Vasily Smyslov Lopez and English Opening as White and the Sicilian Defense and Nimzo-Indian Defense as Black. He made enormous contributions to chess opening theory in many openings, including the English Opening, Grünfeld Defence, and the Sicilian Defence. He has a variation of the Closed Ruy Lopez named for him: the line runs 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0-0 9.h3 h6. In the Grünfeld Defence, the continuation 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Qb3 dxc4 6.Qxc4 0-0 7.e4 Bg4 8.Be3 Nfd7 is known as the Smyslov Variation and remains a
Ruy Lopez, Exchange Variation than this. White now threatens 6.Nxe5 because the sequence 6...Qd4 7.Nf3 Qxe4 to regain the pawn, now fails to 8.Re1 pinning and winning the queen. "ECO" code C68 examines these responses to 5.0-0: 5...Qf6, 5...Qe7, 5...Bd6, 5...Qd6, or 5...Bg4 (all directly defending the e5-pawn, except 5...Bg4 which indirectly defends by pinning the knight). The moves 5...Be6, 5...Be7, and 5...Ne7 are less common moves which have never achieved popularity. The idea behind these moves is that if White plays to win a pawn with 6.Nxe5, 6...Qd4 7.Nf3 Qxe4 is again playable, as the Black minor piece on e6 or e7 blocks