BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO THE PIRC DEFENSE

>>>This is coming from my personal experiences and is a work-in-progress. Please do not get mad that I am completely underqualified to be writing this, just take this as a recommendation.<<<

GUIDE UNDER CONSTRUCTION. HAMMER IS BROKEN.

The Pirc Defense (pronounced "piertz"), is a hypermodern opening that focuses on counterattacks and traps more than control of the center.

The opening consists of rejecting center space and quickly castling, rejecting center space in an attempt to prove white's pieces to be overextended.

The Pirc defense starts with 1. e4 d6

Most players respond with d4, taking full control of the center. Black's idea with playing d6 is to play nf6, with the d6 pawn keeping white's e4 pawn from attacking the knight on f6.

The knight on f6 now attacks white's e4 pawn, which can't play e5 or else black wins at least a pawn with 3. e5 dxe5 4. dxe5 Qxd1 5. Kxd1 Ng4.

White then must move their king back to protect the fork on f2, losing their center pawn and now unable to castle.

But white doesn't often play 3. e5 for this reason, so let's go back to our original position:

In this scenario, white will almost always play the best move, Nc3, developing the knight and protecting the e4 pawn. 

Our next move is very important; we play g6, allowing us to fianchetto the bishop and castle kingside with powerful protection. 

We now have reached the main line of the Pirc Defense:

There are two variations in particular you should be ready to play against, the Austrian Attack and Two Knights System.

The first variation we'll look at is the most common variation, known as the Austrian Attack. White uses 4. f4 to pressure the kingside of the board and particularly the e5 square:

After we fianchetto our bishop to g7, white can play Nf3, adding even more pressure to the e5 square and transposing the opening to a Modern Defense (for the sake of this guide, it's still basically a Pirc defense, since the two are so similar). 

In any case, whether it be Nf3 or Bd3, just castle, play carefuly, and attack weak or overextended pieces. Your c bishop can usually play Bg4 and trade off white's highly troublesome f3 knight.

On the off-chance white skips Nf3 and immediately plays 5. e5, just play Nfd7, redirecting your attacked knight to attack white's overextended e5 pawn. White will have a hard time adequately defending this square, so if white plays this just pressure that pawn chain and you should be fine.

You should also consider challenging the center at this time, since breaking it open would expose the white king, and closing the board would make it nearly impossible to attack you.

While playing e5 is often a good move to play for center, c5 is also a great option in the case of an Austrian Attack:

The next major variation here is called the Two Knights System, a solid option for white that lets them develop easily, with the natural move nf3:

There's not really much to study here, but be careful because white can still develop the bishops in a way that could be dangerous for your king if you don't play well:

For the Two Knights System, just keep an eye on the white bishops. If you really don't like the white knight being on f3, the bg4 pin is totally viable and you should feel free to trade off the bishop for the f3 knight:

This position is completely playable, so just castle and continue to play naturally.

However, white could have a plan with this. This variation actually can focus on pressuring black's queenside and restricting possibilities, specifically with a4. You probably shouldn't respond with a5, since you'd weaken your b6 square.

The Kingside Attack

With the Pirc/King's Indian Defense comes the power of the kingside pawn advances:

Many beginner players often have no plan when entering a closed middlegame, but the Pirc defense gives you a powerful attack to work on during the middlegame.

Often times, planting your knights on the F file behind your advancing pawns is powerful for a couple of reasons:

• This can open up the scope of the fianchetto'd bishop while the knights are re-routed.
• This places power and pressure into the main squares that your pawns are advancing to, which is very stressful for your opponent to deal with
• Your queenside knight wasn't doing anything interesting on c6.

Your plan should be to use this army of pieces to force your pawn wall forward and open the white king to the attack of your rook(s) and queen. Make sure your pawn breaks are productive and well-timed, since you've got time to set up your attack.

The queenside c8 bishop is a key component in pressuring the diagonal it already sees, so in most situations it's reasonable to keep it where it is. You should not trade off this bishop in most situations.

You should only trade this off if your opponent plays in a way that makes a kingside attack impractical (Opposite side castling, early queen attacks, highly aggressive attacks, etc.).

(KINGSIDE ATTACK GUIDE WORK IN PROGRESS)

In essence, in any variation of this, you should have the following ideas in mind:

• Playing c3 is usually pretty solid, since it prevents white from being a problem on d5 and lets you push your d pawn to d5. If white plays d5 before you play this, you should still probably play this anyway.
• If you want to play aggressively or just like making counterattacks, e5 is almost always a good choice. It challenges center and can easily be supported by playing nfd7. In addition, this can lead to a fun trap: 

• The kingside bishop isn't particularly useful early game, but later it can put pressure on the white center and/or the b2/a1 squares.

• If they don't castle, or they opposite side castle, make breaking center the first priority. Doing so will expose their king while leaving your defenses basically untouched:

• Generally, don't play e5 unless you plan on breaking center, or your fianchettoed bishop is basically useless, so MAKE SURE PAWN BREAKS ARE WELL-TIMED

• THIS OPENING CAN BE PLAYED AGAINST ENGLISH AND QUEEN PAWN OPENINGS AS WELL. Just get the king castled as modeled, and play d6 if e5 is ever played.

(Still a work in progress, so expect more to be added later) - Version 2