Caro-Kann Defense | Exchange Variation ⎸Chess Openings | IM Alex Astaneh

hi guys it's alex here and in this video we're going to be taking a look at one of the more trendy variations in the carol can these days which is the exchange variation so let's put that on the board e4 c6 d4 d5 we have our typical position and here white captures the pawn hence the name of the exchange variation black shouldn't capture back with the queen because the queen here would be vulnerable and of course we just played the move c6 to support our pawn so let's capture back with the pawn now at first sight this seems like quite a boring way for white to play but in fact there's a little bit more poison in white's uh setup than at first appears so if you don't know how to react against the exchange variation you can get into a problematic position quite quickly white follows up with the move bishop d3 and here my recommendation is to move knight to c6 which is the main choice putting pressure on d4 and immediately asking white how exactly he's going to defend it if white starts to defend with moves like knight f3 then black can already pin the knight and this in general is a good achievement for black against the exchange because one of the dangers for black is that he would end up let's say in a position like this and now black plays pawn to e6 that he would end up with this bishop inside of the pawn chain so because of this white tends to prefer to play c3 and support the uh the pawn in this way defend the pawn in this way and sometimes even put the knight on e2 in order to make it as difficult as possible for what for black to solve the problem of this bishop on c8 because right now if you imagine the bishop cannot go to f5 because it could be captured and it cannot go to g4 because it could once again be captured so a lot of white strategy revolves around making it difficult for black to develop this bishop and so black needs to be a little bit careful in this respect here black plays the move knight to f6 and now we are going to talk mainly about the move bishop to f4 this is the main line but we can also talk about two other possibilities the first we've already mentioned knight f3 black now can play bishop g4 and get a good game generally speaking once you're able to play bishop g4 and then having stepped your bishop out of the pawn chain lock your pawn chain like this and continue your development in general black's position is perfectly playable and quite close to equality this is the first possibility knight f3 another possibility would be for white to play the move h3 this is quite a tricky and not so uncommon move so we should know how to respond against it again the inexperienced black player may have problems find themselves with serious problems to develop this bishop because now they see that f5 is taken by the white bishop and g4 is taken by the queen and the pawn and so uh many black players here will play the move pawn to e6 white will continue with knight f3 they'll develop their bishop or perhaps white will even first play bishop f4 they'll develop their bishop we'll capture these bishops queen takes d6 white now goes knight f3 something along these lines and the problem is that we can see that white's advantage is clear because white's bishop is much stronger than black's bishop so how do we solve this problem well let's go back if white plays h3 we need to know another important point which is that we can actually play the move pawn to g6 and here after knight f3 either immediately or sometimes a move or two later we can play the move bishop to f5 and what's very important to know is that here we're threatening to exchange the bishops and if white captures many players are a little bit concerned about doubling their pawns like this but usually doubled pawns when you capture towards the center are not so bad and in this case this structure is perfectly good for black because black will at some point play e6 all his pawns will be very solid and black will have a vice like grip on this e4 square which is quite useful if white for example wanted to challenge a knight that is placed on this e4 square he would have to move his own knight and pushed upon f3 and now we see that white having committed the move upon h3 if he puts later on a pawn on f3 he would create too many weaknesses on the dark squares so therefore against these lines with h3 it makes a lot of sense for black to offer to place his bishop on f5 and offer this exchange unafraid about the double pawn so this is very important and please keep that in mind if your opponent plays h3 now we're going to look at the flexible and main move for white which is bishop to f4 here white controls the e5 square which is useful because in some situations black himself will play e5 and after this exchange on the one hand black has an isolated queen's pawn but on the other hand that's not such a bad thing iqp positions can be played from both sides and black has a little bit more central control with him being the only side that would have a pawn in the four center squares of the board therefore the move bishop to f4 can be quite a useful move for white to just mitigate against these e5 possibilities now however because h3 hasn't been played black takes the opportunity to develop his bishop we have to be careful that we don't allow um you know perfect development by white for example h3 covering g4 and then if we try these g6 ideas too late white may aim for a setup like this where he controls the break e5 and he stops us from playing bishop f5 because with the queen and the bishop like this uh white could capture twice you know bishop takes pawn takes and now captured the pawn on f5 so we have to be a little bit careful in terms of how many moves we allow white to have so that we don't once again find ourselves with problems with this bishop on c8 so we must be careful as we have seen we must be very careful of not giving white too many moves too many opportunities to get a clamp on the position and to make it difficult for us to develop our light squared bishop so we should play bishop g4 immediately now if white plays the move pawn to f3 he takes away the square for his knight and he gives himself some dark squared weaknesses so in general this is one way that white could proceed but it's not uh considered to be best instead white typically plays the move queen to b3 and tries to take advantage of the fact that the bishop no longer protects the b7 pawn here black actually has a couple of very interesting moves and in the pgn you'll find mentioned the move pawn to e5 which is really a crazy move but i very nearly recommended this move and for high progressive players this way of playing is quite good and if you actually look at the specifics actually either queen takes b7 or pawn takes e5 black has good answers against all of these moves so really a very crazy looking and almost taboo move but the logic behind it in part is the fact that white's king is not very well developed black has three minor pieces developed white only has two