London System: Typical plans for White and Black

[Music] hi hello everybody this is international master sav given here and today we're going to discuss the london system opening so basically the london system is an extremely popular opening especially i believe in club levels but actually in recent years it also has become a very much popular on grandmaster level even world champion magnus carlsen played it on more than one occasion in long games so definitely this opening in in the last years has become from a kind of sideline of the d4 openings to a serious main line so in this video i'm going to present some typical ideas for white as well as for black regarding the london system which would help you to play this system with success so first thing i wanted to discuss is the topic of move orders so after the first move d4 which is by far the most popular way to reach the london system let's suppose white is playing a black is playing the move knight f6 white plays knight f3 and now there is a very principal choice for black so if black is a king's indian player or a grunfeld player or maybe even a opening such as the benoni or the volga gambit he is most likely to play the move pawn to g6 here and in this case after bishop f4 bishop g7 e3 let's say castles the these are all very typical london system moves provide a lot of players in the white species as i see so a lot of times they automatically like to place their white squared bishop onto the d3 square just automatically because they do so if black plays the move e6 on the next on the second move sorry uh but we say that in this pawn structure with the pawns being on g6 and h7 the bishop on d3 is really not that much amazing as it was with the other pawn structure so really when black plays g6 you should not put your bishop on d3 which is a bit block by black spawns on g6 and h7 and if the positional point of view of this move is not convincing you this move bishop district also might run into some tactical problems illustrated but by this line let's say black is playing this pawn to d6 by the way please pay attention that the move d5 is also always possible for black but to my eyes it is slightly more risky for black because now he is not in control over the e5 square which could be used by the white's pieces especially the knight and also the move d5 keeps this bishop very active on this diagonal and not trying to block it the move d6 actually kind of a bit limiting the movements of this bishop on f4 and also controlling the square on e5 which is very crucial and now after let's say castles knight c6 pawn to c3 rook e8 if white is playing a bit naively with a typical move for the london system a3 he might suddenly understand that after the move e5 he is going to lose a piece because the bishop f4 is under attack and next move black will fork the bishop and the knight on f3 and it's just losing for white so what i'm trying to say is going back to the move number four whenever the black bishop lands on g7 and the pawn structure is more of a king's indian position you should in general put your bishop on e2 where it's not blocked by the enemy g6 and h7 pawns and also when the bishop on e2 there are no double attacks regarding the pawn coming to e4 so you also have no problems there now second thing uh regarding move orders is the flexibility of the knight sort of the light squared bishop on f1 so if we take it once once again a typical london system position or move order from the opening d4 d5 knight f3 knight f6 bishop f4 and now let's say black is playing in the move pawn to e6 white will play e3 now after the typical move c5 pawn to c3 knight to c6 once again many players would play the move bishop to d3 automatically here now this is not a bad move at all bishop d3 is a typical good square for the bishop on the london system now if you sit in this pawn structure with the pawn not being on g6 this bishop actually doing a very good job on this diagonal but at the same time i would suggest you to be slightly flexible or to try to be flexible with the bishop on f1 because the square on d3 is a good square for the bishop but it's not the only good square which this bishop might have but the knight on b1 if we think about it in 99 percent of the time it will go to d2 anyways so we might as well start off with a move knight d2 kind of keeping the bishop on f1 on f where it is for the time being and after let's say the move bishop to d6 bishop g3 castles here of course white might as well play bishop d3 which is by far the most common move in this position but he might also consider playing this move bishop to b5 now this move is only possible if white has kept the bishop on f1 flexible and the idea is to put some pressure on the knight on c6 perhaps doubling black spawns actually the move bishop b5 became extremely popular on grand master games one of the ideas being that if black is playing a bit carelessly for example pawn to a6 white can take knight on c6 pawn takes bishop and now this move queen a4 with a simple attack against the pawn on c6 actually creates a bit of an awkward questions for black to solve because there is no really good way to defend this pawn right now if black is playing a move like queen to c7 it's just pinning his own bishop so white can simply take the pawn on c5 and black cannot recapture because then he will lose the queen also the move bishop b7 might look natural to defend upon c6 but now comes the real nice tactical point here for white he can actually take the bishop on d6 and now play the very clever move queen to a3 that's a very nice square for the queen putting pressure on the c5 pawn while also pinning it against the queen and now if black tries to defend it with knight d7 white can simply bring one more piece to attack the pawn on c5 and because this spawn is pinned essentially black has no way to defend it and white will win a pawn so this is just one illustrative variation which was actually occurred in quite a few games in practice so a lot of black players actually fell for this small trap and that's a good point for not putting the bishop on d3 automatically now after we understood some details about the move orders for white let's try to figure out what we should be a bit careful about when playing with the white pieces well in the london system one of the main weaknesses that white creates himself almost straight out of the first moves is the weakness of the pawn on b2 so once the bishop on c1 is developed the pawn on b2 remains unprotected and many black players would try to attack the spawn or put pressure on it straight away so let's put some principles regarding the defense of the opponent b2 so if for example in this position black plays move pawn to c5 attacking white center with the idea to play queen to b6 on the next move obviously we don't want to give up the control over the d4 square so we have to reinforce this pawn so the move e3 is the most sensible move now black plays queen to b6 we see that the queen is attacking the opponent v2 and now comes the big question how exactly do we want to protect the pawn on b2 so basically uh in this specific case actually the the most clever thing that we can do is to actually to sacrifice this spawn for the sake of fast development because if we try to defend the spawn passively would move late queen to c1 we see that now the queen is a bit passive on c1 we don't really want