Do you want to learn a solid and aggressive chess opening for Black? Do you want a solid opening weapon that will feed your attacking style? Then you can play this unknown and aggressive sideline in the Petrov’s Defence or Russian Game or Petroff Defence.

Generally, the Russian Game is considered drawish, but this sideline will get you an attacking position. You play the mainline till 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Nc6 7.O-O, but then instead of continuing the mainline 7…Be7, you can play the sideline 7…Bg4.

Black is pinning the White knight on f3, threatening to capture the d4-pawn. This works great especially against beginners as they are really annoyed by the deadly pin and tend to play passively such as 8.c3 protecting the d4-pawn or attacking the bishop with 8.h3. Most of your opponents will mess up and you can easily get a winning position.

Trivia: The move 7…Bg4 was played by Anatoly Karpov in his World Chess Championship Match against Garry Kasparov, and Kasparov could not win even a single game as White. If a solid and aggressive chess opening for Black is what you’re looking for, you found it!

You can find the PGN of this opening below:

Check out another aggressive variation here.