Two KIA over-the-board games
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Nov 11, 2011
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#3
In the first game, I think it was a mistake to allow Black to take your bishop on move 12- you usually want to hold on to that piece for a while. Also, in general the KI attack works better with e6 d5 c5 pawn structures, not so well with the d6 c5 type. Silman covers the kia a little bit in a recent article on this site, also the closed sicilian. Truthfully, I don't think that the k side attacks out of this setup really work if black is fianchettoed himself. You probably want to switch stategies and play for c3 d4 instead, as Larry Evans indicates in a book he wrote on this opening- an old book but the only one I have. In the 2nd game Black plays a super solid sort of semi slav or Caro Kann type line and you missed a chance on move 8 or so to push your pawn to e5 and "overprotect " it with Qe2 , Bf4 , h4 etc. which is the beginning of a k side attack. You have to get that knight off of f6 to start with, and then usually advance you h pawn. You waited too long and black traded off your e pawn, and you made it even worse by recapturing with your knight. It's not an attack with pieces its a slow motion space gaining attack with pawns first, kind of like a boa constricter. Anyway, if you had recaptured with the pawn you could have moved N b3 or c3 and b4 to push the c5 bishop back. and allow you to move your king's rook. You can only do so much with the kia attack it is actually a black defense reversed and because of that has limited potential in some situations.
Were the two KIA from assault with a chessboard?
milestogo2 is right that you shouldn't give up your bishop so easily. Not only does it give up the bishop pair for no compensation, but it also makes the white squares around your king very weak. So maybe a better plan in the first game was to play 11. Be3, planning 12. d4, breaking out in the centre. After Nd2 Ne4 you have no option but to allow the capture of your precious light bishop.
I'm also not sure the Kg2 plan was sound for the same reason - the a8-h1 diagonal is very weak for you, and so putting your king on it is perhaps not the best idea. By this point I think it's best to give up on ideas of immediate attacks, and just try to improve your position. It looks to me like black is better by quite a way now - he has two strong diagonals, a strong knight and more space.
In both these games, I play the King's Indian Attack against my opponent. I have played it for a while as an anti-french/anti-sicilian system, but I used to play a strategy in which I attacked a closed center through trying to get a knight outpost on c4, with mixed results. After researching it a little bit more I found out that one is often supposed to attack on the kingside when playing the king's indian attack, while black attacks on the queenside. Even though I won the second game, in both games my new strategy of attacking the kingside failed. If anyone could provide me with advice as to how I should attack on the kingside when I play the king's indian attack as well as general help on analyzing this game and providing helpful tips, I would very much appreciate it. Thank you.
The time limits were 60 minutes on both clocks.