How to crush the....

I just need to vent a bit here. Youtube has some good instructive chess lessons from time to time. They also have some mid grade information with stupid titles. 2 cases in point are: How to crush the Caro Kann and How to crush the Slav (links below) Does anyone here really believe these people have final solution to "crushing" these defences that have proved their worth over decades of GM play?? Maybe I'm just hypersensitive since these are my weapons of choice against e4 and d4, but if these hacks had to play against Carlsen, Kasparov, Kramnik or Karpov and their Caro Kann and Slav defense's , the "crushing" would be done by black almost every time! So, please be selective in what you watch. Grrrr

OK, I feel better now. You may return to your regularly scheduled programming. 🙂

YouTube

YouTube

Any book, article or lecture which is titled "How to beat the [x] opening" is not to be taken at face value.

Sure, there might be some level of instructive gains in there,
but the title is fashioned in such a way purely to attract attention and up sales.

I personally ignore anything that claims to "beat" a certain system,
as if they are not taking themselves seriously then why should I?

@64squaresofpain said
Any book, article or lecture which is titled "How to beat the [x] opening" is not to be taken at face value.

Well... unless X = Damiano!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickbait

@mchill said

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgZxIuxWp1A

I used to play for Barnet!

@mchill

See Lars Schandorff, The Semi_Slav, ISBN 978-1-907982-94-1, Chapters 10-18, where the usual move order is 5. … Nbd7, 6. … Bd6, commonly known as the Meran and Anti-Meran Variations. Black has adequate resources.

In the game featured at YouTube, the turkey was Black's … f5, which lost control of crucial squares, weakened the Black K by opening a diagonal, and allowed a dangerous encroachment by White's N. Also, later on, Black could have played … Bf6 instead of retreating the B to c7; this would have allowed Black to blunt the White attack Qh5 by answering … BxNg5.


I won't bother to look up the exact C-K variation; that's your homework assignment for tomorrow:

Jovanka Houska, opening repertoire, the Caro-Kann, ISBN 978-1-78194-210-9
Karpow/Beljawski, Caro-Kann Verteidigung, ISBN 3-88805-285-8