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. The Pirc Move by Move by Nigel Davies is published by Everyman Chess.
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