The Caro-Kann: The Easy Way

The Caro-Kann: The Easy Way

By Thomas Engqvist

Batsford, 2023

ISBN: 9781849948166

An excellent introduction to the Caro-Kann that gives a sound repertoire for newcomers.

Here Thomas Engqvist provides the reader with a solid, no-nonsense way of meeting 1.e4, based (naturally enough) on the Caro-Kann Defence.

He starts by setting out the historical background behind the opening, reminding us that Horatio Caro and Marcus Kann, its co-inventors (who despite being contemporaries never, as far as I can tell, actually met each other), were strong players in their own right. There is a very pretty win by Kann against Mieses, played at Hamburg in 1885, using the defence, the winning tactic involving a pair of pins and a deadly Zwischenzug. Six of Capablanca’s games are included, though on reflection this really should come as no surprise. Not only was the third world champion an early advocate of the Caro-Kann, his games even now are models of how the middlegames (and indeed endgames) arising from it should be played. Many of them are strategic masterpieces.

A watershed moment for the Caro-Kann occurred when Botvinnik adopted it as black in the 1958 World Chess Championship match versus Smyslov. The great chess scientist demonstrated its worth in that match and in later games and, since then, many world-class, strategically oriented players, notably Petrosian, Karpov, Seirawan, Dreev and, yes, even the great Smyslov himself, have taken it up too.

As for Engqvist’s proposed repertoire, it consists of solid, sound and relatively straightforward lines, all of them designed to get you up and running and playing the Caro-Kann in as little time as possible. Wherever possible, complications are eschewed and so the suggested moves and systems, while decent remedies, may not strictly speaking be the best (whatever that means in this context; in opening theory ‘best’ often just passes for what is fashionable and fashions change). The book is a traditional opening monograph in that the variations are set out in a branch-like form, yet each chapter also contains at least one model game. There are 48 such model games altogether, Engqvist playing the Caro-Kann in eight of them: the author walks the walk as well as talking the talk. His annotations involve lots of elucidation and exlanation, yet there is deep analysis in the notes too; and even the odd innovation.

Most attention is focussed on the Classical Variation (1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 or Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4), where Engqvist plumbs for Capablanca’s tried and trusted 4…Bf5, and the Advance Variation (3.e5), where he recommends 3…Bf5. It is a definite advantage of the Caro-Kann, over the French Defence say, that black can quickly bring his queen’s bishop onto a good diagonal. Indeed, the …Bf5 is so strongly posted that white will often hurry to exchange it with Bd3. After 3.e5 Bf5 white has many moves, ten options being given here, but 4.Nc3 is the sharpest and it serves also as a reminder (to me anyway!) that, whatever the opening, you cannot avoid sharp positions altogether, nor situations that you might not be altogether happy with.

Later chapters cover all white’s other variations and systems, though not in as a great a detail. So we have the Panov Attack (3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 and now 6.Bg5 e6 or 6.Nf3 Bg4), the Exchange Variation (4.Bd3), the Tartakower-Smyslov Variation, which I still think of as the Fantasy Variation (3.f3), the Steiner System (2.c4), the Two Knights Variation, a one time Fischer’s favourite (2.Nc3 d5 3.Nf3), and what is here called the Breyer Variation (2.d3). I liked all of Engqvist’s suggested lines, except for one. In the Steiner System he gives 2.c4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.cxd5 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nxd5 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.Bb5 and now 7…Nxc3 as the main move, whereas 7…e6 (which he says is likely best) would fit as well into his repertoire, in my view. And 7…e6 is not unduly complicated, no more so than 7…Nxc3 anyway.

However, dont let this negligible niggle unduly discourage you. Thomas Engqvist has written an excellent book, a very worthwhile introduction to the Caro-Kann that, while doing justice to its strategic complexity, provides a sound repertoire for newcomers.

The publisher’s description of The Caro-Kann: The Easy Way can be read here.