Alexander Alekhine to the game, his chess ideas. I am sure that the future belongs to Alekhine chess." In 2012, Levon Aronian said that he considers Alekhine the greatest chess player of all time. Several openings and opening variations are named after Alekhine. In addition to the well-known Alekhine's Defence (1.e4 Nf6) and the Albin-Chatard-Alekhine Attack in the "orthodox" Paulsen variation of the French Defense, there are Alekhine Variations in: the Budapest Gambit, the Vienna Game, the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez, the Winawer Variation of the French Defense; the Dragon Variation of the Sicilian Defense, the Queen's Gambit Accepted, the
Ruy Lopez especially if Black plays ...Bb7. White usually plays 9.h3 instead of 9.d4 (the Yates Variation) because after 9.d4 Bg4 (the Bogoljubow Variation), the pin of the white is troublesome. The variation takes its name from the game Capablanca–Bogoljubow, London 1922. The Chigorin Variation was refined by Mikhail Chigorin around the turn of the 20th century and became the primary Black defence to the Ruy Lopez for more than fifty years. With 9...Na5 Black chases the white bishop from the a2–g8 diagonal and frees the c-pawn for queenside expansion. After 10.Bc2 c5 11.d4 the classical Black follow up is 11...Qc7, reinforcing