Playing the Grunfeld

The Grünfeld Defense is known for being one of Black's best and most challenging responses to 1.d4, and has long been a favorite choice of elite players, including Kasparov, Svidler, Caruana, Vachier-Lagrave and many more. However, as with many openings, it can be difficult to navigate the ever-expanding jungle of games and theory.

Playing Grünfeld offers an ideal solution for practical players. Alexey Kovalchuk is a young Russian talent with expert knowledge of Grünfeld, and in this book he shares his best ideas for forming a complete, coherent and combative repertoire for the black side. In addition to theoretical soundness, efforts have been made to avoid variations that lead to forced tables, as well as those in which Black allows her king to be attacked at an early stage.

Alexey Kovalchuk is a Russian player whose rating reached 2445 Elo in recent years, so he can be considered an "IM without rules". In addition to winning the Rostov Championship and many other tournaments, he is a theorist who works as a second for strong grandmasters.