in today's ten-minute opening video I'm going to teach you how to play the London system which has
a little bit of a bad reputation in the sense that since you kind of play it the same way
all the time folks are called lazy and boring sometimes but we're gonna get rid of all those
opinions today and I'll show you how to really put some pressure on your opponents early on
depending on how they setup so after d4 we've got to pay attention to how our opponents are setting
up their pieces most commonly you will face this move d5 and then you should play Bishop f4 and
we're gonna get started with a London from there but obviously you also have to deal with King's
Indian and other setups which we will cover in the London with d5 on the board you've got to
always be monitoring whether or not the C pawn comes forward whether the opponent moves out
the LightSquared Bishop early or whether you're the opponent blocks in the LightSquared Bishop
and so on and so forth also if you are offered a trade of dark-squared bishop after Knight f6
you will play the next move III you are delaying Knight f3 and I will tell you for a good reason
you are delaying Knight f3 okay keep that in mind notice that I have not played Knight f3 yet let's
say the opponent does not challenge us with c5 just yet plays a six now we continue with Knight
f3 Bishop d6 this Bishop trade I recommend sliding the Bishop back once Square almost always and that
is because the capture here will allow us to open up the H file for the rook and maybe we'll even
postpone castling so this trade that this this little slide back technique is perfectly fine
let's say castles Bishop d3 knight c6 now against knight c6 you may want to complete your little
pyramid of pawns here before you get this Knight out to d2 just so the opponent cannot play Knight
before so keep in mind c3 always a useful move Knight d2 and let's say something like we need
7 okay a queen e7 is an important move to keep to remember and just in general any move that allows
the opponent to play the move e5 this is the million dollar square in the London and you do not
want your opponent to be pushing the e pawn there successfully if they are able to do that they get
an equal position okay and we're gonna try to shut that down by hopping into e5 at the right
moment supported by the pawn the bishop and maybe stone style with the F pawn right after so we have
that lock on the center if you see e5 coming you need to put your knight there now just playing a
random move for black and getting to this position from here you can begin active operations on the
King side how do you do that well after you hop in here you're gonna try to play f4 now if the
opponent had already done something like this and force their Knight back this is perfectly
fine for you because you already have Queen h5 coming maybe you're launching forward the
F pawn or even a simple pawn trade in the center to get your knight in the game and another piece
attacking on the King side so all different ideas queen h5 Queen f3 Queen h3 in certain positions
not this one obviously with the bishop on g3 but these are all the different attacking ideas when
you get the knight in the center in the London against the castle King f4 trying to bring the
Queen to this side maybe the bishop comes out this way as well you have to build your experience in
these positions now one thing that did not happen early on in this setup is black never played c5 so
let's take a look at what happens when black does play c5 all right against c5 obvi I'm in black and
plays c5 on the second move III is always always good and I would recommend just continuing our
natural development with 92 c3 and so on now early Queen b6 stuff to attack the b2 pawn can be a
little bit scary but there is a very cool tactical way to take care of this and that move is actually
Knight to c3 you should look at this early Knight c3 stuff against c5 very tricky and taking on b2
is simply too dangerous because you play Knight d5 you have night c7 coming and there's ways that
this Queen can just simply get trapped on a - for example there's one cap continuation here
like this where you take the knight and then get the knight on c7 excuse me and take the rook on
a this is actually these positions are are simply devastating for the black side so Queen b6 can be
met with an early night c3 and if our opponent does not take on b2 we simply play rugby 1 and
this Queen has no positioning one more thing I will add about an early night c3 Jill Bava
London there is some venom in these early night c3 systems you can consider adding them to your
repertoire very tricky stuff once the opponent commits the c-5 suddenly we do this and if they
play something like a six then witches develop naturally Knight f3 Bishop e2 Queen d2 even try
to Castle queenside that is just one option but you don't need to play like this you can just play
Knights who have three and develop naturally and continue to go for that setup with 92 c3 and so
on it is considered the more modern approach right now in the London to not play a very early c3 so
right here play Knight d2 before you play C 3 that way when the Queen comes out you can always play
rugby 1 and there's even some D takes c5 venom systems ok so don't be worried about an early c5
don't take just continue to develop and reinforce your center against the early LightSquared Bishop
