€69.90
Opening Developments in Yekaterinburg
One of the most interesting aspects of a tournament at the highest level is the plethora of new and creative opening ideas displayed by each player. Each of the eight candidates spent months preparing their repertoires and created specific ideas for one another, while not being afraid to show their best analytical work.
The first part of my reflection focusses on opening ideas from the first half of the tournament (Rounds 1-7), especially ones by Giri and Caruana because these two unleashed several remarkable ideas in their games. These ideas have contributed significantly to the development of theory in the Catalan, Classical Slav, and 6…Bc5 Ruy Lopez in particular. As we will see in our analysis of the games below, some of these ideas are strong enough to completely overwrite past conclusions from opening theory.