Openings Crash Course: Introduction to the KID
The first response to 1. d4 that I learned was the Semi-Slav Defense, building a solid wall of pawns on the light squares. Soon after that I realized that it just wasn't the opening for me. I don't like passive openings. The Semi-Slav is a great opening, very solid and sound, but it didn't fit my preferred way of playing. The one thing that always bothered me about it was the light-squared bishop. It would always be tucked in on c8 for who knows how long, doing nothing, and unable to do anything until something big happened. The funny thing is, I was also a French player (against 1. e4). Still do play it sometimes. The reason I slowly shifted away from the French to the Sicilian was the same as why I neglected the Semi-Slav. I always want all of my pieces to be actively placed and have tactical chances. So I began looking around for a reply to 1. d4 that would suit me. And hence, I fell in love with the King's Indian Defense.
However, I must say that there is a reason that it is not played much anymore at the top level. That is because black must play every single move very accurately to avoid being completely lost. Of course, that is assuming that white plays some of the best moves too. It is harder for the black side of the KID to keep up with all of the theoretical evidence, therefore the lack of popularity at the highest level.
But this is one reason to be happy that we are not superGMs! At my level, it is perfectly playable and is a strong weapon to counter Queen's Pawn openings, and similar setups can be used for multiple variations, making it an easy opening to learn. If you are below, let's say 2400, you should be absolutely fine playing this opening. I can assume that a very high percentage of the readers of my blog are well below 2400, just as I am.
This series will be solely about the KID, and when I am satisfied that I have posted all that I want to, I may switch to another opening that I am fond of. No hints yet. I assure you, after reading the whole series you will have gained a lot of knowledge about this opening and will be well equipped to start using it in your own games.
There are a lot of variations of the KID. I will be focusing on the main lines and most popular choices, but will also have one or two posts about sidelines which may confuse you or throw you off, so that you will be completely prepared to fight. First of all, we have to start from the very beginning. Some of you may not be familiar with the opening moves of the KID, so we will start with that.
- The Orthodox System, leading to the Classical
- The Saemisch (or spelled with an umlaut a) Variation
- The Standard Development, which will usually transpose to the Orthodox and Classical
- The Four Pawns Attack
- Some uncommonly played variations, like the Makogonov or Kramer Variations
Delayed e4 variations (in these white can choose whether or not to play e4 later on if black allows it):
- 3. g3 Variation (different move orders can reach the Fianchetto Variation)
- Tarkatower Attack (can also transpose to the Fianchetto Variation)
- Fianchetto Variation
- Smyslov Variation
- Early h4 pushes
This series will not teach you how to play against certain replies to 1...Nf6 such as the Trompowsky Attack or Stonewall setups. I will be focusing on variations where white either plays e4 immediately, delays it, fianchettoes the light-squared bishop, and a few sidelines.
If you look at the Opening Explorer statistics after 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7, you can see that in the top few variations, white has decently better winning percentages, but the database's games are master games, at a higher level. And if you scroll down and look at the less played variations, you can see that black dominates the winning percentages:
After each variation is inspected I will provide a few model games, highlighting the themes and annotating. This is going to be fun for all of us!
Thanks for reading! I look forward to writing the next posts in this series!
