In the last post, we looked at the most natural human responses to Dragon’s stunning 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.f4 Bg7 5.Qd2!? In this post we look at the way the engines counter this idea… and it’s equally stunning!  

I’ve been continuing my investigation of the Pirc together with Dragon 3.3. It’s slow progress because Dragon keeps on digging up exciting new ideas which I can’t resist analysing! In the next couple of posts, we stop in amazement to look at a virtually unknown idea in the Austrian Attack with some subtle and venomous points!

Some more general Pirc instruction: the difference between …c6 and ..a6 systems and a useful technique to develop better understanding of your openings.

An examination of an endgame arising from a sharp line of the Pirc. Grandmaster Matthew Sadler tries to hold the black side of the endgame against the Leela chess engine.

This article supplements a series of videos about Stockfish’s opening repertoire which appeared on the “Silicon Road to Chess Improvement” YouTube site (https://www.youtube.com/c/SiliconRoadChess). This article provides an overview of Stockfish’s main openings; for all the detail and many surprises(!) take a look at the video series!