King's Indian Update by GM Magesh and GM Arun

After all these weeks reading our opening articles, our readers probably wonder how well these ideas and moves can be used in practical play. Well, today we can take a look at a couple of Arun's games in which he has used these ideas himself; at least now you guys can be assured these ideas are not just random show-off tips, but actual good ones!

We had discussed the King's Indian defense some time back with white trying out the idea of playing Ng5 and Ne6 to trade black's light squared bishop. After writing this article Arun had worked on it a little bit, and in the last month he had a chance to test his work in a couple of good games.

The first game was against a colleague of ours from India, a strong International Master Ashwin Jeyaram. In this variation he tried one of his preparations and it worked out excellently as his opponent was totally stomped and was finding it very hard to cope with his problems over the board.

Feels very satisfying to play a game when you feel you have complete control throughout the game, doesn't it? Just when it felt it could not get any better, there was another opportunity for Arun against a 2510 rated International Master, Stefan Bromberger in a tournament that we both are currently playing in Greece. Again a complete dominance over the board was evident in the game and it was very pleasant to watch it in person from the side.

These games hopefully have added more understanding to this particular variation and also the importance of home work. It was the hours of preparation at home that gave such a satisfying result to Arun against such World-class opposition.