The King Can Take Care of Himself
I hope that by now everyone has had the chance to enjoy David Navara's brilliant (although not quite sound) king march from earlier this year. If you haven't, please enjoy the insanity.
I'm incredibly impressed by the creativity and calculation that goes into a game like that one. I've actually noticed in my own games, that I don't consider king advances in the middlegame as frequently as I should. In the next example, it nearly cost me a win from what was otherwise a dominant game. In a piece up position, my move, 28.Bf4 gave black an opportunity to cause a lot of trouble. Only his error with 29...Nh5+ let me re-take control.
The whole scare in that game could have been avoided if I had just assessed my opponent's threats correctly and found a safe home for my king. What would you play?
I'm working on learning my lesson from GM Navara. The following 5-minute game is my best king-walk to date. It's not GM level, but it was pretty fun.
Do you have any good stories of a brave king?
Jeremy Kane is a National Master and three-time Wisconsin state champion. He is the Curriculum Director for chess.com. He has been teaching chess in person and online for over 15 years and has designed hundreds of lessons, available on chess.com/lessons. He is the author of Starting Out The Trompowsky on Chessable and The Next To Last Mistake, a book on defensive ideas in chess.
He is the developer of the Caro-Kane Variation of the Caro-Kann Defense.
email: jeremy@chess.com
Twitter/X: @chessmensch