Apr 13, 2010

Sicilian 101: Najdorf Poisoned Pawn

The Najdorf Poisoned Pawn is one of the great openings in chess.  If for no other reason, love it because Fischer and Kasparov did.  8.Qd3 followed by f5 is not new; it's been around for about 50 years.  But it's become fashionable of late.  Compare these lines with 8.Qd2 followed by the e5 push, which was supposed to sound the death knell for Black...but didn't.  And both Black and White can lament the opening of  a new deep branch of theory in the Poisoned Pawn--the opening is already rarely seen anywhere (in a recognizable form) but at very high levels. 

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