Cyrus Lakdawala - How Ulf Beats Black

How Ulf Beats BlackCyrus LakdawalaHow Ulf Beats Black Ulf Anderssons Bulletproof Strategic Repertoire for White New In Chess 2018 2018 New In Chess Published by New In Chess, Alkmaar, The Netherlands www.newinchess.com All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the publisher. Cover design: Ron van Roon Supervision: Peter Boel Proofreading: Sandra Keetman Production: Anton Schermer Have you found any errors in this book? Please send your remarks to and implement them in a possible next edition. ISBN: 978-90-5691-771-5 Explanation of symbols The chessboard with its coordinates:

	White to move
	Black to move
King
Queen
Rook
Bishop
Knight
	White stands slightly better
	Black stands slightly better
	White stands better
	Black stands better
+	White has a decisive advantage
+	Black has a decisive advantage
=	balanced position
!	good move
!!	excellent move
?	bad move
??	blunder
!?	interesting move
?!	dubious move
N	novelty

Ulf Anderssons opening repertoire introduction The Anti-Repertoire The most delusional of beliefs is that we are able to control the outcome arising from chaos. Yet this repertoire attempts to do just that, and weirdly enough, it seems to work. Ever since computers inserted themselves into our chess lives, two generations of chess players suffered the oppression of having to be on high alert for comp-generated tactical landmine preparation from our more comped up opponents.

Then there is the danger of rote memorization without actually understanding, where sometimes we remember more than we actually study and bang out a fictional book move. The Ulf Andersson repertoire insulates you from such dangers, since the lines are heavily strategic/conceptual, rather than mathematical/memory-dependent. Today, dependency on a comps assessment and analytical power are an addiction for many in the chess world. I promise you that with this repertoire, your comps assessment will not play a domineering role. When we take up a new opening system, sometimes we wish FIDE would issue learners permits, since our alien, tangled lines are so difficult to navigate. Anderssons repertoire wont feel this way, and yet it may take you your entire lifetime to master its subtleties.

When we are young, we are anxious to discover our chess identity. Its a special time in our lives when we connect with a pursuit of the heart. For me it was the discovery of Ulf Anderssons style and opening repertoire. When I first became aware of the Swedish GM and his white repertoire in the early 1980s, I desperately sought out his games from magazines (its hard to believe but there were no chess databases in those days), the way an adopted child craves a meeting with his birth-parent. Normally Im a capricious flirt when it comes to openings, switching to a new partner every six months. One thing Ive never abandoned is Ulfs repertoire.

Is it possible to proceed with flair and ingenuity in outwardly barren positions? The answer is yes, if youve discovered Ulf Anderssons games. His completely original opening choices veer from the well worn grooves of the ordinary, with what can only be accurately described as an anti-repertoire. Of all the white opening repertoires you can pick, at first impression it feels as if Ulfs is the one with the slimmest prospects to even extract our natural birthright edge. Whenever possible he removes the queens from the board to enter instant endings, where our resources feel scant, to the point of non-existent. His lines operate in a kind of parasitic fashion, sucking the vitality out of the game, where only strategic considerations and endgame skills count. The principal requirements for success with Ulfs anti-repertoire are: 1.

You are essentially a strategist, rather than a natural attacker/tactician/open game/initiative based player. 2. You score well in controlled, quiet maneuvering games. 3. You possess enhanced late middlegame and endgame skills for your rating level. 4.

You have a sharp eye for the potential for weak squares in the enemy camp. 5. You are skilled in reaching favorable minor piece versus the opponents bad minor piece situations. 6. Do you hate opening lines where if you forget the book move, you are as good as dead? No worries about that in this one, since this repertoire is completely conceptual, based on understanding, rather than forcing tactical variations. Some of us go through the opening to escape something: knotted theory or tactically tangled lines.

While memorization of complex opening lines torments others, we of the fortunate Ulf Clan escape without a scratch. 7. Are you genetically predisposed to caution? We must be careful though not to allow this to morph to paranoia. Sometimes when our tendency is to play ultra-safely, we are like a child whose mouth is scalded by too-hot pizza and now blows on a cold, refrigerated slice the next day. 8. You are willing to win your games in 80 moves, rather than in 20.

Just remember: in complications, naturally aggressive tactical players have the ability to see in the dark. Yet in simplified/logic-based positions, many of them are blind to the ordinary, unaware of the details and slight strategic shifts, if initiative, attack and tactics are removed from the equation. 9. Your inability/incompetence in open/initiative-based positions is a source of periodic depression. 10. Your prime directives in the opening phase are simplicity and clarity, as opposed to the tactician/anarchist who lives life in eternal rebellion against order on the chessboard.

For most of us the opening phase represents a repetition of ideas which were played over and over by others before us. Anderssons repertoire never wears thin, since its subtleties are endless. As a chess antique I prefer to surround myself with simple, vanilla, easy to play opening lines. I once read that ancient sea captains had to judge the benefits of the extra firepower of more cannons, with the slowing displacement of the added weight. Some captains armed their ships lightly, hoping that the increase in speed and nimble ability to shift directions would compensate for the enemys extra cannonballs. In this repertoire we choose speed over armament, throwing the weight of most mainstream theory overboard and drawing our opponents into a fight in our specialty positions, and therefore our realms.

Just as a sampler, here are a few tabiya positions from the book, which give the impression of a strangely frictionless quality:

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