My Favourite Aggressive Opening For Black Against 1.d4

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The Queen's Pawn Game, 1.d4, is the second-most popular chess opening after 1.e4; more than a billion games have been played starting with the move 1.d4. White has plenty of opening choices after that: the Queen's Gambit, the London System, the Trompowsky Attack, the Catalan, and many more.

Here's the question: is there a good opening for Black to counter all these different openings by White? Yes, there is! That is exactly what GM Igor Smirnov shares in this video lesson. It is the Dutch Defense, which arises after 1.d4 f5.

Although White can still play any second move - 2.c4, 2.Bf4, 2.Nf3, etc. - this universal chess opening system works against all these different variations! It will definitely catch your opponents off guard.

Watch the full video lesson to learn the basic setup of this opening system, common ideas, middlegame attacking plans, and some cool traps!

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► Chapters

00:00 Dutch Defense Chess Opening For Black
00:45 Universal Opening System Against ANY White's Move After 1.d4
03:08 Completing the opening setup with b6, Bb7, and Nf6
04:53 Middlegame plan to attack on the kingside
06:58 If White delays Nc3 (or does not play it)
08:02 Tricky Checkmate Trap!
09:57 If White plays Bd2 to protect c3
12:30 Puzzle of the day
13:52 If White plays Bg5 pin on your Knight
17:06 If White plays Qb3 after Bb4

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[pax]

I love the Dutch defense! Will make very good use of this video, thanks!

[eekwibble]

Ng3+, g3 Rf6 and now is mate unstoppable with any move from white coming too late to stop Rh6+. White can play f4 and block with Bh5, but that only delays by 1 move, or Qe4 (threatening Qh4 which would be protected by g3, therefore forcing >) fxe4, Bh5 to delay by 2 moves.

There is no guaranteed smothered mate with Nf2, as some comments suggest, as white can simply exchange rook and knight and get their queen into the action.

[bhavitvora]

12:40
Nf2 Kg1 Nh3 Kh1 Qg1 Rg1 Nf2 mate or lose the rook after the first move
Another sequence of moves
Ng3 g3 Rf6 and Rh6 mate on the next move

[Palimoe]

Igor my man. You finally granted one of my wishes. Just one more wish. The Benoni defense

[raphaelhudson]

One of your best videos. Really excellent. I go through periods of playing the Dutch but my inspiration has mainly be Simon Williams way of playing it. He doesn't usually trade that C3 knight and he tends to go for a king side attack with Qe8. Yours is similar but lots more focus on quick wins. I don't immediately see a problem with it, plus I remember Magnus used to do something similar when he played the Dutch but with the stonewall . He was a big fan of that C6 trade.
Having watched Simon play titled Tuesday for years I rarely see him get a worse opening position in the Dutch, even against much higher GM opponents. So the notion that GMs can exploit it is probably just not correct

[Kaiser_Grillhelm]

finally. Suggestion for the puzzle: Ng3+, h2 takes g3, rook f6 and rook h6 is unstoppable(only if he sacrifices the rook and the knight)

[IsGul_Davos]

I love the Dutch. So glad to see a video on it

[jrhenry]

Thanks, i like the pace of this video it was easy for me to follow

[ellechero]

What about opponents doing pawn breaks ?? Like e5 or d5 ?? Which happen like 90% of the time but not shown here...would have like to see how we deal with that

[mustaphakassab]

Thanks a lot our coach, I played the Dutch before but you gave new ideas for it ❤

[AaronWoodrow]

Igor, you prefaced the video by saying that the Dutch could be used against openings other than the Queen's Gambit but then all of the examples are using the Queen's Gambit setup. Could we see this used against the London please? Love these videos, keep 'em coming!

[slimjimmyification]

each time I play the Dutch my opponent avoids Nc3 or even moves pawn to a3

[hordechess]

12:40 Ng3 hxg3 Rf6 looks winning for black.

[abhishekdas]

GM Igor, your videos really help me improve my chess. One request: please upload a video for countering scotch opening for black. I am not yet comfortable with scotch opening. Thank you.

[therandomstorebox]

Here's what I got for the puzzle (my notes for this position started on move 13 with Queen check)

13...Qxe3+ 14.Kh1
( 14.Rf2 Qxf2+ 15.Kh1 Qxe2 16.fxe4 Bxe4 {Qxg2#, if Nxe4 then Qxc2, if Rg1 then Bxc2 } )
14...Nf2+ 15.Kg1 Nh3+ 16.Kh1 Qg1+ 17.Rxg1 Nf2# {smothered mate} )

[whatwewantAItodo]

I tried it the first time and it worked! I annihilated my opponent even though they castled the other side leaving me very confused! 🙂

[phw]

0:57 You forgot that it was the best opening of all time, and you covered it... the DURAS GAMBIT 🗣🗣🗣📣📣📣🔥🔥🔥

[kylesunfit]

Really enjoy your teaching style. Things just make sense. I’ve studied aloe of courses and materials and it often feels like I can’t apply the material in my games.

[felix.gulsrud]

Some of us are Dutch defense players. If we don't like to play against the Staunton gambit, we have to risk playing against the French defense. The consolation is that the French occurs relatively rarely.

[arthurwieczorek]

14:42. 1Q-c2 Q-g6, 2B×N B×N!, 3P-g3 R×B. Or 1B-f4 P-d6