After 1.d4, if White is going for the Catalan opening, there’s little you can do about it. Whether you are going for your favorite, Nimzo-Indian, Bogo-Indian, Orthodox Defense, Ragozin Variation, there’s no escaping the Catalan.
So you have two options: you could trudge into months and months of investigation and engine analysis testing the best lines. Or you can
trust the conclusions of a strong player who already went through the swamp.
International Master Tor Fredrik Kaasen has had his fair share of Catalan pain. Tor is an up-and-coming youngster from Norway, but he knows the Catalan is one of the hurdles on his quest for the GM title. So he devoted most of the second part of 2021 to solving the Catalan once and for all.
His findings resulted in
Neutralize the Catalan, a 500-line course that shows how Black can short circuit the mechanics of the Catalan and claim an advantage at the slightest chance.
In this Short & Sweet course, you have a bite-size guide to start facing the Catalan with confidence and learn the ways to take over as Black.
Your opening philosophy is simple:
Make White step in their own feet
To accomplish this, you are going to insert an easy-to-overlook
check on b4 that disrupts White development no matter what they do:
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Against Nc3, White is not in excellent shape to retrieve the gambited c4 pawn anymore, and you’ll use that to achieve a liberating central breakthrough.
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Against Nd2, White loses sight of the d4-pawn, so you can strike with c5. In a likely IQP structure, Black will have more space, development, and the initiative.
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Against Bd2, you retreat to e7, leaving White with a silly Bishop on d2 and it’s them who will lose time rerouting the Bishop while you build a solid center and a powerful kingside attack.
But overall, you’ll learn the basic plans and ideas to
neutralize the Catalan.
IM Kaasen’s crystalline style of instruction makes understanding the nuances in every variation effortless. This will help you step up your results against the Catalan, but you’ll also gain a valuable understanding of similar pawn structures that can help your main repertoire.
Sign up for this free lesson with Tor and learn all you need to meet the Catalan in under an hour of video and 21 trainable lines.
If you enjoyed this free taster, check out IM Kaasen’s full repertoire to completely Neutralize the Catalan.
