Proposal: Azaladze Gambit

We all know the Benoni, and we all know the King's Indian, what happens if we put them together?

The Azaladze Gambit.

The idea is to sacrifice black's c-pawn and attack the newly-created c5 pawn, preventing b4 by a5, then going on the attack using black's active pieces. Black has a strong chance of winning back the pawn, thus the opening is about as much a gambit as the Queen's Gambit is. This opening can transpose into several different openings such as the Benoni, King's Indian, English, and Sicilian, and white has many viable responses to c5, so the opening may require a fair amount of preparation.

Typical development in successful positions for black usually involve:

• A pawn on d6 to control c5 and e5.
• A pawn on a5 to control b4.
• A fianchettoed bishop on g7.
• A knight on c5.
• Kingside castling by black.

The opening is named for IM Shota Azaladze, who employed the opening seven times without a loss. Here is his most notable win using a dangerous kingside pawn storm:

Thoughts and theories on this opening are greatly appreciated. What do you think?

Seems like just a transpositional tool. In that sense, there's nothing really wrong with it.

King's Indian and Benoni are already related. King's Indian players will often transpose into the Benoni, side-stepping a lot of the dangerous Benoni main lines.

The game you showed is a direct transposition into the Accelerated Dragon - Maroczy Bind main line.

Really? I didn't know that. Honestly, most of my plays against the KID had this line:

For no other reason than "I don't know any other lines".

It's really not, it's essentially the Reti of the King's Indian Defense, you might get into a unique opening, mostly you just transpose.

Yes, when you think about it

• King's Indian: g6, d6
• Benoni: g6, d6, c5

You can see the similarities between the 2 positions. In the Classical King's Indian main line, black normally plays for e5 instead of c5. Against a lot of the major sidelines, e5 isn't as good so black plays c5 and transposes into the Benoni instead.

The reason for this is that the Benoni is actually pretty good. However, against the normal Benoni move order, white has some much more challenging variations which has caused it to fall out of favour. These would be the Taimanov and the Mikenas Attack.

Black is fine against the Mikenas Attack if they know what they're doing but an inexperienced player will crumble very quickly. The Taimanov is far more serious.

In the King's Indian, black can transpose into more favourable variations of the Benoni without these complications from the king being in the centre of the board.

The main line of the Four Pawns Attack King's Indian transposes directly into the main line Four Pawns Attack Benoni.

On move 10, the positions are the exact same but reached via different move orders.

In the Sämisch King's Indian, black also normally plays c5. This doesn't transpose into a common line of the Benoni exactly, but it's still a Benoni structure with the same Benoni ideas.

Also, as white I would advise against playing this move 7. dxe5, the Exchange variation. This is very passive as white is giving up some of the space advantage and also encouraging an early queen trade, which can be a bit boring. It's like the Exchange French.

Better is 0-0 and to later push d5. The Bayonet Attack, for example, is much more active, aggressive and better to capitalise on white's space advantage. The Classical is also good.

These seem like great ideas in the King's Indian, but is the pawn on e6 defendable? e6 can't be protected by another pawn and black still has two knights that can blockade or attack e6.

It looks very isolated but there's actually no way of easily attacking it.

If you look at the position

• Neither of the knights can make any single move that attacks the pawn.
• It's behind black's pawn chain so can't be challenged by another pawn.
• The only move that black can make to attack it is Qc8 but that's really not a move that black wants to make in the KID and it can fail to some tactics.

Let's see what happens if black tries to round up the pawn immediately.

Even if black does win the e6 pawn, they've spent precious time to do so while white can continue attacking.

Couldn't black draw the game with:

First of all, who is going to find all these moves OTB with no engine?

Second of all, there are so many deviations in that line that weren't taken into account. 16. Bxe4, 18. bxc6, 23. Be3 and loads of others. It's still very complicated. Opponent would have to calculate every single variant.

I don't know if black could play perfectly from that position and draw the game. Probably stockfish can. At the end of the line you showed, however, white is still better and has a nice handful of wins from that position, more than black. This line with Qc8 isn't so good for black.

It isn't a guaranteed win but there are plenty of chances for white to attack and play for the win. No sound line can give you guaranteed victory but it can give you some advantages and chances to outplay your opponent.

This line is much better than the Exchange which is actually very dry, equal and drawish.

16. Bxe4 is pretty much the same line. Same trade, same d5 pawn push.

18. Bxc6 is not hard to refute, dxe4 cxb7 Rb8 and the pawn is not that dangerous.

I'm not sure about the idea behind 23. Bc5 and 24. Be3.

Could you show the ideas you mentioned after the end of the line?

P.S., in response to your statement about the exchange variation, I'm not even gonna try and argue on that front, I already agree.

The Bayonet Attack is a main line and one of the most challenging variations against the King's Indian to date, including at master level.

It's really a moot point to give a 20-30+ move long engine line and say "well look it's about equal at the end". Like yep, if you follow all the top engine moves for both sides in basically any opening all the way to the endgame then it's probably going to be about equal. That's chess for you.

A human player trying to figure out OTB all the complications of every single one of these deviations is a completely different story.

It's still feasible, all the moves make perfect sense if you're trying to force a draw.

From the perspective of black, anyway.

It's easy to say that with the engine when you're not trying to calculate all this stuff on your own. Like 15. b5 fxe4 and 19. Ba3 dxe4, most people wouldn't find that without knowing it beforehand. All these moves have to be carefully considered and calculated. Why not Nxe4, f4, c5 or Rc8 instead of fxe4? Without an engine, someone is going to have to consider all the possible advantages and drawbacks of each of these moves.

The point I was trying to make wasn't that the Bayonet Attack is a forced win for white. I play KID as black. The point is that this gives white some good attacking chances. It's not a forced draw either, from the human perspective. When you asked about the e6 pawn being potentially weak, I answered and showed that it's not easy to attack.

Then you give some engine line saying "but look what Stockfish says all the way up to move 21, easy draw".

Like damn, well none of us can argue with the overlord Stockfish.

First off, thanks for correcting to Nxe4, I got confused (same line and ideas by the way, trade the f pawn and knight, push d5 pawn, etc.)

As for f4, this removes the possibility of trading down so that black has a better chance of getting a draw. White can play Ba3 to attack d6 and connect the back rank.

c5 puts a dangerous hole on d5 to attack an already-penetrated black's side of the board, not to mention losing material to exf5.

Side note: Rxe4 to finish the trades on e4 allows d5 to create a passed pawn for black, one that's traded off by recapturing with a minor piece and playing Ba3.

Unassisted analysis this time, could very well be wrong.

Ok well play the black side of the Bayonet Attack and see if you can make an easy draw against a strong player OTB.

Bet