Nadezhda Kosintseva: The Accelerated Dragon - a sharp weapon against 1.e4

After 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6! leads to the so-called Accelerated Dragon Defense of the Sicilian, which is characterised by the idea to achieve the thematic central break d7-d5 in one move (in contrast to the Dragon Variation, in which Black plays d7-d6). On this DVD the Russian grandmaster and top women player Nadezhda Kosintseva reveals the secrets of her favourite opening. Kosintseva has played the Accelerated Dragon for many years and achieved a lot of success with it. You too can accelerate your opening - with this complete repertoire for Black against 1.e4! On move five White has basically two continuations. First, 5.c4 - the popular Maroczy system, against which Kosintseva has a number of strong recommendation in store. Second, the Open Variation 5.Nc3, against which the grandmaster offers no less than two promising systems: the modern dynamic treatment with a quick d7-d5, which is a firm part of the repertoire of top grandmaster Boris Gelfand from Israel, who employed this line successfully on a number of occasions in 2017 which made it very popular. And the quieter, strategic approach with ...d6 and ... Qa5, which gives the game an entirely different character. Kosintseva explains the theoretical main lines and side lines of the Accelerated Dragon, but also the many strategic finesses of this opening with its typical plans and pawn breaks (such as d7-d5 and b7-b5), and of course she also shows clever tactical stratagems such as the classical Sicilian exchange sacrifice ...Rxc3 followed by ...Nxe4. The material learnt can be practised with interactive tasks with video feedback which makes you fit for the practical game - and helps you to make your opponent sweat!

• Video running time: 4 hours 51 min. (English)
• With interactive training including video feedback
• Extra: Database with more than 50 model games
• Including CB 14 Reader

Nadezhda Kosintseva was born 1985 in Arkhangelsk, Russia. She won several European Youth Championships for girls and in 1998 became World Youth Champion U14 Girls. She won no less than six gold medals at Olympiads, two with the Russian team, four for the best individual performance on her board. In 2002 she became a Women Grandmaster, in 2011 a Grandmaster. In 2010 she had a rating of 2576 and was number five on the women's ranking list. In 2013 Nadezhda Kosintseva withdrew from tournament chess. She currently lives with her family in the USA and works as a chess trainer.

System requirements: Minimum: Pentium III 1 GHz, 1 GB RAM, Windows 8.1, DirectX9 graphic card with 256 MB RAM, DVD-ROM drive, Windows Media Player 9 and internet connection for program activation. Recommended: PC Intel Core i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 GB RAM, Windows 10, DirectX10 graphic card (or compatible) with 512 MB RAM or better, 100% DirectX10 compatible sound card, Windows Media Player 11, DVDROM drive and internet connection for program activation.