The Tarrasch Defense. A Fighting Black Defense

[Ravendon]

The Tarrasch Defense is a wonderful opening for Black. It forces you to develop your skill in piece play and dynamic elements of chess. It forces you to become a much stronger endgame player. Basically it forces you to become a much stronger chess player overall.

Kasparov used it to good effect on his run up to his meeting with Karpov. Karpov and his superior positional skill and endgame skill were waiting to drop an anvil on Kasparov, but it really wasn't the fault of this opening. Kasparov was no match for Karpov's endgame ability.

And certainly, it will be highly unlikely that you will ever have to face someone as strong as Karpov.

So why not give it a try?

If you are an attacking player, consider it. It gives you a ready made repertoire against every White opening except for 1.e4.

For example...

1...d5, 2...e6, 3...c5.

Play that against everything except for 1.e4 and you will be assured of easy development and strong pressure against White.

Which leaves the question, what to do against 1.e4???

Hmm....

[Chuckychess]

Ravendon wrote:

Which leaves the question, what to do against 1.e4???

Hmm....

The "obvious" answer is: The Marshall Variation of the French Defense!

It starts like this: 1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 c5!?. The perfect companion to the Tarrasch Defense. Black often sacrifices a pawn in order to get open lines and a lead in development. In one of his Chess Life columns, Andrew Soltis opined that he thought that this variation was playable at class level. Cecil Purdy gives a couple of lines for Black in his book, "Action Chess."

In summary, Black can play 1...e6, 2...d5 and then 3...c5 against virtually any White opening setup!

[Ravendon]

Interesting line, I'll have to check it out. Of course, in the French, you end up playing c5 anyways, so one could argue that you have no need to sac a pawn in the opening when a different move order accomplishes the move without any danger.

I do play the French and play e6 and d5 against everything, but I play the positions very differently as they call for it. With my Tarrasch I play very aggressively and with the French, I play resiliently and defensively and seek counterplay against the central pawn mass.