Pirc Defense

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Pirc Defense

03/13/02

This CD from Chessbase is written for players of the black pieces that want to learn this opening. It contains a few written articles on the opening (eight in total), along with a game collection (116 model games+80,000 others) and the attendant tree. The CD does not contain much in the way of theory. In fact, the author states up front that he is eschewing the presentation of masses of variations in favor of explanations of the themes in this opening. The author, Aleksei Lugovoi, puts light languageless annotations in the games. The annotations are typically restricted to informant symbols, but there are also some schematic board illustrations and the occasional text comment.

The CD covers the following variations:

4.f4 Bg7 5.Nf3 c5
4.f4 Bg7 5. Nf3 0-0
4.Nf3 Bg7
4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Be2 0-0 6.0-0 Bg4
4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Be2 0-0 6.0-0 c6
4.Bg5
4.Be3
4.g3

The author does spend some time going over alternatives that are quite popular at the club level. For instance, in the instructional material on 4. Nf3 Bg7, he discusses alternatives like the extremely popular Saemisch type setup (f3,Be3 and Qd2). He also spends some time discussing things like an early h4 by white, which can sometimes be problematic.

What is interesting about this CD is that the author takes the time to discuss the historical evolution of the opening. This approach is similar to that used by Andy Soltis in his multi-volume set "Opening Ideas and Analysis for Advanced Players". Generally speaking the Soltis books are fairly well regarded. I would say that the writing on this particular CD is reminiscent of Soltis style in the aformentioned series. However, I think that this author succeeds better that Soltis did in his work (granted, this CD covers a much, much smaller section of the opening universe).

While not perfect, the English is better on this CD than many I have seen from non-native speakers. While I think the CD is pretty well done, I do think that it is geared more toward the intermediate player, since most of the games (at least those the author commented on) are relatively lightly annotated.

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