The Nd5 sacrifice is a thematic and powerful attacking motif in the Sicilian Defense.
Read MoreAbout Elijah
Elijah Logozar
FounderElijah Logozar is a seventeen year old chess coach and aspiring professional chess player. Currently rated 2025 by the United States Chess Federation (USCF), this ranking places him in the top 5% of active tournament players. His USCF profile can be found here. Elijah’s online books and other products are available on this website.
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Chessable.com Products
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GM Rafael Leitao's Sicilian Najdorf
Fighting Anti-Sicilians for the Najdorf player
Sicilian Sacrifices: 20 annotated games
Downloadable PGNs:
GM Rafael Leitao's Sicilian Najdorf ($9.99) Buy Now
Fighting Anti-Sicilians for the Najdorf player ($3.99)Buy Now
Sicilian Sacrifices: 20 annotated games ($2.99) Buy Now
White vs. Clasical Sicilian: The Velimirovic Attack ($2.99)Buy Now
White vs. Sicilian Najdorf: The Fischer-Sozin Attack ($2.99)Buy Now
Crush the Dragon! ($4.99) Buy Now
Reviews
Product: GM Rafael Leitao's Sicilian Najdorf
Wow - just wow. Mr. Logozar has put in an incredible amount of work into this repertoire, and it shows. There is amazingly deep coverage of each of white's main options against the Sicilian Najdorf. It's very reasonably priced for the content available, and this is possibly THE repertoire to buy on chessable.
Product: GM Rafael Leitao's Sicilian Najdorf
This repertoire is absolutely fantastic! It is filled with interesting ideas and cool, powerful lines. I find the recommendation against 6.Bg5 especially intriguing... definitely a 5-star repertoire. Keep up the good work Logozar!
Product: GM Rafael Leitao's Sicilian Najdorf
This repertoire is fantastic--easily the best I've seen on Chessable so far (even with the new Benko book that was recently released). The ideas behind each line are clearly explained, which is wonderful both for learning the strategy and for memorizing the lines themselves.
Product: GM Rafael Leitao's Sicilian Najdorf
Just finished this book and I just loved it. It has brought back my belief in the Sicilian defence. Deserves 5 stars. Only wish it was longer. Many thanks logozar.
Product: GM Rafael Leitao's Sicilian Najdorf
I just finished this book and it is awesome. I recommend it to all readers.
Product: Fighting Anti-Sicilians for the Najdorf player
This book actually covers the lines of importance. Every single line that I’ve ever faced has been covered, and I really wish I had studied the reperotire before playing those people (I got painfully upset recently when I didn’t know how to respond to an Anti-Sicilian).
Product: Crush the Dragon!
A great project by logozar, as usual. As always, LogozRAR tries his best to analyze his lines in depth, cover practically any playable sideline, and most importantly, explain his moves. If you study this, you’ll almost for certain get a huge advantage against any sort of Dragon, except if you happen to face a cheater, or me.
Product: 1.e4: A complete White repertoire!
I am not lying when I say that I was truly awed by the amount of lines that “1.e4: A Comprehensive White Repertoire!” had in just the 1…e5 section. If you want to quickly look up what to play against the Dragon, Philidor, Ruy Lopez (Archangelsk variation), or even something like the Damiano Defense within 1 minute, this is the book for you. It contains so much theory with explanations, that I could not help but applaud to Elijah and tell him what a great job he has done. If you wish to learn bunches of theory, and actually understand it (with master games and commentary) then buy this repertoire, or you will be sad.
Product: 1.e4: A complete White repertoire!
When Elijah approached me some time ago with a request to endorse his book I was not quite sure what to expect. A repertoire book is a very demanding project and requires a lot of work. Honestly, I expected something simple and easy to digest. Something that I can easily go through and come up with recommendations. However, it took me days even to go through the lines! The thing is that Elijah has done a tremendously good and thorough job! Not only that he had suggested most of the principled lines in the repertoire, but he had done a fine job in double checking them with computer programs, fulfilling them with new ideas and recommendations. In this book, you will find hundreds of variations, many of them explored in depth. Yes, the principled lines are covered at a Grandmaster level. The best part is that you will not only bluntly memorize the moves. You would have a clear idea what to do at the end of each line. The variations are never dry but well filled with verbal explanations, arrows, and instructions. Typical endgame positions are sometimes presented for better understanding of the structures and the plans. But the best part for me is the honesty with which Elijah is presenting the material. He will not claim an advantage in every line that he suggests like many authors do. He would rather show the best continuations for your opponent and suggest a practical repertoire which will help you get a good position out of the opening no matter what happens. All in all, this book was an excellent read. Highly recommended.
