Table of Contents Content Foreword Title Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 (1) Chapter 58 (2) Index of variations Contents Title page Explanation of symbols Foreword Part I – Minor lines Chapter 1 Avoiding theory: 2.Ne2 d5 3.e5 Chapter 2 King’s Indian Attack: 2.d3 d5 3.Nd2 Chapter 3 The fashionable 2.d4 d5 3.f3 Chapter 4 Two Knights: 2.Nc3 d5 3.Nf3 Bg4 4.d4 Chapter 5 Two Knights: 2.Nc3 d5 3.Nf3 Bg4 4.Be2 Chapter 6 Two Knights main line: 4.h3 Bxf3 5.Qxf3 Nf6 Chapter 7 Two Knights main line: 4.h3 Bxf3 5.Qxf3 e6 Part II – Steiner System, Panov Attack, Exchange Variation Chapter 8 Steiner System 2.c4: White plays 5.Bb5+ Chapter 9 Steiner System 2.c4: White plays 5.Qa4+ Chapter 10 Minor lines with 5.Nc3 Nxd5 Chapter 11 5.Nc3 Nxd5: main line 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.Bb5 g6 Chapter 12 Exchange Variation Chapter 13 Panov: minor lines Chapter 14 Panov Four Knights: 6...Bg4 Chapter 15 Panov Four Knights: 6...Be6 Part III – Classical System: 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 Chapter 16 Bobby Fischer’s 5.Nc5 Chapter 17 Main line: 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.N1e2 Chapter 18 Main line: 6.Bc4 and king’s knight to f4 Chapter 19 Main line: f2-f4 and Nf3 Chapter 20 Main line: 6.h4 h6 7.f4 Chapter 21 Main line: 6.h4 h6, king’s knight to f4 Chapter 22 Main line: 7.Nf3 and 8.Bd3 Chapter 23 Main line: 8.h5, 9.Bd3, 11.Bf4 Qa5+ 12.c3 Chapter 24 Main line: 12.Bd2 Bb4 Chapter 25 Main line: 12.Bd2 Bb4 – White drives away the bishop Chapter 26 Main line: 12.Bd2 Bb4 – White castles queenside Chapter 27 Main line: 12.Bd2 Qc7 13.Qe2 Chapter 28 Main line: 12.Bd2 Qc7 13.0-0-0 Ngf6 without 14.Ne4 Chapter 29 Main line: 12.Bd2 Qc7 13.0-0-0 Ngf6 14.Ne4 Chapter 30 Main line: minor alternatives after 11.Bd2 Chapter 31 Main line: 11.Bd2 with 13.Ne4 Chapter 32 Main line: 11.Bd2 with queenside castling and Qe2 Chapter 33 Main line: 11.Bd2 with 13.Kb1 Part IV – Advance (Closed) Variation: 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 Chapter 34 Sidelines Chapter 35 The rare 4.f4 Chapter 36 The devious 4.Ne2 Chapter 37 The weakening 4.c4 Chapter 38 The aggressive 4.g4 Chapter 39 The dangerous 4.h4: minor lines Chapter 40 The dangerous 4.h4: White plays 5.c4 Chapter 41 The dangerous 4.h4: White plays 5.Bd3 Chapter 42 The subtle 4.Nd2 Chapter 43 The positional 4.c3 Chapter 44 The crafty 4.Be3 Chapter 45 The creative 4.Nc3, 5.g4, 6.Nge2 Chapter 46 The creative 4.Nc3, 5.g4, 6.Nge2 with 7.h4 Chapter 47 The popular 4.Nf3: rare replies to 4...e6 Chapter 48 The direct 5.Be2 Ne7 6.Nh4 Chapter 49 6.Nbd2: White holds on to c5 Chapter 50 The subtle 6.c3: minor plans after 6...Nd7 Chapter 51 White combines 6.c3 with capturing on c5 Chapter 52 Main line 6.0-0 c5: rare continuations Chapter 53 Main line 6.0-0 c5: French-style play with 7.c3 Chapter 54 Main line 6.0-0 c5: the logical 7.dxc5 Chapter 55 Main line 6.0-0 c5: 7.c4 Nbc6 8.Nc3 Chapter 56 Main line 6.0-0 c5: 7.c4 Nbc6 8.Na3 Chapter 57 Main line 6.0-0 c5: 7.c4 Nbc6 8.dxc5 Part V – Positions for solving Chapter 58 What would you play? Part 1 Part 2 Index of variations Bibliography Swipe left for next chapter Foreword In our day, the Caro-Kann Defence has achieved great popularity. Maybe this is because in a complicated positional battle, it is easier to outplay a less experienced opponent. This is probably the reason why this opening has been a trusted weapon for many world champions, also because of its sound positional basis. In this book, I offer a complete repertoire for Black in reply to 1.e4, explaining both the strategic ideas and the exact move orders. In the main, the book is based on my own games and analyses, including work with Mikhail Podgaets, the trainer of the 12th World Champion, Anatoly Karpov, and also on the practice of leading grandmasters of today. I will show how I play as Black, at the present day (of course, in the future I may choose other lines and try to strengthen Black’s play). The possibilities in the Caro-Kann are enormous, Black having a wide choice of possible plans, piece set-ups, move orders, etc. On the one hand, I show high-level analyses, and on the other, I also try to explain the main ideas in as simple and accessible a way as possible for the average player, so I hope that the book will be of benefit to players of a wide variety of different levels. At the end of each section, there is a brief conclusion, which draws the reader’s attention to the key points, which need to be mastered and remembered. I should like to thank, for their assistance with this book, Grandmaster Dmitry Svetushkin, International Master Vladimir Barsky and FIDE Master Mikhail Popov. The Caro-Kann is a very solid opening. Its basic idea is to strike in the centre with the protected pawn on d5; at the same time, unlike the French Defence, here the light-squared bishop is still able to come out to f5 or g4. Black obtains a solid pawn structure and it is very rare in the Caro-Kann for him to obtain weak pawns, and he also rarely has bad pieces. The only problem is that he obtains a slightly passive position, mainly because the queen’s knight is deprived of the square c6. But Black can improve his position by carrying out the advance ...c6-c5, and thanks to this can even take the initiative. The honour of having invented this defence belongs to the 19th century Austrian master Markus Kann. His ideas were taken up and developed by the English master Horatio Caro, who in 1886 published the first serious analyses of this new opening. The opening became popular at the start of the 20th century, when it was often used successfully by Aron Nimzowitsch, Savielly Tartakower, and