Beating the Hedgehog System

Using a Space Advantage in the Chess Opening

Hanna Ivan-Gal, Laszlo Hazai

• Publisher: New in Chess
• eBook ISBN:
  9789493257740
• Year: 2023

Do you struggle to score against the Hedgehog and find it difficult to break the Black fortress? This opening manual, which could double as a positional middlegame manual, will show you how White can use a space advantage in this chess opening with maximum results.

The Hedgehog System, a personal favourite of many club players, is important to understand for all White players as the positions are near-universal. They can arise from the English Opening, the Nimzo-Indian and Queen’s Indian Defences and the Sicilian Opening. The Hedgehog is a flexible defence as Black can undermine your centre with …b6-b5 or …d6-d5. Black can attack your kingside dark squares with a queen-and-bishop battery or go after your king by launching the g-pawn.

That’s why Beating The Hedgehog System focuses on the most airtight variations, taking the sting out of Black’s counterplay and making White’s space advantage count. You will learn the general strategies but also essential features such as:

· how to get the ideal queenside formation versus the Hedgehog

· how to use x-rays and little tactics to stop Black’s …d6-d5 break

· how to provoke Black’s e-pawn to move to e5

· when to push your a-pawn to the fourth rank… and when to hold it back

Included are fifteen model games and thirty strategy and tactics exercises to fine-tune your feel for this Opening. This book has been adapted from the MoveTrainer® and video Chessable course with the same name.

Table of contents

• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Explanation of symbols
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The early 10...♘bd7
• Chapter 2 12.a3 Black alternatives
• Chapter 3 12.a3 ♘bd7 13.b4 ♖ac8
• Chapter 4 12.♖fd1 Black alternatives
• Chapter 5 12.♖fd1 ♕c7 13.♖ac1 ♖ac8 14.a3 ♕b8 15.b4 ♖fe8
• Chapter 6 Model Games
• Chapter 7 Exercises
• Chapter 8 Solutions
• Index of variations
• Index of names