The Maroczy Bind by GM Magesh and GM Arun

The Maroczy Bind is an opening, or to be more precise a pawn formation, named after the Hungarian Grandmaster Geza Maroczy. It is characterized by white pawns at c4 and e4, and the exchange of white's d-pawn for black's c-pawn. White binds down Black's position by taking total control of the center and stops Black from breaking the center open. Black, however, does not have any weaknesses in his camp and keeps his pieces ready at all times to relish in active counterplay at an opportune moment. This pawn formation happens most commonly against the Sicilian Defense and in particular against the Accelerated Dragon Defense.

Today we can take a look at one of the common positions that arises out of this opening in a game that I (Magesh) played a few months back. I had a silly opening collapse, but leaving that aside, this game was a really convincing and satisfying one for me. Given that I had already defeated a 2600 player in the tournament I was oozing with confidence as I walked into my 5^th round game against a strong Grandmaster from Azerbaijan, Gadir Guseinov.

After studying my opponent's games, I considered all my opening options and in the end actually decided to stick with 1.d4 and not go into the Sicilian Defense which he plays against 1.e4. Lets see how this unfolded....

Hurray!!! It is the Sicialian Defense now. I just thought to myself, "How on Earth could I miss that???"  After preparing to play 1.d4 the whole time, now I was sitting at the board facing a 2650+ rated opponent with an opening I did not want to get into. A good friend and my colleague Grand Master Kidambi noticed this happening on my board and was quite puzzled, but knowing me personally for almost 20 years now, he probably would not have expected anything else. Other than bragging about my fantastic opening play, there are two things that I should emphasize here: 

1. That simple transpositions can happen within openings, particularly when both the sides are not committed in the center, like in this game (1.Nf3 g6).

2. That there exists an over-emphasis on opening study these days. I feel this game could be one of the good examples to show that even when you are not prepared in the opening against stronger opposition, sticking to some basic principles and natural ideas can get you home safely.

We have reached the basic pawn structure of the Maroczy Bind. White has total control over the d5 square not allowing black the critical d5 break that is required to equalize the game. Black also has other common ideas to break through with b5 or f5 after sufficient preparation.

And here black tries an idea that has been around in a few other strong Grandmaster games. Black is going against the most common a6 and b5 plan to expand further on the queenside with a4 followed by a3 unsettling white's pieces on the queenside. Given that I had not revised my opening ideas for the day, I sank into a brief thought here and tried to come up with some logical moves. The plan was simple, keep black's ideas under check, do not allow his queenside expansion or any big pawn breaks and finally maintain that nagging space advantage as long as possible.

There was nothing extraordinary from white in this game, however it was very neat and clean to my liking. The tiny advantage that white had was maintained throughout the game. This is one of the main properties of this opening, white maintains a strong hold on the game and tries to prevent most of black's counterplays. Given that white already maintains that strong hold, even tiny errors from black can cost dearly. Hopefully our readers enjoyed the Bind as much as I enjoyed playing it.