Every Russian Shoolboy Knows
Revolution Revisited - Part 2: The Sveshnikov
The initial shock and disbelief of seeing Black ruin his position out of the opening moves has long worn off. Already for decades the Sveshnikov has been accepted as a legitimate opening. Today's efforts are mainly focused on what Kasparov calls a "Quiet Strategy" of 9.Nd5 Be7 10.Bxf6. White neglects a chance to inflict further damage to Black's pawn structure by doubling his pawns on f6, and, instead, focuses on keeping control over the d5-square, while slowing down Black's counterplay with f7-f5. Kasparov devotes quite a bit of attention to this plan. He shows a lot of games, including his own against Lautier, Moscow Olympiad, 1994, where the idea of pushing the h-pawn forward was introduced. Newer games I show in the video do not set new directions. White is trying to dig a little deeper looking to pose some practical problems. Caruana's plan with c2-c4 is one promising idea, although Black seems to hold his own.