I played a 90 minute game last week and had the Black pieces against the Reti. I really have no idea what to do against this thing and generally just try to stay solid and adopt a kind of symmetrical approach.

Does anyone have any ideas about energetic ways to play against the Reti? I think players throw it out there because it's so stable and I would really like to throw a spanner in the works if possible.

Just for the record, and to illustrate the kind of tepid positions that I'd rather avoid, here's the game.

Not the Reti.

You transposed to a very solid symetrical grunfeld line. Chould look at Byrne v Fischer in "Sixty memorable games" for how to play that. Think 8...Ne4 suppose to be good for black.

 

More lively game if play KingsIndian with 5...d6 After 6c4 the modern way playing against fianchetto variation is with Nc6, Rb8 and a6 Panno variation. Alternatively play 5...d5 and after 6c4 pxp or 6...0.0 7pxp Nxd5 with a more unbalanced type of Grunfeld. Yelena Dembo wrote a good book "Beating the anti-kingsindians" if white avoids these transpositions by not playing d4, and c4.

I've always done well with a slav style defense against the reti. At GM level maybe there are (slightly) better choices but for club players it is one of the most straight forward ways to defuse white's ideas.

 

Black takes advantage of white not trying to restrict development and gets a good solid position with active pieces and no weaknesses. Then just pull the bishop back to h7 before e4 happens to give yourself options. b4 is pretty much ready and black is well positioned to contest files on the Q side and get good play. Another good plan is to bring the knight up to c5 and attack white's pawns or provoke moves like d4 or b4 where white will need to weaken his position or shut down his own play. Also notice that with a knight on c5 Bxd3 can be really nasty.

If your opponent is just playing KIA moves then gobbling up the center is ok.

And a typical KID reversed shows up;

try to transpose to a QGD?

What about the main line: 1. Nf3 d4 2. c4 dxc 3. Qa4 [block check] 4. QxP?

I play 1.. C5 inviting a Sicilian ..