Chess With Sam Collins

World Junior Girls Championship, New Delhi, 2019

Polina Shuvalova from Russia won the World Junior Girls Championship. As the great German GM and chess writer Dr Siegbert Tarrasch once explained, if one of your pieces is badly placed, your whole game is bad. This concept was well illustrated by Shuvalova’s third round game.

1.e4 e5 2.Bc4

This move order is commonly chosen by players who like the Italian Game (2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4) but ...