20 Ideas Every Catalan Player Must Know
A Comprehensive Guide To Understanding The Catalan OpeningThe Catalan opening is one of the most topical openings in modern chess - not just at the elite level, but even at the amatuer level.
To this day, I can still remember the game where I first encountered the Catalan, in May of 2016. I already had a FIDE rating of 1800+, but was rather clueless how to appropriately deal with the opening in question (truth be told, I was not even aware of what the Catalan was).
The game made a very strong impression on my 13 year-old self, and by 2017 I had decided it was well overdue that I give the opening a spin myself.
Despite outrating my opponent by a fair margin, this game really gave myself the confidence to further play this opening, and it has since stayed in my repertoire for a good seven(!) years at this point.
It is important to note, broadly speaking, there are two types of setups Black can shoot for against the Catalan.
These first two games illustrate what we would describe as the 'Closed Catalan'. Black opts for more of a passive (but also somewhat safe) setup, where they (usually) establish pawns on c6, d5, and e6. Among players who are not too booked up, this tends to be their preferred option.
The other type of Catalan setup, is termed as the 'Open Catalan' - where Black plays ...dxc4, and wins a pawn (often just temporarily, though). There are various interpretations of how this can be played, but here is one example of a best-case scenario for White - where I managed to score a nice win in the 2024 Australian Championships:
I will admit though, the Catalan can seem very overwhelming to learn if you've never studied it before. Especially, with all of the different theoretical lines that Black can throw at us in the opening.
That is why I made the video '20 Ideas Every Catalan Player Must Know' in 2023, with about 15k views as of the time of writing, and more positive feedback than I could've anticipated.
My goal with this video was really to teach viewers the fundamental ideas (both strategic and tactical) of the opening - as opposed to the conventional method of starting with all these complex theoretical lines, with little foundational understanding of the opening.
Anyhow, it may take more than one sitting to get through, as the video is just under an hour long, but I do hope that it will prove valuable to your game :)
