Let’s continue our Essential Strategy Series with the Caro-Kann. This is the first in a 10-part series going over this wonderful Opening. Let’s begin!
The Caro-Kann is a wonderful tool for black. Our course goes over 10 lines in the advance variation. We will cover the most essential in this post.
About half of all your games will start with 1.e4. After you play c6, about half of all games continue with d4. We will play d5 to fight for the center.
The advance variation happens at this point. White has played e5, giving white a nice space advantage. This is white’s best chance for an advantage. However, we are going to gain the initiative immediately.
We’re going to play c5, which is the 2nd most common move. It scores insanely well at the club level.
White has many options here, which we cover in the course. If you’re wondering what happens if dxc5, check out part 2. But let’s look at c3- the most common move.
After c3 we’re going to develop the knight. If they take on c5, we’ll capture their e5 pawn and have a better pawn structure. Once again, white has a few options that we cover in the course. Nf3 is the most natural move.
This is a nice move from white. However, we can use white’s space against them and create a weakness by capturing on d4. Note that if white takes back on d4 with the knight, they drop the e5 pawn.
Let’s quick take stock of the position. White has more space, but we can work around it easily. The biggest weakness on the board is the d4 pawn, which we will quickly attack. White needs to tread very carefully to stay in the game. This is what makes the Caro-Kann so wonderful from the black side.
After the exchange of pawns, we’re able to quickly develop and put pressure on the backwards d4 pawn. We’ll start by pinning the f3 knight, then continue to develop and target the weakness.
After white breaks the pin, we can play e6. This frees up our knight to come into the game. We should be happy if white plays h3 here. We will be able to trade our bad bishop for a key defender of the backward d4 pawn.
White castles and we play Ne7. A natural move since f6 is not available. We want to bring the knight up to f5 to continue to add pressure.
Let’s look at h3. This is a very common mistake from white to relieve some pressure. We’re able to take here and win a pawn with a nice combination. We’ll take the knight, then play Qb6.
There is no way for white to save both pawns. From here we can go Nf5, Be7, O-O and play a comfortable game up a pawn.
We cover several other lines of the Advance Variation in our course. Check it out now or try it for free.
