The grandmaster Nigel Davies has just written a new book on the Pirc Defence, a variation in which Black sacrifices immediate control of the centre to White’s pawns, in the hope of a later counterattack, designed to paint the centre of the board black instead of white. Davies is a solid, dependable and reliable guide to an opening that was once considered heretical but is now mainstream.
The game I have chosen to illustrate the principle theme of this defence is the victory I achieved against the ten-times British champion Jonathan Penrose in 1971. This game was instrumental in my winning the British Championship that year. I first annotated this win in the British Chess Magazine at the time but the notes that follow incorporate some of the latest wrinkles as advocated in the new book.
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