Main plans, ideas and common variations of the aggressive King’s Indian Defense.
The queen’s pawn opening can be defended against in numerous ways. You can choose a positional, slow approach, you can choose a passive defense, or you can choose the King’s Indian! The King’s Indian Defense is the most aggressive way to fight 1.d4. When you see it on the board, you know that the one who plays it wants to win! It’s not an opening you choose if you are looking for a quick, peaceful draw.
It became popular during the era of Bobby Fischer. He didn’t consider a draw with black to be a good result no matter who he played. He wanted to win at all costs. Today most strong grandmasters go for a win with the white pieces, and with black they think a draw is fine, which is why you don’t see the KID that often in 2800 games.
The King’s Indian is a hyper modern opening which neglects classical chess principles. Black doesn’t fight for central control with d5, as he does in classical defenses to d4. Instead, he fianchettoes his bishop at g7, going for quick castling and a rapid counter strike!
As in all other modern defenses, black allows white to take up central space, he allows white to expand and seemingly gain control of the board. The reality is very different though (and that not even the modern engines fully comprehend). Black allows that only in order to strike at white’s newly gained space and weakened, over-extended pawns! While white is marching forward, he is neglecting his development. By the time black has castled, white is still far away from accomplishing the same.
That means that if black does manage to strike in the center at the correct moment, breaking white’s bind on the center, in theory he should be better!
The opening theory of the King’s Indian Defense is vast. To study it properly, you simply have to know all the variations (at least the ones which white can choose to enter). That is why the series on the KID is going to be comprised of detailed videos on each important variation for black and for white.
This series should only be a starting point if you want to start playing the opening successfully. There are several amazing books which could help you tremendously (Understanding the King’s Indian (Golubev), The Classical King’s Indian (Nunn), Mastering the King’s Indian Defense (Bellin, Ponzetto), Starting Out – The King’s Indian (Gallagher), and many others). You should also focus on analyzing games by the great KID players of the 20th century – Fischer and Kasparov (older ones such as Bronstein should not be neglected either), or modern games of players such as Ding Liren or Nakamura.
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