In one of the most popular and theoretically important lines, the Yugoslav Variation, White meets Black's setup with Be3, Qd2 and Bh6, exchanging off the Dragon bishop, followed by launching a kingside pawn storm with h4–h5 and g4.
In his 1953 autobiography, the Russian chess master and amateur astronomer Fyodor Dus-Chotimirsky claimed that he coined the name "Dragon Variation" in 1901, after the fancied resemblance between Black's kingside pawn structure and the constellation Draco.
[4][5] The earliest known printed reference, found by chess historian Edward Winter, is in the Jan-Feb 1914 issue of Wiener Schachzeitung.
Qd2 Nc6 The Yugoslav Attack with 9.Bc4 exemplifies the spirit of the Dragon with race-to-mate pawn storms on opposite sides of the board.
Typical White strategies are exchanging dark-squared bishops by Be3–h6, sacrificing material to open the h-file, and exploiting pressure on the a2–g8 diagonal and the weakness of the d5 square.
Black can frequently obtain an acceptable endgame even after sacrificing the exchange because of White's h-pawn sacrifice and doubled pawns.
After years of players believing that White's best play and chance for advantage lay in the main line with 9.
In fact, recently Black experienced a time of difficulty in the 9...d5 line facing a brilliant idea by Ivanchuk which seemed to give White the advantage.
Qxf8+ Kxf8 leaves Black with a pair of very potent bishops which, together with the queen on c7, will cause trouble for the White king.
Garry Kasparov played the move three times in the 1995 World Championship against Viswanathan Anand, scoring two wins and a draw.
Named for Grandmaster Igor Glek, who has devoted considerable effort evaluating the resulting positions for White.
GM John Emms wrote, "Although it's difficult to beat the Yugoslav in terms of sharp, aggressive play, 7.Be2 0-0 8.Qd2!?
also contains a fair amount of venom ... White's plans include queenside castling and a kingside attack.
Another option for Black is to play what has been called the "Dragodorf", which combines ideas from the Dragon with those of the Najdorf Variation.
Such a move order would be used to try to avoid a Yugoslav type attack; for instance, after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6, White could play 6.Be2 or 6.f4.
Usually the bishop is more ideally placed on c4, where it can pressure f7 and help defend the white king (though the 9.0-0-0 variation of the Dragon shows that this is not completely necessary), and if White plays f4 and then castles queenside, they must always be on guard for Ng4 ideas, something which the move f3 in traditional Dragon positions usually discourages.
Some famous exponents of the Dragon are Veselin Topalov, Andrew Soltis, Jonathan Mestel, Chris Ward, Sergei Tiviakov, Alexei Fedorov, Mikhail Golubev, the late Tony Miles and Eduard Gufeld.
Garry Kasparov used the Dragon with success as a surprise weapon against world title challenger Viswanathan Anand in 1995 but did not use it subsequently.