What Is The Deadly Shvedova Attack?

There is a very powerful strategic chess concept called the Shvedova attack.

What, you never heard about this mighty chess weapon? Shame on you! The Shvedova attack is named after a seven-year-old Russian girl, Alexandra Shvedova, who beautifully executed it in the following game:

Did you notice how Black's kingside pawns squeezed White's position? That's the point of the Shvedova attack. OK, OK, I can hear your objection. This kingside pawn storm is very typical for the King's Indian Defense, and has happened in thousands of games, like this one:

As you can see, this strategic concept is not new at all. Yet, in order to emphasize its power, when we analyzed my student's game above, we immediately named this kind of positional squeeze after her opponent; hence the Shvedova Attack was born. 

While indeed most frequently we see this kind of pawn storm in the King's Indian defense, it can happen in a variety of openings. There is just one requirement for the Shvedova Attack: the center must be closed or your opponent will strike there!

Here are some examples from different openings:

Of course, White can play the Shvedova Attack too. Here is how an 11-year-old boy did it:

And this is a classic example of a king hunt:

By the way, the king is not always the target of the Shvedova Attack. Look at this purely positional squeeze, for example:

So, you like the Shvedova Attack and cannot wait to crush your opponents using this deadly weapon? There is an opening setup designed precisely for this purpose! We discussed this opening line in my old article.

If you master this extremely important concept, it will help you to win dozens of games!