Mtal wrote on 02/01/22 at 20:18:05:


I was doing a lot of maintenance on my White repertoire recently, in preparation for a return to tournament chess, and was genuinely surprised at how difficult it was to refute the Caro-Modern: 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 c6 4.Nf3 d5 5.h3 Nf6!?    

Perhaps you should consider taking a second look at this c6, d5 stuff, seems to be quite underrated if you ask me, and could be an effective weapon if used judiciously.

Now that is dedication.

I was referring to 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 c6 4.Be3, when  4...d6 is recommended by Lakdawala and Norwood but "complete rubbish against 5.f4!" according to Tiger. Soltis and Bologan recommend 4...d5 anyway, when I don't much like Black's position after 5.f3 -- though Bologan analyses 5...Qb6!?, with which he has a big plus score.

Tiger's books are great but he doesn't really go in for the ...c6 stuff. Nor, I think, does The Modern Defence: Move by Move. It's hard to recommend a book that does. Opening Repertoire: The Modern Defence is shockingly bad even for Lakdawala: it has so many huge holes that it's grossly misleading for Everyman to call it a repertoire. Some of the lines in Marin and Kornev's books on the Pirc include an early ...c6, but not against the Austrian Attack.

The best sources I could find are:
Soltis, Black to Play and Win with 1...g6 (1988)
Norwood, Winning with the Modern (1994)
Speelman & McDonald, Modern Defence (2000)
Bologan, The Modern Pirc (ChessBase)

Bologan is probably the best: he really knows his way around the ...c6 stuff. So does Norwood, but his coverage is distinctly thin.

I eventually gave up trying to play ...c6 and ...d5 against 4.f4 because I realised that very few of my opponents play 4.f4 anyway. Most of them play 4.Be3, and in that case I'd rather not be committed to ...c6.

Hi all, I wanted to read up on the modern defence with c6. I like those positions vs the Austrian attack. Lol I probably should read up on the other lines too. Anyway I was just wondering during how Opening rep the modern defence vs modern move by move. It's hard to tell by looking at the samples, but they seem to cover the same thing (oh but they give different lines vs d4 it seems). Well if anyone has read both by chance please let me know hiw they are, any differences, or maybe they if the complement each other. I guess also, since I like c6, anything else out there I might want to check out? Thanks.