movement systems what I like to do is actually switch it up into a Queen's Gambit I like to play
c4 and that allows me to bring my Queen out and put some pressure on the newly weakened b7 pawn
so Bishop comes out here c4 and Knight c3 with Queen b3 coming and some Queen side pressure since
the bishop abandoned the b7 pawn so depending on how your opponent is setting up in the beginning
there's gonna be pluses and minuses with with all the different stuff now you know if they
don't play d5 early on but they play something like Knight f6 you should continue to play Bishop
f4 and now we're gonna look at Kings Indian so against g6 systems I always recommend Knight c3
this is really gonna throw people off because if they continue with Kings Indian suddenly they're
in appearance defense you've played efore and you're gonna play a quick Queen d2 Bishop h6 long
castles this is not what a King's Indian player wants to get from the opening to get move ordered
into this very aggressive system not to mention one where you know you're gonna be playing things
like f3 g4 h4 h5 to get to their to their king and if the opponent plays d5 there's one very exciting
system here so d5 preventing e4 you play e3 if they play Bishop g7 you play the amazing move h4
I highly recommend you go look at this position in the database a lot of super super strong GM's play
this live on Aronian to name one I think Maxine Bechet lagravis played this wouldn't be surprised
if Magnus Carlsen has given this a shot and this is the idea if castles you just play h5 and then
you sacrifice your rook and get a devastating attack along the H file on the opponent this
position at a deep enough engine depth is just is loss for black black cannot survive this position
so most players with the black pieces will play h5 to prevent you from playing h5 but then you
develop normally you put a knight on in on e5 you can play your Bishop to d3 target these pawns try
to create a king side pawn storm and obviously you will try to Castle queenside so against any sort
of Indian system the second you see the move g6 highly recommend Knight c3 and going for a
long castles I did tell you we're not just lazily developing our pieces in this London setup we're
gonna try to put pressure on our opponents and I should say you can do it even here like let's say
I play g6 alright Knight c3 Knight c3 g6 Knight c3 and try to play h4 h5 so investigate this system
I think it will be very useful for you the only other thing that I can you know I can really think
about is very early c5 stuff now for example d4 Knight f6 Bishop f4 c5 in general the best thing
to do here is just to play the d5 central push because you know if you play e3 there's some
positions where black does not need to play d5 and that can be a little bit annoying so d4 I
recommend this I hear there is a gambit called the V gun yawn gambit Knight c3 Queen takes b2
and Bishop back to d2 it's the poisoned pawn so I know you've developed to Tempe but your next moves
are gonna be for F for overwhelming your opponent in the center the vog Anyang gambit named after
Raphael Vogon young Armenian Grandmaster from back in the day and if R if your opponent doesn't play
like this you know just plays d6 again we're going for the same stuff Knight c3 e4 Queen d2
and some sort of long castles ah you know d4 c5 the same thing you can play d5 and you know you
can set up with the bishop on f4 all the same against you know the Dutch for example you can
play the Staunton gambit very aggressive gambit or you can play the London all the same but you
would need to probably Castle queenside against the Dutch systems or try to attack this pawn with
f3 e4 setups in the future but for the most part that's that's as good of a breakdown that I can
give you you know in in about 10 minutes for the London system you will get some garbage sometimes
like this you know knight c6 and then III f6 trying to take you know the center with E 5 no
early f6 system is good against the London but you know obviously London players you you should
be familiar with how to take advantage of nonsense play like this I would just play aggressively like
h4 g4 and then maybe 92 and then develop normally again systems where your opponent does not develop
a lot of pieces try to open the center as quickly as possible so something with E for maybe C for
quick development and don't just lazily develop your pieces to the squares that you think they
belong if you're a beginner and you've gotten to this you know point in the video you can obviously
play the London in a bit more calm fashion not trying to punish the opponent but if you're a 15
16 1700 rated player the London is still great and if you don't play it in a lazy way you really try
to punish opponents and challenge them depending on which way they set up with this Knight c3 stuff
is h4 h5 stuff or this aggressive you know 95 an attacking system the London will actually
be a lot of fun and it won't be boring at all so that's basically how you play the London in about
10 minutes let me know your thoughts or questions about the London system in the comments below and
today's chat question is let me know where you're watching from in the world what city
are you currently in and well I look forward to your answers and I'll see you in the next video