to make such a move also the move pawn to b3 is a bit weakening now we see all of those weak squares around the white's position also not too convincing so now comes a very important concept as white here he actually sacrificed the pawn on b2 by the means of the move knight to a3 now this is a bit of a surprising move we don't usually want to put our knights on the edge of the board but it actually appears that from a3 the knight not only threatening to play the knight to b5 and later on perhaps to c7 but also in some positions the move knight to c4 with the attack on the queen on b6 might also be quite annoying now the big question is what happens if black actually takes the challenge and grabs the opponent b2 so now we play the knight to b5 threatening knight c7 check in itself not an easy threat to deal with if black plays knight to a6 which would be the most natural response just kind of covering the square on c7 now actually white has one very beautiful winning move here you might try want to try to find it yourself so you can try to stop the video and figure it out so the move is quite surprisingly simply the move pawn to a3 so the move a3 simply takes away the b4 square from the queen and also in some cases the a3 square from the queen and white simply wants to trap the queen of next move with the move rook b1 or first bishop c4 and then rook b1 and the queen is just lost on b2 that's why black might try here the move knight to d5 so the the difference is that the knight on d5 might also have some options of penetrating on c3 or attacking the bishop on f4 but in this case white actually has a different approach but equally strong just to play the move rook to b1 forcing the move queen takes a2 and now playing the clever move rook to a back to a1 basically once again forcing the queen onto b2 of course if white wishes he has a draw in his hands but actually much better would be to play the move bishop to c4 and now black has huge tactical problems the immediate threats being bishop takes knight followed by knight c7 check but also the move rook b1 has now become a huge threat now that the queen cannot retreat to the a2 square and this position is almost lost for black even though at the moment he is two pawns up so um if you want more details about this specific position i suggest you to maybe try to analyze it a bit with an engine i can assure you that it's very promising for white so this is about the immediate queen to b6 it's usually not a good idea for black to immediately attack the pawn on b2 but if black delays the move queen to b6 let's take this position as an example let's say black starts off with a move knight to c6 normal developing move and only after white reinforces his center with the typical c3 only now black plays the move queen to b6 now after he is slightly more developed than before so in this case white might consider some sharp options with knight a3 but now that white already played the move pawn to c3 he has a much more simple way to deal with the attack on the pawn on b2 namely the move queen to b3 now of course it's not to everybody's taste to exchange the queens so early in the game but i can say that if black exchanging the bishop and the queens right now with the move queen takes b3 this is actually leading to a favorable transformation of pawn structure for white after 8xb3 because here the the open file for the rook on a1 was opened and in general i'd like to not achieve too much with the second with this exchange because the double pawns on the b file are not easily attacked by the black pieces so this is also not at all a problem for white so whenever the pawn is already on c3 so all of the attacks on the pawn on b2 are very comfortably met with the move queen to b3 and if the pawn is still not on c3 usually white will have to sacrifice the opponent b2 when it gets under attack great um now i won't leave the black players of the on the black side of the london system without anything so as a weapon for the black players or like against the london system i might recommend this move order knight f6 93 g6 now i usually play the gruntful defense as black so for me this move order with g6 is quite comfortable but it might be a problem for players who play second move like openings such as queens can be declined or the name so indian openings so for these players i would suggest try finding some other weapon but just for illustration after the move bishop f4 bishop g7 pawn to e3 short castle let's say white is playing the typical h3 move here just giving the bishop on f4 a retreating square on h2 very typical london system move we already know that the move bishop d3 is not recommended for right here because the of the reasons mentioned before so let's say pawn to a3 we want to play the pawn to d6 to limit the movements of the white species and after bishop e2 pawn to c5 that's a very important counter attack against the white center we want to put white spr pawn center under a bit of pressure and at the same time we release the queen for moving to the b6 square when needed now white will probably play the move pawn to c3 to bolster the control over the d4 square now as we already know if black plays the move queen to b6 right now with our knowledge we can know that it's very comfortably met with queen to b3 when black does not necessarily achieve anything significant so the move i suggest here for black is a bit clever move bishop to e6 so basically this move might look a bit strange blocking the pawn on e7 but the point is quite simple to control this diagonal and especially the square on b3 so if for example now white goes with the normal development let's say castles now black can play the move queen to b6 only with now white not having the option of defending the pawn on b2 with the move queen to b3 so actually white has to make a small concession here basically this concession might be the move pawn to b3 after which the pawn on c3 is a bit loose and black can try to attack it with moves such as knight e4 or knight d5 even the move queen c2 is possible but you see that the queen on c2 is also not quite comfortable for white it might get hit with the bishop coming on f5 at some point or with the rook coming on c8 at some point and attacking it over the c file so this is also a small achievement for black and this is a kind of a tricky system for white to face so basically of course i'm not suggesting black is winning here or not even close but it is something that might take the white players out of their conf comfort zone when they play the london system so i i hoped you learned something for the example shown aboard the london system is and will continue to be a very popular opening system especially in club levels in blitz games so i think for every chess active chess player it's a very important thing to have some idea about this opening and i hope this video helped you to understand some of the main ideas and move orders of this opening so thank you very much for watching see you next time bye

Channel: Remote Chess Academy

Views: 100,508

Keywords: chess, chess opening, london system, london chess opening, opening variations, typical ideas, typical plans, magnus carlsen, world champion, asaf givon, igor smirnov, white, black, strategy, middlegame plans, opening principles

Id: -3CscwnmCOQ

Length: 22min 10sec (1330 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 28 2017