New Ideas in the Openings!

GrandMaster Alex Yermolinsky, an expert in opening theory, is back with a great series where he analyses the latest trends and ideas on opening play by today's elite players, including the likes of Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren, Vladamir Kramnik and more.

Carlsen's Anti-Sicilian (4 Videos): Four videos where Yermo analyzes the World Champion's novel approach to playing against the Sicilian Defense. One great example of this approach is presented in Video in his battle against Radoslaw Wojtaszek, the man behind opening preparation of Vishy Anand during their World Championship matches, Carlsen went off the rails as early as move 3, introducing a new concept of fianchettoing White's dark-squared bishop in the Sicilian Defense.

Kramnik on the Modern Reti (4 Videos): Throughout his career, former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik has been known for his deep opening preparation. With White Kramnik came up as a 1.Nf3 player, but in truth, it was just the move order designed to avoid some openings (The Benko, the Benoni, etc.) but Kramnik has returned to his old flame, 1.Nf3, but this time he's not doing it just for the move order purposes. Suddenly, it's the full-fledged Reti and even the King's Indian Attack! 

Botvinnik Semi-Slav (4 Videos): The storied history of the Botvinnik Variation of the Semi-Slav is well-documented in chess literature. From Botvinnik's post-WWII famous victories that earned him the right to have his name attached to this opening line, and then off to the glory days of the 1980-90's, when Kasparov seemingly refuted it from the White side, only to play it himself much later on against his young rival, Kramnik - all those are the golden pages forever engraved in the annals of our game. The question is, where does the Botvinnik stand now, in the age of the merciless computer dissection of the entire opening theory? Watch this section to find out!

The Catalan (2 Videos): always an interesting opening, it came up as an attempt to blend in hypermodern ideas of the Reti into a frame of the Queens Gambit Declined. The fianchetto helps White to maintain control of the center and respond better to Black's breaks with c7-c5 or e6-e5. Generally speaking, Black has always had its best success with d5xc4 lines, underlining one drawback of the Catalan as White's inability to recapture on c4 with the bishop. The games analyzed in this video series feature White playing Nbd2 immediately in replay to c7-c6. The point is to facilitate the e2-e4 advance. Some may not consider it very dangerous because the white knight isn't optimally placed on d2 in the resulting French-like structures. Gelfand-Stupak provides an answer to that problem. The second video illustrates different options for Black: the early c6-c5 break or the return of the dxc4 ideas.

Modern Benko (6 Videos). 'For years I have struggled with accepting the Benko Gambit as White. Somehow the nature of resulting positions disagreed with my vision of what White should be doing in the opening. The mounting pressure of the Queenside cannot be resolved by the usual method of exchanging pieces.

But thanks to my old friend, GM Suat Atalik things have changed. Suat is a tireless researcher of opening ideas, and it's not the first time I benefit from his generosity. Suat turned his attention to the plan with fianchettoing White's bishop and stayed with it for more than a decade, but then returned to the mainline Benko with a new twist, 12.a4!, a multipurpose move, which combines two ideas. One is to invite 12...Ng4, which no longer works, as White gets to chase the black knights back to their camp. The second one is to create an outpost for the white knight on the b5-square. In the latter case, White has the time to complete the Q-side development and remove all possible targets from the long diagonal. This 12.a4 move sold it to me. I began to believe in White's chances in the Benko!'

PLUS: You get absolutely free:

• Player profile: 3 videos on rising Russian talent GM Vladislav Artemiev 
• Player profile: 3 videos on Hungarian's new star GM Richard Rapport 

That's 26 videos in total with 18 hours, 32 minutes of video instruction!

WHAT'S INCLUDED: