This week we will study The King's Indian Defense (KID) Bayonet Attack. This sharp and dynamic opening was regularly employed by some of the World Champions like Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Tal and Tigran Petrosian. They introduced exceptional ideas from time to time and believed in its resourcefulness.
Bayonet as an Anti-King's Indian Defence
KID has continued to be one of the popular choices against the queen pawn opening. Many systems like the Classical System, Bayonet Attack, Samisch, Petrosian System, and Avebakh System are the main weapons that put the KID to the test.
Of all the systems, The Bayonet has been the most direct and principled approach to taming the KID. Elite Players like Kramnik, Anand, Bareev, and Van Wely have used this system time and again as their main weapon to counter the KID.
With the popularity of the Bayonet attack growing day by day, white was able to outplay black comfortably at the highest level and the very survival of the King's Indian was under threat. But thanks to the efforts of Teimour Radjabov the Azeri Grandmaster, the system itself was reborn and took new dimensions for the future developments.
Van Wely vs Radjabov
To study the recent developments of the KID Bayonet Attack we have decided to study some recent encounters between Van Wely and Radjabov. Both the players being well prepared and confident in their systems have contributed a lot for this opening, and studying these encounters will give a deeper understanding of the opening.
The Bayonet Attack. A rather straightforward approach from white here. White's idea is to expand on the queenside and he does not delay even a bit in executing his idea. White also understands the essence of time just like in the Sicilian Najdorf. He needs to advance his queenside pawns to begin the attack before Black starts his assault on the kingside.
Now that we have seen how Van Wely has outclassed his opponent, we have to give the young Radjabov his chance before we can come to any conclusion right?
Let us take a look at the final game now where Van Wely tries to improve on the second game, but it did not make much of a difference in the result. Radjabov comes up with some sharp play to pin his opponent down yet another time.
We hope that you have gained enough understanding in the KID Bayonet Attack in particular the positions where white gives up his knight on e6 for black's light-squared bishop. If you think you have seen enough of Van Wely and Rajdabov, we cannot wait to tell you that there is more to their encounters and we will continue to study them next week to keep enhancing our ideas in this opening.
At this point we would also like to give a suggestion to our readers. We encourage you all strongly to not just see the games but also try out the openings you are interested in in friendly or practice games. The best way to learn some of these ideas is when we face those difficulties and try to solve them in real time, in other words, experience is an amazing teacher in itself.