The Ruy Lopez Breyer Variation

The Spanish opening is often called the queen of openings. If you master this opening, you understand a lot about chess. One of the most popular systems in the Spanish opening is the Breyer variation, in which Black withdraws his already developed knight from c6 to b8 to replace it via d7 on better squares. The Hungarian chess master Gyula Breyer recommended this move in 1911 but he was far ahead of his time with this idea. It took decades before the potential of this move was realized, but now the Breyer variation, which begins with 9...Nb8, is part of the repertoire of many top players, including the last four world champions Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand and Carlsen. In this DVD, Pavel Eljanov, one of the greatest experts on the Breyer variation, shows all the important lines of this system. In 14 videos, he gives an overview of the current state of the theory. The front row player shows the moves and explains the ideas behind them while evaluating the positions that arise from Black's perspective and with an eye on the middlegame that lies ahead.