Winning with the Slow (but Venomous!) Italian

An Easy-to-Grasp Chess Opening for White

Georgios Souleidis

• Publisher: New in Chess
• eBook ISBN:
  9789056916756
• Year: 2017

One of the best and most popular ways to meet White’s first move 1.e4 remains the tried and tested 1…e5. After this move the majority of games steer for the Ruy Lopez. A perfectly fine choice for White, but one that requires you to study the countless different setups and follow the continuously evolving theory in that opening.

Karsten Müller and Georgios Souleidis present an alternative that is ideal for the average club player: a complete repertoire for White in the Italian Opening. This modern version of the age-old ‘Giuoco Piano’, with the innocent looking pawn moves c3 and d3, is not only popular at club level, but is also regularly adopted by many strong Grandmasters including the very best, such as Magnus Carlsen and Anish Giri.

The set-up is easy to learn and understand, and theoretical novelties are much less important than the sound principles it is based on, such as the pawn push d3-d4 or bringing the b1 knight over to the kingside and into the attack.

The Slow Italian may look innocent, but is actually full of venom, because White has a lot of options to create aggressive play by making natural looking moves with his pieces. Müller and Souleidis have created a solid weapon that every amateur chess player will delight in playing. With a foreword by Anish Giri.

Table of contents

• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Explanation of symbols
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• Concept of the book
• Chapter 1. Third move sidelines
• Chapter 2. Italian fourth move sidelines
• Chapter 3. Two Knights without …Bc5
• Chapter 4. Black plays …d7-d5
• Chapter 5. Minor black alternatives
• Chapter 6. The knight transfer to g6
• Chapter 7. Black plays …Nh5
• Chapter 8. Black plays …Be6
• Chapter 9. White alternatives
• Chapter 10. Black repertoires
• Chapter 11. Strategy
• Chapter 12. Typical endgames
• Chapter 13. Tactical exercises
• Chapter 14. Solutions
• Bibliography
• Index of Games