King's Indian Defense 7...Na6 continued by GM Magesh and GM Arun

We saw how black could make use of one of his knights on the queen side last week in the King's Indian 7...Na6 system. Today we will take a look at some of the shortcomings of this idea and how white can exploit them. Obviously it is almost impossible to refute any opening these days with 112 cores of hardware and 3 pounds of Super Grandmaster brain creating newer and more modern ways to keep variations alive in different forms. Nonetheless we will try to understand the subtle difference created by 7...Na6 and make the most use of it.

Our first game today is from the current World Number 1, Magnus Carlsen. There is a reason why he is so good at this and he displays that very clearly in the following game.

A very nice and clean game from Carlsen. Our next game is from Anatoly Karpov demonstrating his indisputable positional understanding in such positions.

There was really no hope for Illincic in that game as he was thoroughly outplayed by the classy Karpov. Hopefully now our readers have a good overall idea about the Na6 setup in the King's India Defense.