today you are going to learn how to play the caro-kann defense which happens after white
plays d4 the King's pawn and you respond with c6 and on your second move you will play d5 normally
what white does here is play the second pawn and then you respond this way white of course can also
move a night or this night out as early as move to but for now let's try to be principled white plays
two pawns in the center and you play d5 the way we can break down the CARICOM starting position is
the fact that white has three options with the e pawn white can push it white can capture your pawn
or white can leave this pawn here and protect it or in some cases just forget that it's not guarded
and you will take it in that case let's start with the easiest one let's start with white takes let's
you recapture now in this position essentially white has two ways of playing white can
either play the move c4 and challenge your pawn immediately which is called the pan off variation
or white can just develop pieces normally and not really challenge your setup at all so that
way if white develops normally your next moves are basically automatic you're going to play knight c6
and Knight f6 okay nights before bishops then you will decide where to put this light squared Bishop
maybe you want to put it on f5 or g4 maybe you get pinned and you want to play Bishop d7 after you
decide what to do with the light squared bishop you will move this pawn get your dark squared
Bishop out and then you will Castle let's see what that looks like so I said nice first let's say
something like this now you will get your Bishop out to a5g4 excuse me g4 can be good if there's
a pin but right now there's no pin because the bishop is here castles east six Bishop f4 Bishop
e7 or d6 is completely fine let's say rook e1 and castles congratulations you now know how to play
the exchange variation of the caro-kann defense your next moves could be playing on the Queen side
this is this is normally what what is possible sometimes you can hop your knight into the center
of the board but in general I'm not gonna go too crazy on the on the in-depth analysis this is how
you play the exchange now when white tries to play in early c4 what I recommend is starting out with
the Knights as well but here when c4 happens I actually recommend playing a bit more solidly with
east six right away just to solidify your center and then you can after developing your pieces put
your Bishop on b7 so when c4 happens go for east six let's say something like this and then after
castles castles maybe you play b6 and Bishop b7 another thing that you can consider is that when
this Bishop moves once you can take the pawn and that will make the bishop move a second time it's
a little trick there you make your opponent move the bishop a second time and then you castle and
play b6 Bishop b7 and you have a nice and solid structure so that's the exchange that's that's
the position after white captures now white also can just play a move that protects the pawn now
anytime this pawn is left there you take it okay and you do that they recapture normally there is
also one gambit here that gambit is called the black more Deemer gambit and that's with f3 and
basically white wants you to take and help them develop with a big initiative against
this I recommend just pushing just give the pawn back leave this pawn ugly and continue with your
natural development the protect variation of the caro-kann or the classical variation is very solid
you have two ways of playing it I'm going to give you every single way you have Knight f6 right away
challenging this Knights authority in the center and if they capture you can explore two options
here the tartakower which is the e takes f6 Bishop out castles very solid you do have doubled pawns
but they're very nice to protect against the King invasion or you have the more dynamic and crazy
gf6 now G of six is called Braunstein Larson and G takes f6 allows you to get the open G file and
allows you quick clean side development and you're gonna try to castle the long way okay so Knight f6
now they also don't have to take in which case you just need to develop your pieces so you can fee in
Cairo and Castle you can play the bishop out to g4 obviously you can't play Bishop a5 anymore
but even when they retreat I sometimes like - go crazy h5h for some people will retreat those
people don't really know what they're doing and what's considered the classical mainline is Bishop
f5 okay so Bishop f5 attacks the knight sometimes you'll trade it if the knight comes back you also
come back if they try to trap your Bishop make a little space for it this is the main line there
have been tens of thousands of games played here this is not a full openings course I'm just giving
you a breakdown of the theory around this position but the protect variation or the classical
variation in general is not too scary with the knight you can just take and go for this Knight
f6 or Bishop f5 setup with e six as well the one thing about to protect variation this one looks
a little bit scare out looks a little bit strange not scary but it's actually pretty dangerous it's
called the fantasy variation and against this what I like to do is I like to just go g6 Bishop g7 and
then slowly try to chip away at White's Center so something like this this might happen white tries
to Castle queenside you can play different moves here like taking at some moment and developing
that's one way to play this position another way is the very open fantasy variation which is when
you play takes takes and just launch out with E 5 and of course then if they capture you don't take
the Queen you have this nasty check and you're attacking the e pawn as well so there's also a
six the very very solid anti fantasy variation but that is one thing that you should know this is for
the more advanced players you will be facing f3 quite a bit I think much more than folks that are
beginners and I should just say that you know if white starts out with it with a with a knight move
all of the same stuff applies there could be the advance there could be the captures and if they
play something like this just take just take and go Knight f6 or go Bishop f5 it's all the same now
let's look at the advanced variation there are two ways to play the advanced variation the variation
that I like to suggest for folks which is c5 the immediate counter strike in the center and if it
basically if white does not take this pawn white plays Knight f3 or white place c3 trying to keep
the center together your next few moves are very natural you're going to play something like knight
c6 move this Bishop out depending on where this Knight is if the knight goes to f3 you will pin
it and then try to play east six important to move the bishop then play e6 so you don't block
the bishop in at a certain moment you will take on d4 and finish your development so something
like this in a lot of these positions the d4 pawn becomes a liability for white notice how I did
that I took the knight to destabilize white center then took and then played east six the development
of these pieces is a little bit tricky but your knight comes out to a5 or to g6 excuse me or to
g6 so it's gonna take the knight a couple moves to develop in the advance variation but you should be
able to do it with ease the most critical approach is to take this pawn now I still recommend knight
c6 there's a little bit of venom here you know white can play like f4 for example which is in
my course but the same principles apply if the knight comes out the bishop comes out and after
the bishop comes out you will try to regain the C pawn with your Bishop and have a nice and steady
position the other way if you don't want to play c5 is Bishop a5 this is considered the mainline
and now your approach is to play c5 but by playing c6 and c5 immediately the most challenging setup
to the Bishop f5 variation is called the short variation white plays Knight f3 and Bishop e2 and
castles you can do a little bit of exploration there another very aggressive system as well
is Knight c3 to try to play g4 very early you've got to be careful not to get your Bishop trapped
and that is on full display after h4 if the H pawn moves you need to respond with the H pawn because
if you play e6 you will get your Bishop trapped do not get your Bishop trapped make sure that
your bishop always has some space if they move the H pawn early with h4 I highly recommend just h5
and then playing from there but seeing as this is a brief video on the caro-kann I think that
basically covers everything you need to know from just from watching this video you should be able
to go play some practice games get a little bit of experience and grind from there hope this was
useful I should also say right before we go that since this is only against the Kings pawn a good
supplement to this is the sloth defense against d4 so you can start a lot of your games with c6
d5 and getting familiar with those structures let me know your thoughts in the comments below
in particular which openings you want me to cover in a 10 minute video just like this one
like the video if you haven't already and I will see you in the next ten minutes openings video