the third World Champion, José Raul Capablanca. A great contribution to the theory of the opening was made by Mikhail Botvinnik, Salo Flohr, Vasily Smyslov, Paul Keres, Tigran Petrosian, Mikhail Tal, David Bronstein, Anatoly Karpov, Isaak Boleslavsky, Alexander Konstantinopolsky, Vasily Panov, Alexey Suetin, Vladimir Makagonov, Yuri Balashov, Yuri Razuvaev, Bent Larsen, Garry Kasparov, Yasser Seirawan, Michael Adams, Evgeny Bareev, Alexey Dreev, Peter Leko, Daniel Fridman, Igor Khenkin, Vladimir Burmakin, Alexander Grischuk, Fabiano Caruana, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Alexander Riazantsev and others. From the names of the players who have used the Caro-Kann, one can study the whole history of chess! This opening is not only very solid and reliable (from the viewpoint of playing for a draw as Black), but also very complicated. It contains many subtleties and positional nuances, thanks to which one can hope to outplay an opponent. The opening has been successfully used over many decades by the 12th World Champion, Anatoly Karpov, including in matches for the World Championship, and the opening has earned an excellent reputation at the highest level. Karpov was helped with this opening by the player and well-known theoretician Mikhail Podgaets (1947-2009). A representative of the star-studded generation of Odessa players, who emerged into the All-Union arena in the 1960s, Podgaets was five times a world champion as part of the Soviet student team. Playing in Union championships, he was Ukrainian Champion in 1976. In the mid-1980s, he joined Karpov’s team and worked with the latter until the end of his life. The 12th World Champion was persuaded to abandon his beloved Spanish, which he had used in his World Championship matches with Kasparov, in favour of the rock-solid Caro-Kann, which Podgaets had played all his life. After achieving an outstanding result at Linares 1994, a delighted Karpov described Podgaets as the best trainer in the world. I started working with Podgaets in December 2002: we had a training session together, he showed me the Caro- Kann, and I decided to put my faith in this solid opening, which also offers chances to take the initiative. I had first played it as Black in Buenos Aires, two years earlier, beating grandmaster Pablo Ricardi. The tournament was a happy one for me overall, because not only did I share 1st-2nd places with Judit Polgar, but it was also there that I met and became friends with Podgaets! In 2003, my results jumped sharply. I won the Aeroflot Open in Moscow and then the super-tournament in Dortmund, where I won three games in the Caro-Kann: I beat Peter Leko and Arkady Naiditsch as Black and Vishy Anand as White. Mikhail Podgaets had not only done a great job of sharing his analyses of this opening, but had also infused me with its culture. In my book, I pay a good deal of attention to correspondence games played via the Internet; these are of the very highest quality, as the players are able to exploit all the resources of modern technology, a combination of human and silicon intellect. Many of the old analyses I had made with Podgaets were tested on powerful computers, in the process of writing this book, and this has improved their quality. But perfection has no limits! As usual in my books, I have tried to offer the side whose repertoire is being presented (in this case, Black) a choice of alternative plans, so that you can choose which suits your character better, as well as making the opponent’s job of preparing for you more difficult. In the classical main line, as well as the tried and tested plan with ...0-0-0, which nobody has ever managed to refute, in recent months there has been a great surge in popularity of the plan with ...?e7 and an early ...c6-c5, after which Black does not hurry with kingside castling, so as not to come under a direct attack. This plan is given serious attention in this book. In the system with 3.e5 we have detailed consideration of some new and some well-forgotten ideas for White, involving seizing space. Although our bishop comes out to f5, White has many resources to fight for an advantage. In reply, I recommend a very resolute system with an early ...c6-c5. I have played this many times with both colours and consider this the strongest continuation. This is also the plan which has generally been preferred by Peter Leko. In our day, practically all of the world’s leading players employ the Caro-Kann regularly, both the younger players and the more experienced ones. It is interesting to see how each player has his own way of handling this deep opening, in which one can develop the pieces in various ways, using different set-ups and plans. Proving an advantage for White has become more and more difficult. I recommend that the reader include the Caro- Kann Defence in his repertoire, and I wish you success! Victor Bologan Doha, March 2018 Victor Bologan Bologan’s Caro-Kann A Modern Repertoire for Black New In Chess 2018 This book is dedicated to the fond memory of Mikhail Podgaets, Honoured Trainer of the USSR, who revealed to me the secrets of the Caro-Kann. © 2018 New In Chess Published by New In Chess, Alkmaar, The Netherlands www.newinchess.com All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the publisher. Cover design: Volken Beck Supervision: Peter Boel Proofreading: Sandra Keetman, Frank Erwich Production: Anton Schermer Have you found any errors in this book? Please send your remarks to [email protected]. We will collect all relevant corrections on the Errata page of our website www.newinchess.com and implement them in a possible next edition. ISBN: 978-90-5691-778-4