The Modern Defense

I play it often as black, often starting with St. George's 1...a6, with good results.

Thanks. As far as I know, in the St. George's you will put your bishop on b7, right? In the Modern Defense you play g6/Bg7

If white plays e4 and d4 and develops normally, black will have a hard time finding a pawn break without allowing a king side attack

I ply this variation sometime

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Several years ago, I read a book called 'Tiger's Modern', which was about a variation of the Modern where Black tends to play g6, Bg7, d6 and then a6, reaching a very interesting position.  I loved it, both the opening and the book.  It was written in a fun, breezy way, more focused on telling ideas and stories then endless variations.  The games were tactical, strategic, magical, unique.

I can't emphasize that last part enough.  When I play the Sicilian, I get a Sicilian position.  You know, standard stuff, and though every game is different, many games feel the same.  Not true with the Modern.  I could play ten games and get ten very different positions in the first ten moves, with different strategies and ideas.  That seemed magical.

I won great games, and I lost some awful games, but I had the most fun with chess during the six months or so I was addicted to Tiger's Modern.  The only problem I had was that I didn't play the KID, and if White plays c4 early, that's a problem.  This eventually led me to giving up hte opening, but every once in a while, if I know my opponent isn't likely to play c4, I like to bust it out.

I understand there's a second edition out now, and Simon Williams has a future DVD on this opening coming at some point.  I can't speak for those, but the original edition changed the way I looked at chess, if for only a few months, and it has a special place in my heart because of it.

Nope, U play a6, d6, g6 in any order and Bg7 , cf. here:

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/st-georges-supermodern-fortress

Thank you for sharing this with us! It sounds great! I know what you mean: some authors just forget that we like stories about chess. 

I heard about this book, and perhaps I should give a try with it. At the moment I am learning something completely different, the Scandinavian Defense with the Black Q going back to d8 after being attacked by Nc3. I am learning this in Chessable. The reason I choose this rather exotic defense is that I felt the need for a rather solid defense against strong players playing 1.e4 (I am planning to play in a chess club for the first time in my life, and I do not want to be crashed in the opening against strong players). I first tried the Caro-Kann, but I found some hair-raising lines against Black that I didn't dare to learn it.

I am still searching for a defense against weaker or equal players, and the Modern seems to me rather interesting. I will try to get a copy of the Hillarp Persson's book. 

I think at some point medium soon I'll glance at the Modern, and not just Mr. Hilarp Persson's version, but a range of ideas. (It took me a few weeks to figure out who Tiger Persson was, because over on Playchess Valeri Lilov calls himself Tiger.) 

Hilarp Persson's modern looks like a mod to a Pirc, which is fair enough.  Over on other threads people were looking for "universal openings" and variants of the Modern have been in the running for say top 4ish systems for decades. 

I'm thinking of sliding into a Modern in a few loose holes in my opening prep when there's a long forcing heavy theoretical crush-risking line.