Playing the Najdorf

The Sicilian Najdorf is one of Black’s best and most combative responses to 1.e4. The Najdorf was championed by Fischer and Kasparov during their respective periods of dominance over the world chess scene, and has been used extensively by many other World Champions and elite GMs, including Anand, Gelfand, Topalov and Vachier-Lagrave to name but a few.

Despite the Najdorf’s obvious pedigree, many players are intimidated by the highly tactical and theoretical nature of some of its main lines....