Bamboozle your opponents with 1.g3

Publisher: Chessbase, 2010, DVD

Opening a game with 1.g3 appears rather quiet and unpretentious yet many of the greatest players in history have chosen to play this way. Bent Larsen, Victor Korchnoi, Leonid Stein and Pal Benko have all wielded this move with considerable success whilst in more recent times Mikhail Gurevich has been using it highly effectively. The idea behind this opening is to leave White with the greatest possible flexibility for his pieces and pawns and indeed the game can transpose into openings as diverse as the Closed Sicilian, the King’s Indian Defence and the Catalan Opening. Yet White can also choose to tread new ground by adopting formations such as a reversed Leningrad Dutch, reversed Alekhine’s Defence or even a reversed Pirc or Modern Defence. All of these formations contain far more poison with White’s extra tempo. On this DVD Davies explains key concepts and ideas behind these unique approaches, whilst also showing how White can transpose into more regular openings if he show chooses. This can provide many opportunities for throwing the opponent on his own resources as well as wrong footing him into something he does not know.

Video running time: 4 hours