Wanna play the London System with black? · Road to GM, Game 342

[@davidc5191]

Also at 6:52 after Qd2 you can just play ...Ba3 which forces the variation you look at later after N:e6 as at 7:40. I'll just note that here, and in the later variation you show, the N on b2 is stranded and can't move, but White has no way of capturing it without returning material. Black can open the a-file with a5 and a4 in the meantime.

[@cmjeremyellison]

Hello from Vanuatu! 🇻🇺

[@gilvelez9673]

Very nice! Thank you...

[@prabhatkiranmukherje]

According to Avrukh "there is nothing wrong with 4.g3 against Slav", it is not a Catalan, and not his recommendation, but it's a matter of taste, so I doubt it's really sub-optimal.

[@cimmyobro]

At 16:23 Why g6 is not a solution?

[@jacobmartin9021]

The core idea here is white activates his king by getting it ahead of the pawn chain and black can't (forcefully) activate his king likewise. In these rook and x pawns endgames you can approximate who is ahead sans tactics by counting passed pawns plus active king for each player. So white has an active king and black has one passed pawn, meaning the game is drawing.

[@sgu00dir]

against the early Qb3 though?

[@bluefin.64]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression is that top players all play the open Catalan. It sounds like you intend to play the closed. I'm curious to know who's games you study and try to emulate, if anyone.

[@jacobtheall222]

its a matter of preference, closed is more solid and less sharp

[@pringle1957]

It’s also not really a pure Catalan, it’s a Slav defense with g3 instead of Nc3 which allows the London setup. Because g3 allows this Bf5, most players who know Catalan theory avoid this setup entirely. I think he mentions this in the video so not a lot of top level games enter these lines to begin with.

[@bluefin.64]

@@pringle1957 I admit the differences between what gets called a g3 Slav, a g3 QGD, or a Catalan are lost on me. I don't even know if you can transpose to a Catalan from a Slav. Catalans always seem to start with 2...e6. Anyway, I may have read too much into what Stjepan said and played, especially given the situation.