Introduction to the Catalan
The Catalan is a very effective, very solid, yet fighting opening for white you can play against anything black does!
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The Catalan is a wonderful "all-round" opening to add to your repertoire, and it makes your life so much simpler. It can be played against anything, literally, and that means that in your games with white, you know for sure what type of position you will have on the board.
That makes preparation a treat! It avoids the QGD, the QID, the Nimzo, etc., which reduces the amount of theory you have to go through as a d4 player by about 50%.
It's a fighting opening, but a complex, strategic fighting opening. In the Catalan you don't go for a brute blitzkrieg on the black king, instead you put tremendous pressure on black's center and queenside, trying to squeeze minor advantages and provoke mistakes.
The main branching of the Catalan is the open and the closed Catalan. Open positions occur when black takes white's c4 pawn, which white has offered as a gambit. Those branch out into 9 main variations (depending on what black plays). The other option, the closed Catalan, occurs if black simply develops his kingside instead of winning the c4 pawn.
In this series, we are going to be going over both. In total, it's going to be 12 videos. One on the Closed Catalan, 9 on the open lines, one video on early Bb4+ lines for black, and one on Qa4+ lines for white which avoid most main line theory. It's going to be a looong series!
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