June 8, 2025
Matthew Sadler
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After a little digression highlighting games from the wonderful 3rd Cambridge Invitational, it’s time to dive further into my obsession with the …c4 plan in Trompovsky / Torre Attack positions and to examine an all-in plan of counterplay for Black! We start here 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 d5 3.Nd2 Nbd7 4.Ngf3 h6 5.Bh4 e6 6.e3 c5…
June 6, 2025
Matthew Sadler
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Undoubtedly one of the most dramatic games of the final round was British IM Brandon Clarke’s win against Indian IM Siva Mahadevan who had impressed everyone at the tournament with his strong play. White needed just a draw for a GM norm but he was faced with an opponent who put the whole board on…
June 1, 2025
Matthew Sadler
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In my last blog post, we cast our minds into the nightmare of endgames future and saw some evidence that we need to play decisively as Black in the middlegame and not allow ourselves to drift into a passive situation. Just in case we still aren’t totally convinced, it’s also instructive to look at the…
May 26, 2025
Matthew Sadler
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This blog post continues my slight obsession with the intricacies of the …c4 move in a Trompovsky / Torre Attack structure. This time we focus on one of the engine’s best lines for Black: 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 d5 3.Nd2 Nbd7 4.Ngf3 h6 5.Bh4 e6 6.e3 c5 7.Bd3 Be7 8.c3 0–0 9.0–0 and now instead of…
May 23, 2025
Matthew Sadler
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How much should you understand and how much should you know? It’s the eternal question of opening preparation! Ideally, you should understand everything and thus need to know nothing. Unfortunately, you need to know something before you can understand. So you first need to know, then understand, and then you should forget what you know…