Sakaev: Complete Slav 1The Slav Defence is currently the most popular closed opening, appearing in the opening repertoire of the overwhelming majority of top class grandmasters. A competitive chess player playing 1. d4 faces the opening in almost every tournament, and for Black it can be used in just about every second game. Over a number of years I have played various different lines of the opening with both colours and analysed it both individually and in cooperation with