Carlsen's Neo-Møller

The white players won't like Neo-Møller very much!

The Ruy Lopez is one of the most important chess openings, very popular among amateurs and masters alike. Black players allowing the main lines of the Ruy Lopez are generally doomed to passivity, defending a slightly worse (though solid) position while white decides to continue this situation.

World champion Magnus Carlsen does not like passivity. He likes active, unconventional systems that allow him to take command and pressure his opponent from the start.

That's why Magnus Carlsen revolutionized the old Møller Attack, one of the sharpest and most uncompromising variations against the Ruy Lopez. So far largely ignored and unexplored by most players, Carlsen's new approach allows Black to break free early and start giving White a hard time.

FIDE master Ioannis Simeonidis is the first to research this system, cover it in detail and make it easy to understand for club players. He called it Neo-Møller. Simeonidis has made many exciting discoveries, introduced many new ideas and proved that it is a reliable and playable system.

Since the Neo-Møller is a very early deviation from the main lines, it is easy for Black to put it on the board and push the opponents out of their comfort zone. Simeonidis has created a compact, accessible and inspiring book. One thing seems certain: the white players of Ruy Lopez will not like the Neo-Møller very much!

Ioannis Simeonidis (1975) is a Greek FIDE master and FIDE coach. He is a contributor to the New In Chess Yearbook, the world's leading chess opening news publication. Simeonidis is the inventor of a new system recently in Sicily (the line 2.Cc3 d6 3.d4 ? ), also played by Magnus Carlsen.