Playing against the Queen's Indian as White

And the hairy Greek master guy... said the Blumenfeld thing was good.>>

He's a very good example of someone who is a brilliant player who gets away with playing rubbish because he's good.

Players like Korchnoi and Andersson have championed the Bogo. And the OP's question was how to play against the Queen's Indian as White.

Who is the hairy Greek master guy?

The case in point was actually the Blumenfeld. I think the Queen's Indian has been sufficiently looked at. No more to be said on that subject since 4. g3 is better than 4. a3, which is a dead draw and 4. Nc3 is also promising but is a reversion to the Nimzo, although someone said it's a genuine hybrid but that is illogical since 3. Nc3 ...Bb4 4. Nf3 is a Nimzo.

Not even. Black can still unbalance the position and play for a win in the Exchange Slav.

To answer the OP, I think nothing is really risky against the QID, and probably the most serious variation is 4.a3.

4.Nc3 will lead to some kind of Nimzo/QID hybrid which seems acceptable for black.

4. g3 is extremely solid but probably harder to win with. 

Interestingly, I didn't see that many mention 4.e3. I think those Bd3/Nbd2 lines are both sound and black's less likely to be booked up.

Sincerely,

--2.Bf41-0

What is drawish at master level... can be exciting at club level.

The underrated Bogo: having the light-squared Bishop Black often adapts a dark-square strategy. I am an expert in that c5 system and I had quite some success against decent opposition. 

Some sample lines, long tournament games (5-6 hours):

Win against FM:

Nice win in summer 2019 against say 2100 ("I know what you did last summer")

And Bogo has quite good results. Much underrated. 

I prefer the Bogo to the Queen's Indian as Black. My question was what to do against the Queen's Indian as white

Also, a question about the 4. e3 system against the QID. Is it like the Rubinstein Nimzo where white will go Bd3, Qc2, etc. to try to get e4 in? Also, wouldn't this be harder than in the regular Rubinstein, because you also have to combat the Bb7 which is controlling e4?

I hope you weren't talking to me. It's my opinion and I'm probably more intelligent than you are so live with it. If you weren't talking to me then I apologise, of course.

By playing the QID, Black is accepting that White can steer the game towards a draw with 4. g3. However, if white wants to play aggressively with 4. a3, Black can also play dynamically with ...Ba6 and ...c5

But there are some lines that are unquestionable draws.

Silly talk. Maybe at master level is draw. But still winning chance for either side.

Maybe I'm not as accurate a player as I was but I certainly found out the hard way that 4. a3 is rubbish in the Queen's Indian against a good player who is booked up.

I think we're seeing the fundamental error that assumes that no-one can play accurately for a whole game unless their grade (rating) is at least 2311 +/- 62.3. I also think that the advent of computers has caused this error of judgement and made people worse players into the bargain when they try too hard to find the perfect move each time. Such players are often a pushover.

Obviously Kasparov was wrong to play a3 then... @Optimissed is a better player.

Approximately, of course.

In my imagination, which tends towards perfection as obscurity values tend towards their limits, ordinary, strong club strength players like us are capable of beating GMs. Maybe once in 100 or 300 but it will happen because, by the law of averages, we can play a game without any significant errors, because we know the basic principles. This is true and it isn't understood by many.

Another observation concerning online interactions is that the more individuals revert to anger over having their opinions apparently contradicted online, the greater is the probability that they have misunderstood at least part of what was said to them or missed a subtlety that would mitigate the argument in favour of the person who is misunderstood. Anger does not correlate with accurate thinking, for any intelligence level. The best thing that can be said for anger is that the angry person actually uses it to wake themselves up. But that doesn't exactly mean that they tend to be right, especially when they erupt into some kind of angry retort at the first sign of being disagreed with. It does mean that they are likely to be wrong.