Candidates match against Geller in 1965. Garry Kasparov also scored phenomenal results with it in the early 1980s.
However, in 1984 Kasparov lost two games with it against Anatoly Karpov and the opening fell out of favour.
Now GM Erwin l'Ami shows you how a brilliant young Russian has breathed new life into Tarrasch's former reputation of being a highly-efficient weapon for Black.
Keep up with cutting-edge theory. Play lines no opponent will have prepared for* - play the Dubov Tarrasch.* Unless you compete at Erwin's level. And probably not even then.
