Tactic Toolbox Italian Game by Mihail Marin

The highly popular Italian game (traditionally known as Giuoco Piano, meaning the quiet game in Italian) is mainly a positional opening. This is even more obvious in the systems with d2-d3 (Giuoco Pianissimo, the quietest game), in which White refrains from an early fight for the centre. With all the pieces and pawns on board, there are many latent tactical possibilities for both sides.

This video course is intended as a tactical guide for Black, featuring themes such as the tactical abilities of the c5-bishop and the relatively restricted c6-knight, the kingside attack and the fight for the centre. Since the structure is almost symmetrical, the author has also examined a few examples with mirrored ideas, such as the tactical abilities of White‘s light-squared bishop. In doing so, his aim is to widen the viewers‘ understanding of certain ideas, but also to warn them about the potential tactical dangers. The author hopes that the spirit of the examples on this video course sweep away the common fear that chess will be extinguished by draws.

• Video running time: 5 hours 18 minutes(English)
• With interactive training including video feedback
• Extra: Database with further examples

Sample video

1. Introduction
2. The dark-squared bishop
3. Exercise 01: Vaage-Moller
4. Exercise 02: Thomson-Morphy
5. Exercise 03: Kastner-Mahdy
6. Exercise 04: Gevorgyan-Batsiashvili
7. Exercise 05: Yankovsky-Matlakov
8. Exercise 06: Inkiov-Jovanic
9. Exercise 07: Gilg-Stoltz
10. Exercise 08: Reznikov-Aigner
11. Exercise 09: Heimrath-Zude
12. Exercise 10: Valks-Garrett
13. Exercise 11: Agopov-Sammalvuo
14. Exercise 12: Mestel-Greenfeld
15. Exercise 13: Moraes-Pereira
16. Exercise 14: Ivannikov-Jakovenko
17. Exercise 15: Ataullin-Guzairov
18. Exercise 16: Krasnov-Bakutin
19. The queen's knight
20. Exercise 01: Mak-Tan
21. Exercise 02: Gunsberg-Blackburne
22. Exercise 03: Wolski-Root
23. Exercise 04: Neiksans-Vajda
24. Exercise 05: Fornari-Rieke
25. Kingside piece attack
26. Exercise 01: Sean-Flores
27. Exercise 02: Solleveld-Berkvens
28. Exercise 03: Kurmann-Hajnal
29. Exercise 04: Lu-Peng
30. Exercise 05: Bacrot-Ding
31. Exercise 06: Kilthau-Bakiev
32. Exercise 07: Petrosian-Carlsen
33. Exercise 08: Anhalt-Luetke
34. Exercise 09: Tomazini-Cheparinov
35. Exercise 10: Nguyen-Ho
36. Exercise 11: Belikov-Podgaets
37. Exercise 12: Katona-Zupe
38. Exercise 13: Uddin-Hasan
39. Exercise 14: Tikranian-Harshini
40. Exercise 15: Kuijf-Campora
41. Exercise 16: So-Carlsen
42. Kingside pawn attack
43. Exercise 01: Washburn-Lasker
44. Exercise 02: Romanovsky-Levenfish
45. Exercise 03: Caruana-Nakamura
46. Exercise 04: Ypma-Haast
47. Exercise 05: Minor-Carlstedt
48. The centre
49. Exercise 01: Kazhgaleyev-Carlsen
50. Exercise 02: Moor-Gligoric
51. Exercise 03: Paehtz-Balajayeva
52. Exercise 04: Volokitin-Ding
53. Exercise 05: Lagno-Ivanchuk
54. Exercise 06: Valsecchi-Mastrovasilis
55. Exercise 07: Acikel-Wierzbicki
56. Exercise 08: Pap-Greenfeld
57. Exercise 09: Podvin-Strugnell
58. Exercise 10: Schellman-Ovsejevitsch
59. Exercise 11: Sengupta-Sjugirov