The Classical King's Indian

The King's Indian defense is the most popular opening for black out of the queen's pawn opening. Black likes to develop rapidly and attack white's center. The King's Indian defense is an aggressive opening for black, and usually ends with black checkmating white, or white winning on the queen side.

The King's Indian defense starts out with the moves 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6. Already at moves four and five there are other playable variations, such as the Four Pawns Attack.

As you can see, black has a king side space advantage, and white has a queen side space advantage. This influences their middlegame plans. 

Black's middlegame plans are to:

• Launch a king side attack, by pushing f5 and f4, g5 and g4 and even h5 and sometimes h4.
• Black wants to maneuver their pieces to the king side to join the attack

It's important to note that black, a lot times will abandon the queen side so they can further their attack. Black must not be too careless, and must watch out for white's queen side attacks.

White's plans are to:

• Defend and neutralize black's attack
• Play on the queen side and prepare and execute c5.

To prepare c5, white has many options. They can play b4 or get pieces to control c5. Common moves are Be3, followed by Bf2(When black pushes f4, it robs the bishop of the e3 square); Rc1, and a movement of the c knight, to unleash the rook.

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