Last Wednesday I “unleashed” a surprise attack against my regular chess partner, Dr. M, by deploying the Jobava London system, after watching the first of Simon Williams’ YouTube videos on the topic.
Simon is an erstwhile quaffing partner of mine. We met during the British Chess Championships in Llandudno in 2017 and I’ve been following him more or less ever since.
What is the Jobava London system?
As I explain in a recent blog post on EasyChessTips.com, the Jobava London system is an innovation created by Georgian grandmaster Baadur Jobava, who Simon Williams, aka The Ginger GM has been following with interest. Simon has just released a six hour DVD on the topic.
The Jobava London system offers d4 players such as myself a nice variation. In my case, I typically play d4, c4 and then Nc3. The Jobava London typically opens with d4, Nc3, Bf4. So it’s a nice option to have up your sleeve when your opponents have got used to your regular d4 opening. 😉
amzn_assoc_tracking_id = “clevercuckoon-20”; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = “manual”; amzn_assoc_ad_type = “smart”; amzn_assoc_marketplace = “amazon”; amzn_assoc_region = “US”; amzn_assoc_design = “enhanced_links”; amzn_assoc_asins = “B074P7G2WX”; amzn_assoc_placement = “adunit”; amzn_assoc_linkid = “4604763518eaa8e86bd42fedffceea6a”;The #PubChessBluffer Does Some Prep…
Last Wednesday Simon had not uploaded the second video when I went into town to play the game. So I spent an hour or so in a cheap diner studying the first video with the help of a 500 ml carafe of white table wine before hopping over to Dr. M’s to set up the pieces and hope that the notes would be enough to see me through.
It all depended on Dr. M playing into my preparation and NOT moving his pawn to g6 and Bishop to g7 because 3. …g7 was not in the first video and was to be covered in the upcoming second video…
So, what happened when I attempted to put the Jobava London into practice?
At first it looked as if Dr. M was playing into my preparation as the first moves went according to plan:
| DH | Dr. M | |
| 1. | d4 | d5 |
| 2. | Nc3 | Nf6 |
| 3. | Bf4 | … |
And here, Dr. M moved as if with second sight, 3. …g6!
Now what?
Here’s a video of how the game went, how I responded to 3. …g6 and what the Ginger GM actually recommends. Once I was out of preparation the game progressed with plenty of #PubChessBluffery that has little to do with the Jobava London as it ought to be played:
I responded to 3. …g6 with 4.e3 whereas Simon recommends an immediate 4.e4 in this set up. But I failed to work it out for myself and only found out what I should have done when I got home later that night and saw that the second Jobava London video had been uploaded to Simon’s video channel.
I’m going to press on and learn more about this system with the help of Simon’s training resources so that I won’t always be following up 1.d4 with 2.c4. 🙂
DH