Playing against the London

The London is a system that is apparently universally reviled to play against and so I thought I'd put in the work and see what the best solution against it is. Boy... did I open a can of worms!

It seems everybody has found their own anti-London solution! And I mean EVERYONE! Therefore my attempt to write a quick study to show how to defeat the opening turned into a Magnus Opum (yeah, that was a pun) of different options that I have neither the time or skill to fully analyse. But I can at least list them!

So I am announcing here the lovely study that came out of it. It is structured into four sections:

• the serious anti London theory
• some extra theory
• traps
• interactive lessons (one for all lines and one for just the traps)

The interactive lessons contain all of the variations in one place, but to play them all you need to install LiChess Tools. If you do not, you can still check out the theory, but you won't be able to interactively test it. Also, the first three sections have a chapter followed by subchapters. With LiChess Tools you can collapse each section. You can also play videos in mini player window and so on. I swear I didn't make the study to promote my extension, it's just very useful and since I make it I also use it as much as I can.

The lines are just listed, not exhaustively explored. And there are more. This is just a start, an attempt at categorization. Feel free to clone it, expand upon it, comment, etc. It's MIT licensed 😁Knowledge wants to be free.

So here is the study:

And just today I was looking at another line: 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 c5 3.e3 Nd5 which is very common nowadays. More specifically 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 c5 3.e3 Nd5 4.Bg3 Qb6 5.b3 cxd4 6.exd4 e5 which has a 64% win rate for Black and that including 25% of games where decent moves were played and where the win rate is stil over 50%. There is something there! 🤔You get to a position with open lines everywhere, almost fully developed, while White has just one piece out and everything is tied up.

Just check out this game:

Anyway, enjoy!

P.S. I've made this study last year, but only recently I was allowed to publish it, since it contained some personal prep from someone I know.