![White pawn on a chessboard](https://image.lichess1.org/display?h=550&op=thumbnail&path=achja:ublog:9wXuhal5:SS9sn6SC.png&w=880&sig=24e37f93663db8f83a21f8945a26759d69aee651)
Wikipedia
An early g4 in a GM game
This week I read that GM Liam Vrolijk had won a tourney in Spain, and I checked several of his games, and the early g4 game got my attentionI did not recall having seen this before but the Lichess Masters db shows almost 170 entries with it, and the earliest of the top entries is from 1998, and this should be no surprise, played by none other than the creative GM Vadim Zvjaginsev, a student of the famous chess coach Mark Dvoretsky.
Let's have a look :
Then, after this win for white, I noticed that Jeroen Piket played it himself as white, the next year, in 1999 (Remember that Ulf Andersson played with black versus Bobby Fischer in 1970, and Ulf was so impressed by the Hedgehog (with b3 and c4 by Fischer as white) that he adopted it himself, and later went on to win with the Hedgehog versus Karpov. So, you cannot just learn from your losses, you can learn opening ideas from your opponent as well).
More blog posts by achja
![White king on a chess board](https://image.lichess1.org/display?h=250&op=thumbnail&path=achja:ublog:WDgbUaz1:Pdpxc4Ud.png&w=400&sig=8e4be00b46dcd143bccc9e5a2b1f9eb047dda5b2)
Sharing two chess compositions I enjoyed this week
First the diagrams, then some comments![White chess pawn - Wikipedia](https://image.lichess1.org/display?h=250&op=thumbnail&path=achja:ublog:SiRDFUBg:KFAYu7PB.png&w=400&sig=542ae7c8dc5a791f38845d7e113bf7d0a0b0dea5)
Modern defense - h and a pawn push game - and how black can play better
In the past I have tried this h pawn push idea several times, but if black responds properly this ca…![Book review : The Life & Games of Akiva Rubinstein. Volume 2 : The Later Years](https://image.lichess1.org/display?h=250&op=thumbnail&path=achja:ublog:NXUsx7Vz:Hsh5YfEo.png&w=400&sig=37937a2bdc84dfeebee8963c1eb6ef96c9dbdff6)
Book review : The Life & Games of Akiva Rubinstein. Volume 2 : The Later Years
by John Donaldson and Nikolay Minev. 2nd Edition, Revised and Enlarged (Russell Enterprises 2011)![Greek gift from Nepo - Sjugirov, 2016](https://image.lichess1.org/display?h=250&op=thumbnail&path=achja:ublog:zAsxCDWB:yffT8UAt.png&w=400&sig=79978732f2f77292730562cd92c894688914f269)