Philidor Defense

The Philidor Denfence 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 combines a number of advantages. The black player has a choice of various types of positions - he can play with or without capturing on d4. The typical plans and maneuvers are easy to learn and there is hardly ever any red-hot new theory. But you have to like playing a passive position while waiting for your chance. If you play 1.e4 with White you can hardly avoid this opening . The author, Alexander Bangiev, does not hide his liking for the black side but still never fails to indicate and analyse plans, ideas and promising lines for White. He writes: "This old defence, which was already played by Philidor, is characterized by active pawn-play. Philidor thought that pawns should not hinder the development of the pieces but should themselves become active. Famous is his saying: "Pawns are the soul of Chess", with which he wanted to express the idea that the pawn carries the positional ideas in chess, an idea that is supported by today's views" The CD contains 13.400 games, 300 of which are annotated, (134 by the author), a training database and a tree of all games.