It's amusing in the main line has turned to a4, rather Qxc4 followed by bd2. Koutranous in "Beating the flank openings" considered that white's most dangerous option twenty years ago. In fact comparing with recent chess stars book the main differences are what was original analysis as now been  played in high level OTB and correspondence games. The evaluation is very often the same. Remarkably little to dent what Karpov was playing in early 80's. Any differences are too subtle to have impact in club games.

This combined with what is available for black in more ambitous lines, leads me to think Catalan not much of a concern in club chess.

It's in the book. But it was also in a PGN update QC posted after Avrukh's first GM Rep didn't have it in the book. But in any case, it's pretty well established at this point that 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.g3 c6 5.Bg2 Nbd7 6.O-O Bd6 7.Nfd2! O-O 8. Nc3 is pretty bad for Black, as a knight landing on e4 after 9.e4 gains a tempo or wins the bishop pair. So essentially you get an improved version of the normal Closed Catalan with ...Be7, which is also slightly better for White to begin with. 

TD wrote on 05/20/16 at 12:05:21:


This is treated by Hilton and Ippolito in Wojo's Weapon's Volume 1.

The short answer is that you can play b3 and wait a little bit with sensible moves. If black breaks too early in the centre, e.g. with ...e5, then dxe5 followed by cxd5 leaves black with an isolated pawn, and a likely bad version of the Tarrasch.

The rule of thumb is very simple - we play ...Bb4 to provoke Bd2 before placing the bishop, to take away the option of Nd2 and e4. The exception is 4...Be7 5.Bg2 0-0 6.0-0 dxc4.

kylemeister wrote on 05/21/16 at 17:13:23:


Yes, and it was covered by Bologan recently for those interested.  But there's not much to know: just play an early Nc3, Nf3-d2, and then e2-e4.  The threatened fork means that Black usually captures on e4 and White wins a tempo back because a knight on e4 hits the unprotected Bishop on d6.

Bibs wrote on 05/20/16 at 12:27:36:

OK, thanks! He doesn't discuss that in GM1. But it still makes a (huge) difference with 4/5...Bd6 without Bb4+ first.

Why is there no mention in Avrukh's book(s) of Bd6 in the Closed Catalan? At my level of opposition (1600-1900) I see it all the time.

Might you expound upon what you didn't like? I mean, Black has found decent ways to combat the main line, so Avrukh has moved on to something else to provide an advantage. And as far as the depth of coverage goes, it's actually deeper, or at least more material has been added. Volume 1 had ~200 pages of Catalan stuff, and this new volume has 250...