Every Russian Schoolboy Knows
Revolution Revisited - Part 7: The Sicilian Labyrinths
Back to the Najdorf, and now it's 6.Bg5 turn. Big time theory from the 1970's onward, with contributions from the best players of the era: Fischer, Spassky, Tal and others. After some 20 years of heavy theoretical research and lots of practical application, the consensus was reached that Black can hold his own in the Poisoned Pawn Variation. Garry brings us up to date with those lines, but in the last ten years or so there has been a renewed interest in the sharp e4-e5 push which was previously condemned by theory. Some efforts of Gashimov and Radjabov gained notoriety, and then Anand himself weighed in from both sides of the board. Strangely, but it is now Black who's looking for improvements. One of them is to insert the move 7...h6, which may or may not be useful for a regular treatment of the Poisoned Pawn, but it also gives White an additional option of circling that bishop around to f2. The biggest names in today's chess get involved in this, so stay sharp!