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| Title:
Starting out: Kings Indian Attack |
Author:
John Emms |
Language:  |
Pages: 224 |
| Cover: Paperback |
Published: 2005 |
| Publisher:
Everyman Chess |
Homepage:
http://everymanchess.com |
| Price: £ 14,99 |
ISBN: 1-85744-394-2 |
| Reviewed by:
Steffen
Pedersen |
Date:
23/7 2006 |
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Starting out: King’s Indian Attack
The renowned chess coach Mark Dvoretsky considers the King’s
Indian Attack (KIA) to be a perfect weapon on which to base an
opening repertoire. For the club player with limited time and energy
available, and disinclination to studying the latest developments in
the Sicilian Najdorf or the like it is a very useful opening as it
consists of a set of common moves, of which the move-order can even
be varied from time to time.
It is basically characterised by the King’s Indian set-up Nf3,
g3, Bg2, 0-0, d3, Nbd2, e4 but sometimes White also plays an early
Qe2 and brings the queen’s knight into play via a3. And sometimes
White plays c4, sometimes c3, a3 and b4. In short: there is plenty
of room for flexibility.
The experienced English grandmaster and writer John Emms covers
both the KIA against the French, Sicilian and Caro-Kann, i.e. White
starting with 1.e4 and applying a calm set-up with 2.d3, but he also
goes into the stringent KIA move-order beginning with 1.Nf3, 2.g3
etc. The 1.e4 portion takes up a little more than 3/5’s of the 224
pages.
Content
Thus the main body of the book has the following content:
- KIA versus the French (67 pages)
- KIA versus the Sicilian (51 pages)
- KIA versus the Caro-Kann (20 pages)
- The Reversed King's Indian (16 pages)
- KIA versus the …Bf5 System (23 pages)
- KIA versus the …Bg4 System (31 pages)
- The Queen's Indian and the Dutch (9 pages)
Every chapter has a similar build-up with a small introduction,
some strategy explanation and statistics. Then a number illustrative
games before a short but useful 'points to remember' section. The
introduction to each chapter is where the opening moves are
explained and move-orders dealt with, while the games is more for 'entertainment
and instructional value' rather than being theoretically relevant.
That said there's plenty of useful opening advice to get from the
annotated games.
Emms gets around most things that can be expected but I found one
small omission in the absence of the line 1.Nf3 d5 2.g3 Bg4 3.Bg2
Nd7. Emms covers these …Bg4-lines with a preliminary …c6, which is
probably also more common, but the line mentioned is popular at
grandmaster-level. Black wants to develop in regular fashion but
tries to do this quicker than usual by leaving out …c6 for some
time.
Easy-to-remember Opening
Moves
It is the easy-to-remember opening moves and standard attacking
plans that attract many to the King's Indian Attack. We all enjoy
when we can have our pieces buzzing around our opponents king, as in
this game:
David Bronstein (2445) – Brian Kelly (2300)
Hastings Challengers (8) 1995
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.Qe2 Nc6 4.g3 Nf6 5.Bg2 d5 6.d3 Be7 7.0–0 0–0
8.e5 Nd7 9.c4 d4 10.h4
Here begins a standard attacking
set-up on the kingside.
10...a6 11.Bf4 Rb8 12.Nh2 Na5 13.Nd2 b5 14.b3 Bb7 15.Bh3 bxc4
16.bxc4 Nc6 17.Ng4 Ba8 18.Nf3 Rb4 19.Ng5 Qb6 20.Bg2 Rb2 21.Qd1 Qa5
22.Be4 g6 23.Qf3 Qc7?
24.Nh6+ Kg7 25.Nhxf7 Ncxe5
25...Rxf7 26.Nxe6+ +-
26.Nxe6+ Kxf7 27.Bxe5+ Kxe6 28.Bd5+ Bxd5
Black resigned and didn't need
to see for example 29.cxd5+ Kxe5 30.Re1+ Kd6 31.Re6 mate. 1–0
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Conclusion:
Starting out: King's Indian Attack is an ideal introduction for the
improving player to an easy-to-learn opening that doesn't need
memorizing lots of variations. Emms explains well various key points
and strategies for both White and Black and presents instructive and
entertaining games to highlight the most important themes.
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