{"product_id":"understanding-before-moving-3-part-2-sicilian-structures-taimanov-kan-richter-rauzer-9789464201109","title":"Understanding Before Moving 3 - Part 2: Sicilian Structures - Taimanov - Kan - Richter Rauzer","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): Grooten\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: Thinkers Publishing\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: Thinkers Publishing\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: Chess\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Grooten's clear style, the many-arrowed diagrams and the fine choice of illustrative games should enable the hard-working club player to quickly further their understanding of these very important Sicilian lines and typical positions.\" --\u003ci\u003eChess\u003c\/i\u003e, April issue 2021.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBefore you lies the second volume in a trilogy about the Sicilian Defense. The first volume dealt with the Najdorf and Scheveningen variations, and it is now time to pay attention to three other extremely popular systems: the Taimanov, Kan and Richter-Rauzer variations. After careful consideration within the Thinkers Publis--hing team, we decided that it made sense to group these variations together. In particular, the first two are closely related and share the feature that, in both cases, Black plays ...\u003cb\u003ee7-e6\u003c\/b\u003e and ...\u003cb\u003ea7-a6\u003c\/b\u003e at an early stage. They typically have the idea of retaining more options for their king's bishop by postponing ...\u003cb\u003ed7-d6\u003c\/b\u003e (or even omitting it entirely.) The bishop may go to \u003cb\u003eb4\u003c\/b\u003e or \u003cb\u003ec5\u003c\/b\u003e in different lines. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Richter-Rauzer is, in theory, just one of the possible developments from a Classical Sicilian. We have already dealt with a few games that started with the Classical and where Black shortly played ...\u003cb\u003ee7-e6\u003c\/b\u003e; and \u003cb\u003e6\u003c\/b\u003e.B\u003cb\u003ec4\u003c\/b\u003e (the Sozin variation) was rightly treated within the Scheveningen pages. However, it is clear that White's most po-pular counter, the Richter-Rauzer variation (\u003cb\u003e6\u003c\/b\u003e.B\u003cb\u003eg5\u003c\/b\u003e) deserves separate attention. While looking at the variation structure for the Kan and Taimanov and deciding on which model games to use, I noticed a lot of possible transitions to the 'Hedgehog' structure, shown on the right. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe key features are white pawns on\u003cb\u003e e4 \u003c\/b\u003eand \u003cb\u003ec4, \u003c\/b\u003e and at least four black pawns on \u003cb\u003ea6, b6, d6 \u003c\/b\u003eand \u003cb\u003ee6.\u003c\/b\u003e This structure is ideally suited to the task of playing for a win as Black, because of the very complicated middlegames that arise. (And one often needs complicated middlegames to have a better chance of 'converting' a rating advantage!) The 'Hedgehog' is definitely a structure rather than a variation, but it has such a distinctive character of its own that I chose to examine it first in chapter 2. This simplifies later discussion of the Taimanov and Kan variations by removing the need to discuss every possible way of entering a Hedgehog structure.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Thinkers Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":45414996476055,"sku":"9789464201109","price":2683.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9789464201109.webp?v=1767920790","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/understanding-before-moving-3-part-2-sicilian-structures-taimanov-kan-richter-rauzer-9789464201109","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}