About twenty-five years ago, when software that ordinary people could afford to run on their own computers was just beginning to play chess at master level, NM Sid Pickard put out a book entitled ECO Busted. The busts weren’t all his own discoveries, and they didn’t by any means form a repertoire, but Sid had raked together over five hundred places where the analysis in those five massive volumes was in urgent need of correction. It was a curious tribute to the amount of rubbish even strong players published that a strong amateur with an early version of Fritz could cut a wide swath through the gold standard reference work. All of that occurred in the era of chess analysis that we should now refer to as BS – meaning, of course, Before Stockfish. Which raises an interesting question: what could a very talented amateur do today, with vastly more powerful software, databases that can generate statistics almost instantly from millions of games, an explosion of high-quality openings material available online, and hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours to devote to creating and honing an aggressive repertoire? Logozar’s comprehensive 1.e4 repertoire gives us the answer. And the short version of that answer is, a lot. A heck of a lot. Holy smokes, omigosh, crazy amounts of a lot. We aren’t talking about quantity here, though any “book” that weighs in at more than 1,200 variations (and is growing, as Logozar has added lines in response to some of my feedback) some of which run very deep (innovations on move 30, anyone?) certainly is immense. The really impressive things about this repertoire are 1. Selection 2. Organization 3. Explanation 4. Innovation Let’s take these points one at a time. Selection. This is not a “system” – there is not, say, a single pawn structure for which White strives in line after line, like the King’s Indian Attack. But there is a common spirit behind the selection. The lines are sharp and topical, like you would expect a strong young GM’s would be. The network of roads into the middlegame (and sometimes into the endgame) is very dense. In that respect, the repertoire differs quite sharply from IM Sielecki’s (truly excellent) “Keep it simple” approach. The motto here might almost be, “Keep it complex!” Overlap between the two repertoires – outside of the refutations of marginal Black tries, which both of them will give you – is almost nonexistent. And if you like the initiative, these lines are undeniably attractive. In one major opening, Logozar’s case is so compelling that I have completely scrapped my previous repertoire and shifted entirely to the lines he recommends. And no, I am not going to tell you what my new opening weapons are. Molon labe! Organization. Logozar has broken each line down into three parts: a basic framework, a deep theoretical explanation, and illustrative games. In this regard, his repertoire reminds me a bit of the Chess Stars books, where the reader is given a quick orientation to a variation in one chapter followed by a meticulous discussion of all of the zillions of alternatives in the next. The games are mostly quite recent and are all well chosen. Explanation. In the framework and the analysis sections, Logozar has devoted huge amounts of time to describing what is going on using words. The quality of the explanations I’ve gone through is very high. We’re not talking about the standard perfunctory phrases like “… White has the initiative” or “… the rest is a matter of technique.” He is constantly pointing out positional themes, circling key squares, drawing the reader’s attention to recurring tactical or strategic motifs. You might worry that a “mere” class A player wouldn’t get these things right, but speaking as a NM, I can state categorically that the explanations I’ve read are on target, insightful, and clearly expressed. I’ve learned some things from them, and that doesn’t happen nearly as often as I’d like. Don't just take my word for it: he has a GM endorsement too. Innovation. There are recommendations here that your computer won’t like for a few hours, until you push it deep enough that suddenly the hidden ideas start to surface. The level of investigation, scrubbing, reworking, and fleshing out is so insanely thorough that this repertoire could be used in high-level correspondence chess. I suspect even some IMs and GMs could learn things from working through this repertoire. I realized, after I got into this set of files, that I’ve been a guinea pig for Logozar in testing some of this material online. Every single time I took Black against him, I could feel the thoroughness of his preparation; and if I managed to escape more times than I ought, that is due entirely to old age and guile. The lines are for real. They can give a master trouble. Also, Logozar is not going to be a 1900 player for long. Very soon, 2000 is going to be receding in his rear-view mirror. I say this as someone who has coached some very talented juniors who have gone on to win their state championships. So, who should buy it? Well, that depends. This is serious stuff, served up in large quantities. If you’re an expert or a master looking to enhance your repertoire with some cutting-edge lines – or to spy out what the theory hounds are doing against your repertoire – this is a no-brainer. If you’re a correspondence player, you absolutely want this book. On the other hand, if you are rated below 1500 (and that isn’t an accident or a joke), you will not be able to wrap your head around most of the theory. Heck, I’m a master and I can’t wrap my head around some of it. (Partly because I’m not even trying to assimilate all of this – but still.) I know at least one master who definitely needs to be aware of a particular set of lines here before he and I next meet over the board. Heh. And yet, if you are a very ambitious lower-rated player with a clear sense that you’re headed upward, and if you like the kind of initiative-based chess these lines represent, there is a case to be made for getting this repertoire right now. This is partly due to the price (see below), but it is also due to the smart organizational decision Logozar has made to include the skeleton-key Introductions to each opening. You can study those short, easy “stubs” first, go out and win and lose some online games, and come back and study the more detailed material as you go along. The very best time to study an opening is just after a game where it actually came up. The recommended lines will make better sense once you’ve seen some of what works and what doesn’t in the hurly-burly of actual play. So basically, if you’re rated below 1500 and you know that you’re just not going to take the trouble to get better at openings, you probably shouldn’t buy this repertoire. If all of your future chess games are going to be black against people who will never play 1.e4, you can skip it. Pretty much everyone else should buy it. Price: this is a ridiculously low price for this quantity and quality of information. Seriously, this is an incredible bargain, and it’s selling at this price only because the author isn’t titled yet. When – not if – Logozar becomes a titled player, the price is going to jump, and won’t you wish you’d bought it when it was still cheap? Which reminds me: I have a copy of all five volumes of ECO, printed on dead tree, that I really should be getting rid of. And a couple of old editions of MCO. And some Batsford monographs. And some Chess Digest pamphlets, bless ‘em. All from that era Before Stockfish. Any offers?
Product: 1.e4: A complete White repertoire!
I would definitely recommend this book for all players looking for a lasting and reliable White repertoire. It is immediately apparent that the author has meticulously researched and built a first-class repertoire of incredible depth. The organisation of the book is logically structured throughout. In each section there is an introduction to the mainlines followed by several well-annotated key master games, meaning you are then ready for the theory section. I am fully confident that the “1.e4: A Comprehensive White Repertoire” will provide anyone who studies it diligently with a high level of chess understanding. Impressive work and highly recommended.
