This books presents an opening repertoire for Black to players who are not excited by defending the dull endgames in the “Berlin Wall” variation and who strive for initiative, counterplay and a tense fight, having in mind the strategy of reliability defined by Tigran Petrosian.

It is comprised on the principle “The best move for me – against all the reasonable moves for the opponent.”. In some lines we analyse alternatives for Black.

As our main weapon against 9.h3 we recommend the Zaitsev system – 9...Bb7 10.d4 Re8.

At the beginning of the year 2015 the Svidler variation began to gain popularity 9...Bb7 10.d4 Re8 11.Nbd2 exd4 12.cxd4 Nd7, which combines elements of the Zaitzev system and the Karpov variation 9...Nd7.

We analyse it in this book as well, as a way for Black to avoid the already famous repetition of moves 11.Ng5 Rf8 12.Nf3.