Understand the Scandinavian

Overview

Are you tired of memorizing long forced variations when building your repertoire against 1.e4? GM Ioannis Papaioannou is here to provide an easy to learn and reliable repertoire for Black. Being one of the best Scandinavian Defense experts in the World himself, he shares his knowledge and understanding of this opening.

After studying the material, you will enjoy a complete Scandinavian Defense repertoire that is entirely based on understanding. Since the arising structures are very similar, this workshop will be tremendously useful for Caro-Kann players as well.

This product includes all the videos from a live online workshop our friends at Modern Chess hosted in December 2021, as well as the related PGN files. Overall, the material consists of approximately 6 hours of video and a PGN database which includes 105 files!

You will find the following lectures:

Scandinavian/Caro-Kann Structure – Complete Overview

Typical Endgames and Tactical Patterns in the Scandinavian

Theoretical Preparation – Part 1

Theoretical Preparation – Part 2

Below, we provide a brief overview of each one of the lectures.

Scandinavian/Caro-Kann Structure – Complete Overview

Structurally speaking, Scandinavian and Caro-Kann are very similar. In order to successfully play these two openings, you need to know the following structure:

In this pawn structure, the d4-pawn provides White with a space advantage. On the other hand, however, Black’s position is very solid. In his lecture, GM Papaioannou demonstrates that if White does not play precisely, Black has different ways to take over. Transition into a Carlsbad pawn structure, piece pressure on d4, and the advances …c6-c5 and …e6-e5 are only some of the points.

True to his teaching approach, Papaioannou provides many model games, mostly taken from his playing and teaching practice. We can safely say that this lecture is 50% of your work as a Scandinavian player. The knowledge of the pawn structure often compensates for some theoretical deficits.

Typical Endgames and Tactical Patterns in the Scandinavian

Knowing the pawn structures is not sufficient to master a given opening. There are two more things that one needs to achieve:

1) learning the most important tactical ideas and patterns for both sides

2) making the bridge between the middlegame and the endgames

The second lecture of Papaioannou is designed to cover these two important aspects. As usual, he examines a variety of model games. This time, however, besides the structural explanations, Papaioannou puts a strong emphasis on the tactical patterns and endgame positions.

Theoretical Preparation

The theoretical part of the camp is divided into two lectures – Theoretical Preparation – Part 1 and Theoretical Preparation – Part 2. After studying the previous two lectures, it will be very easy for you to understand the key theoretical concepts. While showing the lines, Papaioannou never forgets the positional background. He would often make a reference to one of his previous two lectures. Exactly, this ability to connect the dots makes him the perfect teacher.

In the theoretical lectures, you will find many relatively unexplored ideas. By using them, you will easily catch your opponent by surprise. After studying the theory, you will be convinced that Scandinavian is a reliable and sound opening that can be played at any level.