The Modernized Caro-Kann

The Caro-Kann Defence, long renowned for being a solid and reliable defence against 1.e4, is undergoing a renaissance.

In addition to being a mainstay in the repertoires of a recent World Champion (Viswanathan Anand) and a 2018 World Championship candidate (Ding Liren), it is being flooded with new and creative ideas from a range of other top players, notably Anand’s Indian Olympiad teammates Vidit and Adhiban.

The pawn structures in this opening leave considerable room for individual interpretation.

This book is written for the Black side, though new ideas for White are suggested and old ones occasionally improved.

It contains not only the author’s personal take on how to deal with all major White tries after 1.e4 c6, but also a range of alternatives for Black to cater for different types of Caro-Kann player.

This repertoire builds on the existing state of theory, taking it in novel, exciting and decidedly modern directions, while not forgetting about the opening's sound strategic underpinnings.

GM Fernandez said: "I have tried to write a one-of-a-kind book, overflowing with not only novelties but also plans, useful context and passion. The range of methods is quite astounding: I’ve used illustrative games (Chapter II.5) and ridiculous computer lines (subchapter IV.3.2), meshed together qualitative and objective evaluations, sometimes for the same position, and occasionally found some really great lines through trusting my gut feeling above the computer."

GM Daniel Fernandez (born 1995) has been an active and accomplished player for several years. He represented his native Singapore twice at Olympiads (2010 and 2012) before transferring to the English chess federation. There, he won the national classical titles at U-18 and U-21 levels, and worked to become a Grandmaster while simultaneously studying at Cambridge. The Caro-Kann was instrumental in his quest for that title. Currently, Daniel is known in the chess scene not only as a solid player, but also as a mentor figure to younger English players, as a producer of well-received commentary and analysis, and as a multilingual chess coach. This is his first book.