No need to fear the Slav Exchange Variation

The Slav is a magnificent opening, but for many players there is one little blot on its escutcheon - that is the Exchange Variation. Not only does Black apparently have no prospects of obtaining the full point, but since he has an extra tempo White may well make attempts to win the game. But if you know what you are doing, you can easily do two things as Black: equalise and break the symmetry. Henrik Danielsen achieves this by doing without the move Bc8-f5 and instead playing a7-a6 as early as move 6. In his intro and five other video clips the grandmaster demonstrates for you the critical variations and how Black must play in each case.