Getting Started with the Jobava London!

Introduction

Jobava London is not your normal, simple, drawish, boring (Sorry, London players) "London System". It's a perfect blend of aggression and tactical play.

• GM Baadur Jobava popularized this opening
• But the History of this opening dates back to the 19th Century, when Mikhail Chigorin used it in a few of his games
• Today, we can see that many top-level players have used this opening in Classical, including Magnus (vs. Gukesh), Hans Niemann, Richard Rapport, Daniel Naroditsky, and Olexander Bortnyk, among others.

Jobava London: My favorite opening.

• You might've guessed from my username, yesss this is my favorite opening!
  But why? Okay, let me tell you!

• I've always loved dynamic openings. Jobava London is exactly that!
  I got inspired to play it by watching the games of Rapport and Arjun Erigaisi

Jobava London starts with the following moves:
1.d4 d5 2.Nc3! (Or Bf4 also transposes) Nf6 3.Bf4

I remember, one or two years ago, I beat a 2000+ FIDE opponent in just 16 moves!! (He refused to resign, but anyway, I won easily on move 30!)
Here's the game!:

Do you think getting a +6.2 position against 2000+ FIDE on move 16 is a normal thing? Of course not.

Typical Plans and Ideas:

THEMATIC IDEA #1: Knight on the Juicy e5 Square

g4! It is my personal favorite idea, and we as Jobava Players need to know this idea by heart!

"If I had to teach you the Jobava in one minute, play d4 Nc3 Bf4 and g4 whenever you can"
- Hans Niemann

THEMATIC IDEA #2: Pushing "Harry the H-pawn" As Simon Williams says :)

This idea is quite common in setups with G6.

THEMATIC IDEA #3: Knight gets a home on b5

THEMATIC IDEA #4: Doubled Pawns aren't always bad, we take cxd3!

I hope you went through these key ideas that every Jobava player should know!

By now, you can clearly see the difference between the normal London and the Jobava London.

Model Game: Jobava vs Shakhriyar

Okay, so let us see how crazy (In a good way) our games may get in the Jobava London. I had seen the game below long ago on the Mega database. Looks like it's from a course or something, it's annotated by Baadur Jobava himself, sit back and enjoy this treat!

Who should play the Jobava London?

If you're,

• An Attacking or Dynamic Player
• Someone who hates memorizing theory
• Creative Player
• Or you just want to have fun in life, ha ha.

Then this opening is for you!

Closing Thoughts

Hope you enjoyed this blog, I'll dive even deeper into the Jobava in the future ones

I know that this is not enough for you to become a Jobava master yet, but it's a good start!
Try playing a few blitz games and experiment with the ideas yourself!

The bad news? You’ll still need to study a bit of theory and analyze your own games.

The good news? I’ll keep posting more blogs to help you understand this opening better!

If this blog helped you understand the jobava, try it out in your next online session and tell me how it went in the blog forum!
Remember

"d4 Nc3 Bf4 and g4 whenever you can!" LET THE CHAOS BEGIN!

Happy Chessing!