Openings for Tactical Players: King's Indian Attack
Last week we discussed one of the most aggressive openings against 1.d4 - King's Indian Defense (KID). But for the true KID fans it's not enough to play it against just 1.d4. They want to play their favorite opening in every single game, even when they play White! Fortunately for them, such an opportunity exists and it is called the King's Indian Attack (KIA). It starts with 1.e4 followed by d3, Nd2, Ngf3, g3, Bg2, and 0-0. Sometimes the same set-up can be reached via different move orders (for example 1.Nf3, 2. g3, 3. Bg2, 4.0-0, 5. d3, 6. Nbd2, 7. e4 etc.)
White's plan in the KIA is as straightforward as in the KID: just attack the opponent's King and don't worry about anything else :) In most the cases, White closes the center by playing e5 and then brings all his pieces towards the King's side untill his attack reaches critical mass and becomes unstoppable.
This opening became extremely popular thanks to the efforts of Bobby Fischer who created a number of masterpieces there. Let's learn the ideas of the opening from the Guru himself. (Just like in all my articles I give you a chance to test your attacking skills, so the games are given as a Quiz. Please remember that you can always replay the whole game from the first move if you click "Solution" and then "Move list".)
