Winning with the Najdorf Sicilian

Zaven Andriasian

An Uncompromising Repertoire for Black

Sample pages (pdf)

The Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian Defence continues to be extremely popular. For very good reasons: it is a flexible, ambitious, wonderfully rich and diverse system that offers one of the best ways for Black to play for a win. Both Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov achieved spectacular successes with their beloved Najdorf.

In this book, Grandmaster Zaven Andriasyan presents a groundbreaking attacking repertoire for Black. His book is in four parts: Part 1 looks at 6.Bg5 after which he recommends the ultra sharp Poisoned Pawn variation; Part 2 shows how to deal with 6.Bc4; Part 3 examines the currently popular 6.Be3 and part 4 considers White's other 6th move options, 6.Be2, 6.f4, 6.a4, 6.g3 and 6.h3.

Revisiting all major Najdorf battlegrounds Andriasyan radically overturns the opening theory of the past decades. In his search for new ways he has found an astonishing number of improvements: all in all he presents more than two hundred novelties!

With a foreword by Levon Aronian.

Zaven Andriasyan (1989) was both European under-18 and World under-20 champion in 2006. He is currently one of the strongest grandmasters in Armenia. Zaven Andriasyan regularly writes for the New In Chess Yearbooks.

Published 2013, softback, 254 pages.