If you want to play like the best players in the world, then playing the Queen’s Gambit Declined is the right choice. Learning it, though, is a difficult process, as it involves a certain amount of knowledge that you won’t find easy. It is not regarded as a particularly sharp opening, but missing one small detail can easily land you in a passive position.
Although books on the subject are rare, when we look at all the matches for the World Championship we see that the Queen’s Gambit Declined has always been one of the most popular openings, thus knowledge of the positions arising is the knowledge of the best players. A combination of the Queen’s Gambit Declined and Nimzo-Indian is considered one of best ways to play against 1.d4, 1.c4 or 1.Nf3.
Capablanca, Lasker, Alekhine, Spassky, Karpov, Kramnik and Anand are just a few of the former World Champions who used the Queen’s Gambit Declined on a regular basis and introduced many completely new ideas. Others have also analysed it extensively, e.g. the Tartakower line (not the subject of this book) was enriched by the Russian Makagonov, whom Bronstein once described as a remarkable theoretician.
In this book Milos Pavlovic presents the Nimzo-Indian and Catalan in order to cover all aspects of …Nf6/…e6 play. He often searched for more dynamic solutions when the positions permitted to make the book more comprehensive and to try to cover aspects specific to those openings. He deliberately connected the Capablanca line in the Nimzo with the Bf4 system in the Queen’s Gambit Declined, an interesting combination that not many players use. The reason for that is also logical; not everyone who plays the Nimzo plays the Queen’s Gambit Declined, so players who do play the Queen’s Gambit Declined might find this an interesting idea.
About the Author
Grandmaster Milos Pavlovic was born in Belgrado in 1964. So far he won many chess tournaments worldwide. In 2002 he became Yugoslav Champion. He is a well known theoretician, the author of many appraised theoretical books and wrote numereous articles in various chess magazines.