King’s Indian Attack Chess Opening with FIDE CM Kingscrusher
Learn the King’s Indian Attack, a powerful and flexible opening system in chess. Avoid extensive opening theory and focus on understanding key ideas and themes. Used by renowned players like Bobby Fischer and Magnus Carlsen, this system allows for aggressive play and strategic control. Perfect for beginner to intermediate players seeking a reliable and attacking opening repertoire.
What you’ll learn
- Ability to see why renowned chess coach Mark Dvoretsky regarded the King’s Indian attack as a perfect weapon to which to base an opening repertoire
- Ability to see the power of a thematic “system” that can be used against a wide range of defences
- Ability to play an opening system which has very low memorising requirements and more emphasis on understanding ideas
- Ability to follow in the footsteps of Bobby Fischer who had many beautiful wins with the King’s Indian Attack
- Ability with 1. e4 to have something against the whole of the French defence which can be a really annoying solid opening to play against 🙂
- Ability with 1. e4 to have something against early e6 in Sicilian defence avoiding theory of the Taimanov, Kan (Paulsen), 4 knights, and Pin variations
- Ability with 1. e4 to have a pet weapon vs the Caro-Kann defence
- Ability with 1. Nf3 having own pet territory and plans against anything black does
- Ability to impose a “Keep it simple” philosophy when playing against 3 major replies to 1.e4 – the Sicilian Defence, French defence and Caro-Kann
- Ability to be more assured and self-confident chess opening with stronger justification because of avoiding opponent’s opening theory like Gruenfeld or French
- Ability to become a grandmaster without much opening theory and potentially retire to the Bahamas like David Norwood 🙂
- Ability to become a fully qualified doctor on the side of becoming a chess grandmaster like Bassem Amin 🙂
- Ability not to be checkmated with the idea of having to memorise tonnes of opening theory – the King’s Indian attack requires minimal memorisation
- Ability to see why Leonid Stein who Fischer described as “When champions meet” in his 60 memorable games book chose actually 2.d3 as primary choice vs Caro-kann
- Ability to have an opening system where even games over 20 years ago are still relevant and can cherry pick inspirational and instructive examples
- Ability to translate quite a few King’s Indian defence ideas (or leverage Kingscrusher’s ideas ) into positions with extra tempo with White
- Ability to spend more time on tactics and endings as opposed to having to memorise tonnes of opening theory because this system is often about ideas and themes
- Ability to make use of themes which can be played against a variety of defences, and therefore providing less need to memorise specific moves
- Ability to have an opening system that fights for central control, active development, early castling and aggressive pawn structure often having e5 pawn wedge
- Ability to have a opening system which will not distract you too much from building up your “value chain” of dependencies – Strategy, Tactics, Endgame, etc
- Ability to use an opening that the current World chess champion Magnus Carlsen also uses sometimes with the White pieces against Super Grandmasters
- Ability to avoid getting into serious theoretical trouble and technical debates in the opening phase by playing a reliable solid system instead
- Ability to have something against 1…e5 which is King’s Indian like and used by GM Glek with good success
- Ability in the view of GM Raymond Keene to have an opening which is safe, yet aggressive and does not require a superb memory and months of intensive learning
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This opening is very popular at club levels because it is relatively easy to learn and minimise the need to learn lots of opening theory. Conceptually the opening has a high level of “independence” in that you can often play the setup independent of what the opponent does. However, there are particular move orders to consider if you don’t want in particular the opponent’s c8 bishop to be outside of the pawn chain. This course shows the different ways you can play the King’s Indian attack depending on your preferences.
In terms of major “exponents”, there are several World chess champion exponents of this opening “system”. And it is a system because usually the center pawns are developed on e4 and d3, the Knights are on d2 and f3, and the King’s bishop fianchettos at g2. This system creates a wide range of different plans. It is not always played in a particular sequence. You can use it for example to enrich your 1. e4 opening repertoire against certain defensive variations.
The legendary Bobby Fischer had a number of fantastic wins with the King’s Indian attack. Among British Grandmasters, David Norwood regularly played either 1. g3 or 1. Nf3 and had King’s Indian attack systems with huge success. The top Grandmaster exponents nowadays include Bassem Amin who is even a fully qualified doctor outside of chess, Tomasz Markowski, and Sergei Movsesian. Very high profile streamers such as Hikaru Nakamura also make use of systems openings such as the King’s Indian attack as well as Nimzo-Larsen attack and others as a way of avoiding tricky opening preparation and making the opening phase a bit easier to play in general.
Bobby Fischer in his early years around 1956 played the King’s Indian attack directly with 1. Nf3 followed by 2. g3. Usually in later years after 1956 played it within his 1. e4 repertoire e.g. 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d3. It was with his enrichment of 1.e4 that some of the most beautiful King’s Indian attack games occurred and some of the most collected games on online sites are from the King’s Indian attack opening. Also, Tigran Petrosian had some masterpiece games with the King’s Indian attack system.
In theory, with the move 1. Nf3 the opening is a mirror image of the King’s Indian defense, and so you would think the plans are similar. But because White has an extra tempo, and black is not at all obliged to set up a broad pawn center, it makes things in practice quite different from a normal King’s Indian Defence.
The opening can help supplement any knowledge of systems like the Reti Opening, Catalan Opening, English Opening, and Nimzo-Larsen attack which means more transpositional destinations which you are potentially more familiar with than opponents, so have an informational advantage.
The “Barcza system” (pronounced “Bartsa”) named after Gideon Barcza is when White plays 1. Nf3 to start off with which means that you get to play the King’s Indian attack in more cases, but do allow setups by black where the c8 bishop can be outside of the black pawn chain. Although this has maximum “independence” for whatever black does, black can set up with a pawn structure on c6 and d5 to try and limit the g2 bishop which can feel like playing White against the dreaded London system 🙂
If you play 1.e4 to start off with then the only slight downside is that you are not guaranteed the classic Kings Indian Attack setup because black has options such as 1…d5 which make the King’s Indian setup less appropriate and effective. However, if you know some lines against the Scandinavian, then the “anti-systems” against 1….e5 1…e6 1…c6 and 1…c5 are really great to know about to set up a position that is fairly reliable and not going into the opponent’s theoretical preparations as much as they might have hoped for. Instead, you are in “your territory” – home advantage 🙂
So there are tradeoffs between playing either 1. Nf3 or 1. e4 first to consider. Kingscrusher’s preference especially with the inclusion of the Glek system against 1…e5, is to use the King’s Indian attack to enrich a 1.e4 repertoire and have maximum fun in general and good results 🙂
Who this course is for:
- Beginner to intermediate chess players who don’t want to have to memorise lots of opening theory but still have fun positions to play from in the opening with some attacking prospects
- Players who want to have a reliable opening system they can use largely independent of what the opponent does
- Players who enjoy attacking chess and attacking pawn formations such as an e5 wedge pawn chain
- Players who want the reassurance of an opening system with pedigree that former world chess champions such as Bobby Fischer, Tigran Petrosian and Mikhail Botvinnik have used as well as the current World chess champion Magnus Carlsen
- Players who want time to improve their other skills and areas within chess such as being strong at the middlegame and endgame and want to only give a certain percentage of time to studying opening theory at least until other aspects of their game improve
- Players who want to have a life outside of chess study but still be very competitive when they play either online or Over the board without too much worry of going into the opponent’s detailed opening preparations and territories
