The ABC of the Caro Kann

Mentioned by Polerio as early as 1590, it was Horatious Caro of Berlin and Markus Kann of Vienna who introduced 1...c6 into competitive play all the way back in the second half of the nineteenth century. At that time, swashbuckling attacking play usually connected with gambits was very popular and so it was hardly surprising that this defense was regarded as dry and boring. After Steinitz, when defensive principles began to be more fully appreciated, we saw an upsurge of interest in defenses such as the Caro-Kann. It was no less a figure than Jose-Raul Capablanca who would use our defense as one of the main weapons in his armory. It suited his outstanding positional style very well. Later adherents included, Flohr, Nimzowitsch, Tartakower, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Petrosian, Karpov, Leko and Kramnik. Here we see a definite trend among fierce competitors of a similar inclination. Solidity above all, but solidity with promise!

Andrew Martin is 49 years old and lives in Sandhurst, England. He is an International Master who has authored several best-selling DVD‘s for Chessbase. He is the current World Simultaneous Display record holder as catalogued in the 2006 edition of the Guinness Book of Records. The ABC of the Caro Kann describes a repertoire for Black which will stand the test of time and the main ideas and themes of the opening are explained in Andrew Martin‘s usual friendly, accessible style. The Caro-Kann is a permanent defense to 1 e4!

Video running time: 4 h 13 m

System requirements: Pentium-Processor at 300 Mhz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Media Player 9.0, DVD drive