Lifetime Repertoires: Fressinet’s Sveshnikov Sicilian - GM Laurent Fressinet

Chess opening course on the Sveshnikov Sicilian by GM Laurent Fressinet
Includes video and PGN

Language: English
Lectures: 34
Total Running Time: 35 hours 28 minutes

From the course:

A World Championship Repertoire for Club Players

Before each of his five World Championship matches, Magnus Carlsen had to pick his team. Only one person made the team every time - GM Laurent Fressinet.

In preparation for the 2018 World Championship match Carlsen wasn’t too optimistic about breaking down Fabiano Caruana’s ultra-solid Black repertoire. So he decided that he should play for a win with the Black pieces himself and asked the team to come up with a solution. The Sveshnikov was their choice.

This Lifetime Repertoire is based on the lines and ideas that Team Carlsen prepared for the match, along with updated and expanded analysis by GM Fressinet. The Sveshnikov strikes a balance between being reliable, sturdy and offering great chances to play for a win. It’s one of the most reliable versions of the Sicilian and holds up excellently in modern theory.

The Sveshnikov is a big opening, with many forcing variations taking you deep into the middlegame. This kind of deep-theory opening works perfectly with MoveTrainer, which aids you in memorizing lines and ensuring you survive the opening stage unharmed.

A brief overview of GM Fressinet’s theoretical choices:

????After 7. Nd5 Nxd5 8. exd5, we’ll follow Dubov’s suggestion of 8...Ne7, where the knight heads for its dream position of g6
????In the 7.Bg5 a6 8. Na3 b5 we’ll meet Giri’s Nab1!? with the immediate ...f5
????And in the mainline 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5 9.Nd5 Be7 10.Bxf6 Bxf6 11.c3 we’ll be going for 11…Rb8! which limits White’s options

Of course, there’s a lot more to dig into within the whole repertoire.

White can also try the Rossolimo, as Caruana tried against Carlsen at first. We’ll again be following the repertoire from the 2018 match with 3…g6. The play is less forcing but GM Fressinet goes into great detail about the strategies involved in playing such positions.

The course is rounded out as a full Lifetime Repertoire with complete coverage of the Anti-Sicilians and sidelines. Due to our move order of 2…Nc6, we have extra options against the Anti-Sicilians (compared with a Najdorf or Dragon repertoire of 2…d6) and the course is designed with that in mind. For example, we’ll have a slightly-improved version of the Grand Prix Attack, where we can play ...d5 in one move.

The course features annotated games played by Magnus Carlsen, Vishy Anand and the author himself, which not only gives you an insight into how these lines work in practice, you also get to see the games from a (sometimes nervous!) second’s perspective.

Learning the key strategic ideas from GM Fressinet’s annotations will make learning the theory much easier. While the Sveshnikov does require concrete knowledge, it’s an opening that follows logical positional rules and your overall game will improve by learning them.

GM Laurent Fressinet spent a decade as the second of Magnus Carlsen but he’s also a top player in his own right. With a peak rating of 2720, he’s a two-time French Champion and the winner of World Mind Games 2012, ahead of Hikaru Nakamura, Sergey Karjakin and Ding Liren. He defeated Magnus Carlsen in the Champions Chess Tour in 2023.

The Sveshnikov is a sharp opening that requires real work to play - but if you’re ambitious with the black pieces, it’s an opening that will reward your time immensely. Try it out today.