The Grünfeld Defence is well known to be one of Black’s best and most challenging responses to 1.d4, and has long been a favourite choice of elite players including Kasparov, Svidler, Caruana, Vachier-Lagrave and many more. As with many openings, however, it can be difficult to navigate the ever-expanding jungle of games and theory.

Opening Repertoire

The Grünfeld Defence is is a combative reply to 1 d4 which has been favoured by many world champions including those two legends of the game, Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov. It is an opening in the hypermodern style, in that Black generally allows White to build a strong centre early on in the expectation of being able to undermine it in the middlegame play.

A Complete Repertoire for Black

This book is a completely new edition of the original The Safest Grünfeld of 2011. I rechecked all the lines and changed my recommendations according to latest developments of theory and my new understanding.

Especially the anti-Grünfeld chapters are basically new. In my opinion top players have long lost hope to find advantage in the main lines and try early deviations. Anand chose 3.f3 against Gelfand and 5.Bd2 against Carlsen. So I devoted special attention to the Sämish approach with two different propositions. 3...Nc6 is less studied and probably more rewarding from a practical standpoint, while 3...d5 is in perfect theoretical shape, but requires more memorization.

A Cutting-Edge Repertoire for White based on 3.f3

The idea is as clever and original as its inventor. With 3.f3 (after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6), Alexander Alekhine designed a promising strategy to take Grünfeld players out of their comfort zone.Alekhine’s find was a great idea in the days of the fourth World Champion and it still is. In fact, its recent revival has opened up a new chapter in chess opening theory. Top players like Vishy Anand and Levon Aronian have used it with success.

by David Vigorito

Chess Developments is a brand new series providing state-of-the-art openings coverage. Chess Developments focuses on the current trends - concentrating on critical lines, theoretical novelties and powerful new ideas. It offers players of all levels the opportunity to keep up-to-date with current opening theory whilst also expanding and improving their repertoires.

Yaroslav Zherebukh was born in July 1993 in Lviv, Ukraine. He earned the Grandmaster title in January of 2009 at 15.5 years of age. In 2011 Yaro participated in the World Cup where he was seeded 97 th out of 128 contestants. He won his first three matches against Pavel Eljanov, Ruben Felgaer and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov before losing to David Navara. In 2013 he moved to the United States shifting his focus to coaching and academics.