minor pieces developed and the queen can be a target at times so it it makes some sense from this perspective to crack open the position and temporarily sacrifice a pawn however i'm gonna recommend just the calm move which is to defend the b7 pawn black sometimes defends it via c8 but i really like to defend it via d7 and we'll see why now in a second with the bishop on g4 white cannot play the move knight f3 because we would simply capture the knight and then this structure would be very bad for white so white has to figure out how to continue his development so he plays the move knight d2 in order to prepare knight f3 on the next move we play e6 having achieved uh what we wanted which is to get the bishop out of the pawn chain and then put the pawn on e6 only after doing so white continues with his plan knight gf3 and here black could capture the knight um basically figuring that this bishop here can sometimes be harassed with ideas like h3 or the knight placing on e5 and then g4 but in general although bishop takes f3 is an okay move i think that immediately giving the bishop pair is not necessary so here i really like the move bishop to d6 and this is why i like queen d7 because in the lines with the queen on c8 the bishop cannot be put to d6 as the queen would not defend it so bishop d6 is a very desirable move for black of course because the bishop on f8 is less active than the bishop on f4 and e7 is not as active as square as d6 however it seems to once again be a taboo move because the queen is defending the bishop and the pawn so the question is can white not play bishop takes d6 queen takes d6 and now capture the pawn well let's take a very quick look um but we will say that the main move here for white is the castle the reason is because if white captures this pawn on b7 it's okay it can be played but black generates a lot of counter play with rook b8 after queen a6 black would simply castle and the pressure on b2 is very irritating for white in fact the main line continues castle rook b6 queen a3 and after queen takes a3 pawn takes a3 black captures here and plays the move rook to c8 and in this position white's structure is not very good and we can see also the pawn on c3 being very weak it's true that black is for now uh down a pawn but it does not matter so much given the problems in the queen side and black's queen side activity this is why usually the white player doesn't capture the pawn on b7 again i've only shown one of the lines so if you want to investigate further and the possibilities then you can set up the position for example independently in a board and i always like to sometimes set up the position think about it a bit uh myself and what i would do what are the human moves and then also check with the computer and see what my thoughts versus the computer thoughts as well as the uh what moves have been played in the database um you know how how these how all of these these possibilities these moves these ideas align so i certainly would always encourage no matter what opening books you have or resources i would always encourage if you have some time to do some independent study in the openings that you play so let's go back to the position now so we just took a look at queen takes b7 and why that's not a problem for us so white most of the time castles kingside instead now we're going to end our analysis here after the move kingside castle because overall we've achieved our major objectives in the opening which is perhaps the biggest point is to get this bishop out of the pawn chain before you close off the structure in the center with the pawn move to e6 using some tactical points uh being aware of the possibility to sacrifice b7 for fast development and for counter play also being aware of this idea of in some variations putting the pawn on g6 and developing your bishop via f5 if white closes off the possibilities of putting your bishop on g4 in this final position that we have here white can certainly continue to play and does play and typically the two moves that white goes for is for control of this e5 square which makes sense because if we look at it from a semi-open files perspective black has the semi-open c file but white has the semi-open e file by that i mean that white has no pawn on the e file while black does and white black rather has no pawn on the c file while white does so white has a better chance of fighting for control of this e5 square because he can put a rook on e1 either the a-rook or the e-rook and control the e5 square and he can play for that important central square this is a very common way of continuing the position black here has many different possibilities one idea that i quite like is to play the knight to e7 you have to of course be careful that at no moment in time the pawn can be captured under good conditions but if you play the move knight to e7 the idea that i like is that after white puts his knight on e5 you will put your bishop back to f5 and you will challenge this very very strong bishop and if you could get a position let's say like bishops come off the board and you just make sure that this pawn you have to check the specifics of course this is just an idea rather than specific moves but if you can let's say create a position like this or get a position with the queen on e7 or with the pawn on b6 then once you've exchanged these light squared bishops the position becomes extremely equal admittedly it's a little bit boring it's a little bit hard to win this position if you want more aggressive tries you can try ideas like this move e5 that i mentioned earlier in the video that i nearly recommended but again i for one am the kind of player who if i see a line that i feel offers equality for black then i always think the onus is on white to prove that um that he has more than equality black from a theoretical perspective should be quite happy when he finds an equal position and that many times what you'll find in your games is that the white player wants to avoid this even more than you do so they play something more adventurous and they do sort of the the gambling for you if that makes sense hopefully this has given you some weapons to fight against the exchange variation of the karo khan very popular at the club level and in recent years extremely popular at the master level so it's one to know i've been alex for chess factor hope you've enjoyed the video and i'll see you in the next one

Channel: Chessfactor

Views: 36,735

Keywords: caro-kann defense, caro-kann defence, caro kann, caro kann theory, chess theory caro kann, best opening for black, opening against e4, how to play the caro kann, chess, chess openings, chess opening theory, play the caro-kann, chessfactor, chess opening for black, chess factor, caro kann defense, caro-kann exchange variation, chess education, chess tutorial, chess channel, best chess channel, chess learning, best chess openings, caro-kann for beginners, exchange variation

Id: oif3zWWJm1k

Length: 15min 51sec (951 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 30 2020