The Complete Ragozin

Publisher: Chess Evolution, 2017, Pages: 304, Paperback

The Ragozin opening is named aft er one of its first contributors, Viacheslav Vasilyevich Ragozin (1908–1962). He was a Soviet grandmaster and became the World Correspondence Chess Champion in 1959. I started to play this opening back in 2007 and I have used it ever since. It’s a perfect complement to my main opening against 1.d4, the Nimzo-Indian. Over the last decade this line has become highly fashionable at the top level, with Magnus Carlsen, Vishy Anand, Anish Giri and Levon Aronian, to mention only a few of the elite Grandmasters, playing it regularly.

The theory surrounding the Ragozin has developed very fast, but I have never stopped updating my files, and I am still amazed by how good this opening is.

I thought it was time for me to share with you all the secrets of my favourite and most-solid line; relatively easy to play, with a good positional background, but somehow almost always forgotten by the chess literature.
I apologize in advance if sometimes I push certain lines a bit too far, but I always have a desire to find the truth even if it’s not really possible. In any case, everybody can decide by themselves where to stop.
Do not worry, I am myself far from remembering everything from this book, and I doubt anyone can learn all the lines.

Have a good read and I hope you will enjoy this book.

Cornette Matthieu
Bordeaux, January 17th, 2017.