Pirc and Modern Defense
Black lets White build a full pawn centre, fianchettoes the king's bishop and then attacks that centre from the side. Flexible, risky and rich.
The Pirc (1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6) and the Modern (1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7) are hypermodern defences: Black does not occupy the centre with pawns but undermines it later with ...e5 or ...c5 and the bishop on g7. The Pirc is named after the Slovenian grandmaster Vasja Pirc. The Modern delays ...Nf6, which avoids e4-e5 with tempo and keeps more options open, at the cost of allowing White extra setups such as c2-c4. Both are fully playable but demand accuracy, because White has more space and can attack directly. Our game data shows the pattern clearly: Black's typical losses are not strategic. They are early tactics on f7, and the e5 push arriving when the f6 knight has no good square.
The ideas in 7 positions
Click a card to see it on the board. 0/7 viewed
Choose your path
Black chooses the Pirc move order with 1...d6 and 2...Nf6, or the Modern with 1...g6. Then White chooses a system.
Common mistakes, by level
Real patterns from club games. Every line is engine-checked; in the evals, plus is good for White.
These are the patterns worth knowing. For the full count, see the Pirc and Modern Defense mistakes players make most often at each rating.
Middlegame plans
What to do once the book runs out.
Now make it stick
Reading is the easy part. Solve the real mistakes from this opening until the patterns fire by themselves.
Sources: Wikipedia: Pirc Defence and Modern Defence (history, Austrian Attack, Classical System, 150 Attack, Averbakh System) · Wikibooks: Chess Opening Theory, 1.e4 d6 and 1.e4 g6 (CC BY-SA) · Our own game data: most frequent flagged mistakes in the Pirc and Modern (Lichess games, both players rated 1800+) and fall rates from analysed Lichess games at 1200–1400, 1500–1700 and 1900–2100 (May 2024 sample) · Stockfish 19, depth 20 on every mistake; every idea, variation and plan line checked move by move at depth 16
Give the centre, then hit it
Move 1 of the line — press → or waitBlack has spent three moves without touching the centre with a pawn. The plan is ...Bg7, ...O-O and then a pawn break: ...e5 or ...c5. Until the break comes White has more space; after it, the d4 pawn is a target.