The Complete King's Indian (Batsford Chess Library)

The King's Indian Defense is a hypermodern opening, where Black deliberately allows White control of the centre with his pawns, with the view to subsequently challenging it with the moves ...e5 or ...c5. Until the mid-1930s, it was generally regarded as highly suspect, but the analysis and play of three strong Ukrainian players in particular-Alexander Konstantinopolsky, Isaac Boleslavsky, and David Bronstein-helped to make the defence much more respected and popular. It is a dynamic opening, exceptionally complex, and a favourite of former world champions Garry Kasparov, Bobby Fischer, and Mikhail Tal, with prominent grandmasters Viktor Korchnoi, Miguel Najdorf, Efim Geller, John Nunn, Svetozar Gligorić, Wolfgang Uhlmann, Ilya Smirin, and Teimour Radjabov having also contributed much to the theory and practice of this opening. The King's Indian Attack is a mirror image of the setup adopted by Black in the King's Indian Defense. Yet, because of White's extra tempo, the nature of the subsequent play is often different from that of a typical King's Indian Defence. By its nature, the KIA is a closed, strategic opening that presents its practitioner with common themes and tactics and a comfortable middlegame against various defences. White's most common plan involves a central pawn push, e4-e5, leading to a central bind, kingside space, and concrete attacking chances on a kingside-castled black king. Black's resources-more queenside space for example-are not to be underestimated. In fact, this asymmetry often leads to violent middlegames and neatly constructed mating nets involving sacrifices.