Spartan Shield - 7 Key Concepts to Shield your King

Course 62 episodes
(2 hours 6 min)

Creators GM Gabuzyan Hovhannes

Defending is a super skill – one that will save you from crushing attacks and make attackers unhappy!

At some point, you’ll face opponents who just love attacking. Inspired by attacking classics, these opponents are always looking for a way to pounce at your King, sacrifice pieces and checkmate you.

At the start of his chess career, GM Gabuzyan struggled when he was attacked. He would panic and had a hard time defending his King. Every such loss made him depressed.

But soon, his coach taught him that being attacked is not the end. And by following basic defensive principles, he could defend successfully.

As he started learning, GM Gabuzyan couldn’t believe how easy it was to learn and understand how to defend. With more experience, his defensive skills got better. And soon, he no longer feared getting attacked.

In this course, GM Gabuzyan shares the 7 most important defensive concepts. These will help you become fearless when you come under attack and also help refute the rubbish and unsound attacks!

Below are the positions from the course:

Spartan Shield - 7 Key Concepts to Shield your King

Ready to defend like a Spartan? 🛡️

Pick up your shields! Let’s go!

Note – This course is aimed at players below 1600 online rating. It serves as a good starting point to learn about defending. To learn more advanced concepts, check out Johan Hellsten’s course, ‘Defend with Honor’.

What you'll learn

A simple defensive strategy to take the sting out of any attack.
A technique used by legendary defenders like Petrosian, Karpov to diffuse the opponent’s attacking threats.
How to punish your opponent for their ‘wrong’ sacrifices.
How to time a counterattack and use tactics while defending.
Common mistakes players make while defending.